Summerfest '06
So Summerfest this year was pretty fun. I went earlier in the week on the 4th of July with Chad and Brant and we got to see Punchline and Lucky Boys Confusion. They stayed to watch Bowling for Soup while I went to go hang out with Cassi, who I haven't seen since school let out.
Then this past weekend had a really spectacular line up. On Friday, 07/07, Yellowcard was the headliner that we wanted to see. Jeremy and I had just seen them in January, but why not see them again, especially when Jeremy had free tickets? So I was a bit late getting ready, but we got down to the grounds just before 6 to meet up with Adrian and Allie. We went to go watch whoever was playing on the US Cellular stage, because thats where we were setting up camp for the night.
Rock Kills Kid was up... which was weird since the program said that Scary Kids Scaring Kids was supposed to be playing, but I guess they're on Warped Tour. The only song I knew from RKK was the single, Paralyzed, but they put on a decent show and they had some catchy songs. We took a few pics and videos of them.
Jeremy and I went to go get a Saz's sampler plate, cause those are the shit, and then came back to watch Matchbook Romance. I know their first album, and it seems as if their second album is pretty crappy, but I took videos of some of the songs I like.
While I was waiting between bands, I got a phone call from work from my coworker Michelle, asking me if I would just give her my hours for Saturday. She was looking for more hours and I was looking to go to summerfest, so I was happy to comply. And later I found out that I could just give her my Sunday hours too, so that was going to work out even better than I hoped.
Also, Jeremy and I got bored and began taking lots of pictures of ourselves.
And I took a lot of pictures of the text message screen. People were texing some pretty funny and random things to the screen, and I captured a lot on my digicam, mostly cause of the boredom.
Then we had to wait a while for Yellowcard to come out; they did pretty well. They played most of their new album, and of course the singles from Ocean Avenue, and one older song, October Nights. It was a good time. I liked the concert in January better, because they got the crowd more involved, but we had those lame ass bleachers to deal with so I guess they couldn't tell us to jump around or anything.
Saturday was a bit more fun. Jeremy and I got there at 3:30 and went to the US Cellular stage to set up for Panic! At the Disco, but it seemed as if the 13 year old teenie boppers had claimed all the bleacher seats already. Since we have already seen Panic TWICE, we fugured "fuck it," and so Jeremy and I met up with Adrian again and walked around. We just went around and got free stuff such as back scratchers, body wash and fake tattoos. I had this bright idea that I wanted to get a sleave of fake tattoos, but I could only find a SOBE and a KISS FM logo.
Adrian and I got Wong's Wok, which was AMAZING and probably better than any regular Wongs Wok, while Jeremy got another Sampler plate from Saz's.
We were walking along one of the strips when all of a sudden a crazy shirtless mime came scampering over, looking all petrified of something. With a better look, we saw that there was a scary female vampire troop following him and hissing at anyone who stood in the way between them and the hunted mime. The whole experience was creepy because everything was silent and the girls creeped along in a syncronized floating sort of way. I took a video, but I also have these still shots from the whole experience.
Pretty soon, we ran into Topher and Katie and Ben and his group of friends. Topher and I went to go play a round of DDR for a DOLLAR. One game. For a dollar. From each of us. laaaaaame. It was just raining and I couldnt stay on the damn dance pad and I kept screwing up my combos. I got a D while Topher got an A.
We then went back to where our camp was setting up in the back of the US Cellular stage on a small grassy area. We sat around like hippies. I taught Jeremy and Adrian how to play rummy and we sat around while the rest of our party filtered in and out. Sarah and Matt were around. Chad, Brant, Case, Kevin, Jen and Colleen were around as well.
At one point, Kevin and I went to Cold Stone to get ice cream. The weird thing about that place is that they make you order in the middle, and then step off to the left side to get the ice cream, and then they make you wade through the middle where people are ordering to get over to the right side so you can pay for it. We both ordered Adult sized ice creams and got kiddie sizes. As we were back in the middle, Kevin said something along the lines of "Do you wanna just GO?!" And I was like "I will if you will!" And he was like "Okay. On the count of 3!" and then he counted and then I just followed him out.
I will let you know it was the best tasting ice ceam ever... probably cause it was stolen.
So we sat around and talked for while and then finally at 10:00, Panic came on. But there were so many teenie boppers around and the sound quality sucked. Chad tried to lead a bunch of us to find a closer spot, but it was worthless. You couldnt see or hear anything. Most of us decided that it was just wiser to go home and beat the traffic of people all leaving at midnight.
