Cleveland ROCKS!!!
Concert review ahoy!!! (Super long...like whoa)
Most of this has been copied from Rosie because I have a bad memory and she doesn't. I added my stuff in there too (in italics) ^___^
*Just to let you know, I have pics at the bottom and pics in little links too.. so yeah.
Alright, I left my house at about midnight on Friday night and drove to Nikki's work. We left her work and ate and hung out for a while (we also saw the GIRLS GONE WILD bus in downtown Indy) and went to a WalMart to look for jewelry making goodies. I found some neat rainbow hemp and decided to make some junk, cause I hadn't in a while... and then I decided to make Matt a bracelet while I was in line :D We got to Cinncinati at around 5am. We jumped into Jamie's car from there and headed to Cleveland. A mere 4 hours away...
We got to the venue before 10 a.m. Do I have to say we were the first ones there? LOL! We beat the bus, but not by much. It showed up just a few minutes after us, and proceeded to park directly behind my (Jamie's) car ... which is now sporting a big beautiful 30STM sticker in the window, thanks to Erin (me). HAHA! The bus eventually moved to the other side of the street, so we felt safe in getting out of the car and getting ourselves situated. Which we were doing, when a taxi pulled up and it was Kim! SHE IS WICKED AWESOME!
Then off the bus comes Matt, and he walked right over to us. "Aren't you girls a little early?" he said. (Actually, I think he said "You aren't supposed to get here before us!") Awww, Matt! So sweet to come talk to us at 10 in the morning. We chatted with him for a while, and he told us some great stories (fuck bees! and people who throw quarters AND have guns on their person!) Ok, I have to go all fangirly here- Matt came off the bus and started to talk to us and at one point I pulled out the bracelet I had started for him (I didn't want to make it too big or too small before cutting it up) and I was like "Matt, can I see your wrist for a second?" and he kinda looked at me and put out his arm and I put it around and it was the perfect size already! And I was all "YES IT'S PERFECT!!" and he was all "Aw... now you ruined the surprise!" and I was like "It's ok, I'll just give it to you now." So I knotted it and stuff and put it on him and he was like "Awe thanks" and gave me a big hug :DDD And he was like "wow this is cool. how long did it take you to make?" and I was all "About 5 minutes..." and he was very amazed and impressed. lol. OH! And he saw my BDS shirt and was like "NICE SHIRT!!" and I of course took that opportunity to show him my tattoo. I took my off my wristband and was like "Hey check this out!" and he saw it and was like "NO SHIT! That's awesome! Do you have the other one on your other wrist?" and I said no, my friend did. And he was all "you shouldn't cover that up its so cool!" and i was like "but...wristband!" but he did convince me to move my wristband and show off my tattoo once again :) Amazing how Matt has that power over me. Tara and Annie showed up while Matt was there, which was great. After a while he went to nap and we all started the line for the show. I can't even remember what all we did to pass the time, other than talk and work on shirts and write on brick walls and take pictures, but the time went by fast. Before I knew it other people were showing up, and by about 2 p.m. there were quite a few people in line. Many Echelon reunions going on, all day. It was great fun.
At some point Matt came out again to talk to people, as did Tomo. They were out there for a good amount of time, chatting and taking photos and just being great, as usual. Matt was being kinda smarmy. I (Jamie) eventually asked "Matt, can we get a photo taken?" and he just looked at me (Jamie) and shook his head and said "No." I gave him a WTF? face, then he started laughing and said "I'm kidding! I'm kidding! Of course we can, come here." So I went to stand by him and I kind of hit him on the back, jokingly, for being mean. Then he looked at me and said "I burped when you hit me on the back ... just like a baby." LMAO! Tomo was rocking his rock star sunglasses and being all nice and sweet. I think they were glad to see so many Echelon in line. (hilarious!)
Shannon showed up in a taxi (came from the airport) and after a stop on the bus he came out with his camera to take pictures of everyone's gear. I haven't seen him do this before a show before, but it makes sense to me. Luckily we managed to gather all the E-C-H-E-L-O-N shirts together AND spell the word correctly for a photo. Shannon and Matt both really liked what we did. Then Shannon took photos of the backs of our shirts individually. He stuck around for a while to chat and have photos taken. His girlfriend and her family were there, so it was nice that he still took time out of his day to hang out before the show.
Jared didn't get there until pretty late, maybe around 5? He also had just flown in. When he walked into the venue a System of a Down song was playing and he looked at us as he was walking in and was mouthing the lyrics in a very exaggerated manner. Hilarious.
