Alkaline!
Ok, so we got in the venue and got the front row, of course then talked to the girl next to us because she was a hilarious bitch. She just made fun of everyone and told us about how she told a little kid at the grocery store to stfu haha. She was hilarious and asm and then she was all "I know I'm a bitch." So we talked to her and then the Albino Spiders came on. Not great, not terrible. They looked like an Avenged Sevenfold ripoff and the lead singer had a receding hairline and his hair was dyed black and he was wearing eyeliner and it just looked weird. While the guitarists were tuning, the lead singer was all "I'm still in tune, I'm asm, etc." The lead singer was almost making out with his mic, so that was kinda weird. And then he licked his bass at the end. For the last song, the lead singer and guitarist were doing everything in sync and that looked pretty sweet. They were all like "we grew up on Alkaline, so it's crazy that we get to play with them...Dreams do come true!" Good stuff.
Onto Alkaline. Sooo much better than Des Moines. They really seemed like they wanted to be there and were having an asm time. Matt and Dan were smiling at each other and being adorable the whole time. Matt was like "I said this last night, but I mean it more tonight. We're on tour with the Offspring right now, but they got nothing on you guys. Sorry Offspring!" and it was asm because little venues are the best. Dan was throwing out picks like crazy and one of their roadies was throwing out a ton of Matt's picks and Matt went over and fake kicked him. I was singing and Derek looked over at me and pointed at me a few times. I don't remember exactly what happened, but Dan and Matt were being all best friend-y and they hugged each other and everyone was all awwwww. Matt was talking about how they used to play there all the time when it was Gabe's and he had a fake ID that said he was 27 when he was like seventeen and that was the only place that believed hid ID. Their set wasn't too different from last time, but there was no Stupid Kid =[. They did play three new songs, though, so that was pretty sweet. They did Every Thug Needs A Lady and Radio as their encore.
We went out to the buses afterward and Dan came out after ten minutes or so. He was so ridiculously nice. He signed Kelsey's CD and put her name and signed anything. We were taking pictures and he was all "If that didn't turn out, we can take another one." or "I think I was talking, let's take another one." and he was just ridiculously nice. Then this girl got a towel and wanted him to sign it and he was saying towels are hard to sign and the girl asked if he'd signed one before and he was like "Yeah, it doesn't work." So he took a sharpie and wrote his name like a three year old in huge capital letters to make sure it was legible and you could see it haha. We talked to Dan for a little bit then Derek came out and we got stuff from him and Ana asked him to sign her stick and he was like "It already has my signature." and Ana's was all "it's not a real one" so he signed it again haha. Then I had him sign Kelsey's CD and he asked where she was and said to tell her he was sad she couldn't make it and it was really sweet. Then we just chilled at little bit and then Matt came out and this guy was talking to him and like "Thanks for finally coming to Iowa City." and Matt goes "we used to play here all the time when it was Gabe's." "When? I think you're full of shit!" "Like seven years ago. You're full of it. I'm old, so you probably didn't know about it" and he said he almost went to Iowa. There was a group of girls that wanted pictures or something and a group of guys and Matt said ladies first and the group of guys was all "chivalry's dead" and Matt was like "No, it's not dead yet! I was at the post office and I held the door for a little old lady and she said 'I thought chivalry was dead' and I said 'it's not dead yet.'" And his impression of the old lady was hilarious. Then I was trying to take Shahn's picture with him but the camera was being slow and I was like "you can sign some stuff while I deal with this" and he was all "we're already here, it's okay" and it was just like you guys are so ridiculously nice. So we were out a little longer and then we headed home and it was quite amz.
http://s4.photobucket.com/albums/y140/gcfan4ever99/alkaline%20ia%20city/