Then Chad and I dropped off Jeremy and then we went to McDonalds for liquids. We ended up playing cards that night. I lost 10 bucks in a pot that I thought was unbeatable, but I guess I suck like that. But thats a rant for another time, and I don't want to get too off track.
So Sunday rolled around and I ended up sleeping in till almost 2:00. I was supposed to go down to the grounds ASAP to sit with Adrian, who had been on the grounds since about 12:45 to hold us some places at the US Cellular stage to see Jack's Mannequin at 10 PM.
When I got there at 3:00, he had secured us the majority of the 7th row with himself and two beach towels. He had set up shop with a few magazines and a Game Boy to keep himself occupied. Keep in mind it was like 95 degrees outside and VERY sunny. Adrian is a trooper. :D
Mary came around to hang out and take lots of pictures. I don't know what compelled me to wear jeans and tennis shoes, but I was on fire and Mary needed me to be in all those pictures. I'm probably all sweaty and gross, but whatever. My clothes turned out to work FOR me in the long run, but I'm getting ahead of myself. She stayed for a bit and then bid us goodbye.
Jeremy showed up just after 4 and together, the 3 of us sat there and held down the 7th row. Jeremy and I got up at one point because my mom had left me a voicemail with her concerns about how it was supposed to rain. We went to go see how much ponchos were, but they were $3.00. We called around and decided that the storm was going to go around us and went back to our seats.
We sat and watched Innatrance, who is from Madison and is very good and BandCamp, who is okay at best.
During our 2nd game of Rummy, we got pelted with a few heavy raindrops and had to quickly clean up my cards as the downpour took over in about 2.5 seconds. As we got rained on, I went to go find Ponchos for Jeremy and I because Adrian decided that since he was already wet, he didnt want to invest in a poncho. And so I ran to the original place where Jeremy and I found ponchos, but there was a mass of people crowded in it for shelter. I ended up going all the way down to where Cassi worked in the market by the Harley Stage to get ponchos. And by the time I got back, the damage was done and it had stopped raining. wtf.
So we put our ponchos on the bleachers to keep our asses from getting wetter, and we watched the bands. It started raining again pretty hard during The Finalist, and they had to stop early.
So the weather had changed from 95 degrees and sunny to cold and rainy to a small tsunami and hail to just irritaing rain. It rained so much that it got flooded under our bleachers. So we sat there from 7:00 in the rain and just waited it out. They had to cancel the 8:00 band, the Junior Varsity, who I kind of wanted to see. Dammit. So many people stayed to not lose their seat though. We had been sitting there for hours already and it would have been all for nothing if we just left.
Kids all went up to the Rock 102.1 booth and had torn apart the tarp that covered the display table to use it for shelter.
Around 8:30 though, the skies began to clear and someone threw out a beach ball for the crowd, which actually kept me entertained. My mood was very quiet and mousy since I was so cold and wet. I didn't want to do anything. And since they stopped playing music for us, we were all bored. I was actually evesdropping on the kids around us. The girls behind us had dry cigarretes for the boys next to us and they would buy the girls beer if they gave them cigarrettes.
The guy next to us really needed to pee and so he grabbed a random cup that was floating buy in the flood and peed in it. And yeah, I saw some peen. And then he set the cup down and kicked it over. And then random people would walk though the flood, completely unaware of the fact that they were walking though piss. Greeaaaat.
I could NOT get warm. We were still cold and wet and all of our fingers were prunes. I shivered until the show started and the adrenaline took over.
FINALLY Someone on stage started to uncover the instruments and sweep water off the stage. The crowd went nuts, especially when they uncovered all the speakers. We seriously waited ALL DAY in the crazy weather conditions for that concert and it was AMAZING.
Andrew came on 10 minutes early and started the show. And he played EVERYTHING off the Jack's Mannequin album and 2 Something Corporate songs including Me and The Moon and Cavanaugh Park. Jeremy and I FLIPPED OUT during me and the moon. I took video of just about EVERY song he played and all you hear at the beginning of that clip is us freaking out.
He also did 2 cover songs, which was completely unexpected. He put on such a good show. It was worth the wait all day. I finally had a really REALLY good After concert high. We met up with Ben after and he asked Adrian if Jeremy and I were sober.
Jeremy and I left and went to pick up Chad, who was down the block from the Holt park and ride, and then we went back to my house to get into dry clothes. (yeah, i wore the poncho home. My clothes were DRENCHED) and then we went to Dennys and met up with Ben, Adrian, Nate and Nick.
It was a great weekend and I hope next year is just as fun.