There were crazy antics in line (Kim, you rock my socks) and many trips to Buffalo Wings & Rings next door, and at least 34326711589 photos were taken. We were in line for 9 hours and it was an absolute blast. So much fun just hanging out with everyone.
Finally doors opened and we secured a great spot in the very front. I was almost in the middle, a little toward Matt's side of the stage.(I was on Matt's side... right in front of him actually :D) The opening band, Halestorm, was surprisingly pretty good. I'm always impatient when I have to sit through an opener(s) before a 30 show, but they were entertaining and fun. Loved the drum solo stuff they did.
Finally it was time for that oh-so-beautiful-and-chill-inducing siren.
The show itself ... left me speechless. I was floored. The energy was just amazing. You could really tell that all of the guys were so happy to see so many Echelon there. They were totally kicking ass! Afterwards they all said they were having some problems with something or other, and Shannon and Jared both said they were tired, but I didn't notice any of it because the show rocked anyway. (Other than Jared's problems, which held up things a bit.) The crowd was FANTASTIC. Everyone was singing every song lyric, and when they played Attack and Jared just let the crowd sing it at the end, it was just perfect. He even pulled Andre (their camera guy/friend) up on stage to get video of us singing it. I don't know how I have a voice today after all that screaming. The Kill was beyond words. You could feel a tangible connection between the band and the crowd on that song. Battle was fucking outstanding. Tomo was going crazy, Matt was jamming, Jared was all over the place, Shannon was flailing ... I loved every single second of it. During Buddha, Jared ran out into the crowd and climbed up to the balcony in the back. He stood there singing for a while and then it took FOREVER for him to get the crowd positioned so they could catch him when he jumped. And of course he jumped, and they caught him, and he crowd surfed his way back to the stage. Then he said "By the way, whoever ripped my dick off ... I'd like it back after the show please." LMAO!!!
My favorite part during the Jared-jumping incident was watching the rest of the guys on stage engage in their nightly spitting contest. They got skillz man! LOL! Tomo got nailed by Shannon. Matt and Tomo were going back and forth, and Tomo was sticking out his tongue like he was going to catch Matt's spit. Gross, but too hilarious.
Speaking of spit, Jared spit into the crowd and it landed on my hand and Kim's cheek. Ewww. Cooties! At least he didn't pour water directly down my head this time. Thankfully, I got no spit, but I didn't finally get some water! And I almost caught a guitar pic for Ash... SO CLOSE. After the show at the crazy as hell merch booth I got to Matt and was like "You never look up! I was right in front of you!" and he was like "I didn't spit on you did I?!" lol How kind of him to care, lol.
All the guys said after the show that the crowd was great, they were really feeding off it, and that was so good to hear. Jared mentioned the Echelon during the show, and said what a good crowd it was, and even mentioned all the people that drove in from out-of-state.
Set list (if my memory serves):
ABL
Buddah
Capricorn
The Kill
Battle
Edge
Attack
That order is probably wrong, but those are the songs they played. They got cut off though, and had to cut two songs -- The Fantasy and R-Evolve. R-EVOLVE WAS ON THE SET LIST! And they couldn't play it!!! So, so sad about that. But it was beyond great anyway. There really isn't a good way describe the show. You just had to have been there to understand.
After the show Kim and I made our way to the merch booth, which was the usual mob scene. I had one of my CD booklets signed and bought some pins. Then we made our way outside to get some much needed air and water. Eventually all the Echelon was outside (haha, sooo many people didn't stay for Seether) and we were all just raving about the show. Someone had the idea to get a big group photo, so we all gathered round for it. Out of nowhere here comes Shannon with his camera! I don't know how he got out there so fast, but he did. He looked at all of us standing there and said "This is so great." Awww! So he took a bunch of photos of the whole group, and then got closer and took photos of a smaller groups of people.
It was a pretty wild scene after the show, with so many of us out there. The guys were all out mingling, doing photos, etc. It was quite an interesting night. Jared was very talkative. He showed us some new merch and asked our opinions of it (and Tomo modeled the underwear, haha), asked us what we thought the next single should be, gave a little speech about his comments at the European MTV Music Awards, and stuff I can't even remember. The guys received the donation book, which was nice. I couldn't really see what all was going on, but I assume it was very cool!
The guys eventually had to leave to go to a bowling thing that was a radio station-sponsored contest. I tried to win passes earlier in the day but didn't. Grrr. However, Mark, Matt, Tomo and Shannon all told us we should/could go, which was so nice. Tomo said he'd rather bowl with us than with the contest winners! LOL! (Side note: Matt doesn't like the idea of cosmic bowling. Too funny.) In the end though we decided not to go. I wanted to go, and I'm still not sure how I feel about not going, but it was probably the right thing to do. Which doesn't really make me feel better about not going. Oh well, the night was damn near perfect as is, and that's more than enough for me. The great thing too, is they kept telling Jared it was time to go and he would just be like "Ok... does anyone else need anything?" He made sure ALL of us had a pic or a hug, or whatever we wanted. And Shannon hugged everyone and thanked us for coming before he left to get in the van. It was so great. They are so great. Wicked awesome!
First in line bitches!
The Echelon pic
Shannon taking pics of the Echelon girls
DAN!!! This man knows his Dane Cook... and Boondock Saints. I heart Dan! (We're actually talking about monkeys right now!)
KIM
the "jump pose"
Ash and Jamie (aka Rosie)
Kim, e1 (Erin), e2 (me), and Kit!
my pic of Kim and I (the other one is hers)
TARA-I FUCKING LOVE HER!
Awe, we rock
Nikki <3
THE WALL again because its so awesome and it was my idea ^__^
These awesome girls made tshirts with Matt's tattoo on it... they said he flipped out and loved it and had to show Tomo... then they had Tomo take this pic... and I just happened to take one too :D
THE RIOT SHIRT!!!
Tomo spit at Matt but missed....and Tomo got this face from Matt in return :D
The Echelon family pic! (hoping for better quality later...from Shannon)
They were holding their monkeys (Jareds words, not mine!)
NEW MERCH FOR XMAS...
...That Tomo modeled
Tomo hugs!!
Shannon said he liked my shirt...and I said I liked his jacket ^__^
This was taken right after I told him my name and he was like "Is that with an A or an E?" Me:"E" "Oh, I like that..." :DDD
Jared.... yeah. I like the make up! And shh, he just had that on again cause they had to go bowling. his jacket = awesome.
This is my fav pic :D Matt giving my shrit some love ^__^ He said he was gonna wear his too, but it was all gross. Shannon agreed... I think it was Shannon... or Tomo. I can't remember! When he saw that I had this shirt he called me crazy and gave me another hug! It was great.
my view out the back on the way home...pretty, but sad.
I didn't take nearly as many pics as I should have... but I will in 2 DAYS!!!
Most of this has been copied from Rosie because I have a bad memory and she doesn't. I added my stuff in there too (in italics) ^___^
*Just to let you know, I have pics at the bottom and pics in little links too.. so yeah.
Alright, I left my house at about midnight on Friday night and drove to Nikki's work. We left her work and ate and hung out for a while (we also saw the GIRLS GONE WILD bus in downtown Indy) and went to a WalMart to look for jewelry making goodies. I found some neat rainbow hemp and decided to make some junk, cause I hadn't in a while... and then I decided to make Matt a bracelet while I was in line :D We got to Cinncinati at around 5am. We jumped into Jamie's car from there and headed to Cleveland. A mere 4 hours away...
We got to the venue before 10 a.m. Do I have to say we were the first ones there? LOL! We beat the bus, but not by much. It showed up just a few minutes after us, and proceeded to park directly behind my (Jamie's) car ... which is now sporting a big beautiful 30STM sticker in the window, thanks to Erin (me). HAHA! The bus eventually moved to the other side of the street, so we felt safe in getting out of the car and getting ourselves situated. Which we were doing, when a taxi pulled up and it was Kim! SHE IS WICKED AWESOME!
Then off the bus comes Matt, and he walked right over to us. "Aren't you girls a little early?" he said. (Actually, I think he said "You aren't supposed to get here before us!") Awww, Matt! So sweet to come talk to us at 10 in the morning. We chatted with him for a while, and he told us some great stories (fuck bees! and people who throw quarters AND have guns on their person!) Ok, I have to go all fangirly here- Matt came off the bus and started to talk to us and at one point I pulled out the bracelet I had started for him (I didn't want to make it too big or too small before cutting it up) and I was like "Matt, can I see your wrist for a second?" and he kinda looked at me and put out his arm and I put it around and it was the perfect size already! And I was all "YES IT'S PERFECT!!" and he was all "Aw... now you ruined the surprise!" and I was like "It's ok, I'll just give it to you now." So I knotted it and stuff and put it on him and he was like "Awe thanks" and gave me a big hug :DDD And he was like "wow this is cool. how long did it take you to make?" and I was all "About 5 minutes..." and he was very amazed and impressed. lol. OH! And he saw my BDS shirt and was like "NICE SHIRT!!" and I of course took that opportunity to show him my tattoo. I took my off my wristband and was like "Hey check this out!" and he saw it and was like "NO SHIT! That's awesome! Do you have the other one on your other wrist?" and I said no, my friend did. And he was all "you shouldn't cover that up its so cool!" and i was like "but...wristband!" but he did convince me to move my wristband and show off my tattoo once again :) Amazing how Matt has that power over me. Tara and Annie showed up while Matt was there, which was great. After a while he went to nap and we all started the line for the show. I can't even remember what all we did to pass the time, other than talk and work on shirts and write on brick walls and take pictures, but the time went by fast. Before I knew it other people were showing up, and by about 2 p.m. there were quite a few people in line. Many Echelon reunions going on, all day. It was great fun.
At some point Matt came out again to talk to people, as did Tomo. They were out there for a good amount of time, chatting and taking photos and just being great, as usual. Matt was being kinda smarmy. I (Jamie) eventually asked "Matt, can we get a photo taken?" and he just looked at me (Jamie) and shook his head and said "No." I gave him a WTF? face, then he started laughing and said "I'm kidding! I'm kidding! Of course we can, come here." So I went to stand by him and I kind of hit him on the back, jokingly, for being mean. Then he looked at me and said "I burped when you hit me on the back ... just like a baby." LMAO! Tomo was rocking his rock star sunglasses and being all nice and sweet. I think they were glad to see so many Echelon in line. (hilarious!)
Shannon showed up in a taxi (came from the airport) and after a stop on the bus he came out with his camera to take pictures of everyone's gear. I haven't seen him do this before a show before, but it makes sense to me. Luckily we managed to gather all the E-C-H-E-L-O-N shirts together AND spell the word correctly for a photo. Shannon and Matt both really liked what we did. Then Shannon took photos of the backs of our shirts individually. He stuck around for a while to chat and have photos taken. His girlfriend and her family were there, so it was nice that he still took time out of his day to hang out before the show.
Jared didn't get there until pretty late, maybe around 5? He also had just flown in. When he walked into the venue a System of a Down song was playing and he looked at us as he was walking in and was mouthing the lyrics in a very exaggerated manner. Hilarious.
There were crazy antics in line (Kim, you rock my socks) and many trips to Buffalo Wings & Rings next door, and at least 34326711589 photos were taken. We were in line for 9 hours and it was an absolute blast. So much fun just hanging out with everyone.
Finally doors opened and we secured a great spot in the very front. I was almost in the middle, a little toward Matt's side of the stage.(I was on Matt's side... right in front of him actually :D) The opening band, Halestorm, was surprisingly pretty good. I'm always impatient when I have to sit through an opener(s) before a 30 show, but they were entertaining and fun. Loved the drum solo stuff they did.
Finally it was time for that oh-so-beautiful-and-chill-inducing siren.
The show itself ... left me speechless. I was floored. The energy was just amazing. You could really tell that all of the guys were so happy to see so many Echelon there. They were totally kicking ass! Afterwards they all said they were having some problems with something or other, and Shannon and Jared both said they were tired, but I didn't notice any of it because the show rocked anyway. (Other than Jared's problems, which held up things a bit.) The crowd was FANTASTIC. Everyone was singing every song lyric, and when they played Attack and Jared just let the crowd sing it at the end, it was just perfect. He even pulled Andre (their camera guy/friend) up on stage to get video of us singing it. I don't know how I have a voice today after all that screaming. The Kill was beyond words. You could feel a tangible connection between the band and the crowd on that song. Battle was fucking outstanding. Tomo was going crazy, Matt was jamming, Jared was all over the place, Shannon was flailing ... I loved every single second of it. During Buddha, Jared ran out into the crowd and climbed up to the balcony in the back. He stood there singing for a while and then it took FOREVER for him to get the crowd positioned so they could catch him when he jumped. And of course he jumped, and they caught him, and he crowd surfed his way back to the stage. Then he said "By the way, whoever ripped my dick off ... I'd like it back after the show please." LMAO!!!
My favorite part during the Jared-jumping incident was watching the rest of the guys on stage engage in their nightly spitting contest. They got skillz man! LOL! Tomo got nailed by Shannon. Matt and Tomo were going back and forth, and Tomo was sticking out his tongue like he was going to catch Matt's spit. Gross, but too hilarious.
Speaking of spit, Jared spit into the crowd and it landed on my hand and Kim's cheek. Ewww. Cooties! At least he didn't pour water directly down my head this time. Thankfully, I got no spit, but I didn't finally get some water! And I almost caught a guitar pic for Ash... SO CLOSE. After the show at the crazy as hell merch booth I got to Matt and was like "You never look up! I was right in front of you!" and he was like "I didn't spit on you did I?!" lol How kind of him to care, lol.
All the guys said after the show that the crowd was great, they were really feeding off it, and that was so good to hear. Jared mentioned the Echelon during the show, and said what a good crowd it was, and even mentioned all the people that drove in from out-of-state.
Set list (if my memory serves):
ABL
Buddah
Capricorn
The Kill
Battle
Edge
Attack
That order is probably wrong, but those are the songs they played. They got cut off though, and had to cut two songs -- The Fantasy and R-Evolve. R-EVOLVE WAS ON THE SET LIST! And they couldn't play it!!! So, so sad about that. But it was beyond great anyway. There really isn't a good way describe the show. You just had to have been there to understand.
After the show Kim and I made our way to the merch booth, which was the usual mob scene. I had one of my CD booklets signed and bought some pins. Then we made our way outside to get some much needed air and water. Eventually all the Echelon was outside (haha, sooo many people didn't stay for Seether) and we were all just raving about the show. Someone had the idea to get a big group photo, so we all gathered round for it. Out of nowhere here comes Shannon with his camera! I don't know how he got out there so fast, but he did. He looked at all of us standing there and said "This is so great." Awww! So he took a bunch of photos of the whole group, and then got closer and took photos of a smaller groups of people.
It was a pretty wild scene after the show, with so many of us out there. The guys were all out mingling, doing photos, etc. It was quite an interesting night. Jared was very talkative. He showed us some new merch and asked our opinions of it (and Tomo modeled the underwear, haha), asked us what we thought the next single should be, gave a little speech about his comments at the European MTV Music Awards, and stuff I can't even remember. The guys received the donation book, which was nice. I couldn't really see what all was going on, but I assume it was very cool!
The guys eventually had to leave to go to a bowling thing that was a radio station-sponsored contest. I tried to win passes earlier in the day but didn't. Grrr. However, Mark, Matt, Tomo and Shannon all told us we should/could go, which was so nice. Tomo said he'd rather bowl with us than with the contest winners! LOL! (Side note: Matt doesn't like the idea of cosmic bowling. Too funny.) In the end though we decided not to go. I wanted to go, and I'm still not sure how I feel about not going, but it was probably the right thing to do. Which doesn't really make me feel better about not going. Oh well, the night was damn near perfect as is, and that's more than enough for me. The great thing too, is they kept telling Jared it was time to go and he would just be like "Ok... does anyone else need anything?" He made sure ALL of us had a pic or a hug, or whatever we wanted. And Shannon hugged everyone and thanked us for coming before he left to get in the van. It was so great. They are so great. Wicked awesome!
First in line bitches!
The Echelon pic
Shannon taking pics of the Echelon girls
DAN!!! This man knows his Dane Cook... and Boondock Saints. I heart Dan! (We're actually talking about monkeys right now!)
KIM
the "jump pose"
Ash and Jamie (aka Rosie)
Kim, e1 (Erin), e2 (me), and Kit!
my pic of Kim and I (the other one is hers)
TARA-I FUCKING LOVE HER!
Awe, we rock
Nikki <3
THE WALL again because its so awesome and it was my idea ^__^
These awesome girls made tshirts with Matt's tattoo on it... they said he flipped out and loved it and had to show Tomo... then they had Tomo take this pic... and I just happened to take one too :D
THE RIOT SHIRT!!!
Tomo spit at Matt but missed....and Tomo got this face from Matt in return :D
The Echelon family pic! (hoping for better quality later...from Shannon)
They were holding their monkeys (Jareds words, not mine!)
NEW MERCH FOR XMAS...
...That Tomo modeled
Tomo hugs!!
Shannon said he liked my shirt...and I said I liked his jacket ^__^
This was taken right after I told him my name and he was like "Is that with an A or an E?" Me:"E" "Oh, I like that..." :DDD
Jared.... yeah. I like the make up! And shh, he just had that on again cause they had to go bowling. his jacket = awesome.
This is my fav pic :D Matt giving my shrit some love ^__^ He said he was gonna wear his too, but it was all gross. Shannon agreed... I think it was Shannon... or Tomo. I can't remember! When he saw that I had this shirt he called me crazy and gave me another hug! It was great.
my view out the back on the way home...pretty, but sad.
I didn't take nearly as many pics as I should have... but I will in 2 DAYS!!!