so since I've been to about 50 concerts in my lifetime, I decided to start up a little "review" site. I believe I will start with the most recent show I went to..AFI!
AFI Love Like Winter Tour 2007.
Medford Armory
March 7th, 2007
Medford, Oregon
My friends and I began our trip with an exhausting drive from Bend, Oregon to Medford, Oregon. Roughly about a 4 hour drive of straight highway...very boring! We tried to get our attention away from the severe bordem with at least 3 hours of off key singing to our favorite AFI tunes. Which included "Girl's Not Grey", "Miss Murder", "Kiss and Control", "Death of Seasons" and this list goes on and on. We arrived in Medford around 9:30am. We headed straight to the hotel, which HAPPENDED to be in the same parking lot as the venue! How nice!! As soon as we pulled up to the front parking lot, we saw 2 very beautiful tour buses. One was parked in the middle of the front parking lot at the armory. Standing outside that bus was the famous "Fritch." AFI's merch guy/roadie. (AKA: Katies best buddy! ;) ) We quickly headed to Ashland for a little Dutch Bros (just one of our MANY coffee stops!) We rushed to get back because we didn't want to miss any of the excitment, if there was any. We pull back into the hotel and we are all standing outside of the car getting our stuff out to check in to the room. I (wearing my AFI sweatshirt) am approached by this random guy. He's an older gent with a beard thing happening. He smiles at me and says "Are you guys here for the show?" We all respond with "oh yeah! cant wait!" He continues to tell us that he just saw the guys dash from the bus to the venue. We soon come to find out that the creepy guy is the bus driver for AFI. AWKARD!
As we all put our stuff down in the hotel room, Stephanie and I decided we would run out to the car to get a few more things. As we walk to the end of the hallway (which has a beautiful window at the end...you can see the buses PERFECTLY, and inside them none the less) we peek out them and see that someone is moving inside the bus. We watch for about 10 seconds and we see Jade Puget (guitarist and sexy man) walk out of the bus! I stay at the window and Steph runs back to our room to get Haley and Katie. They come rushing down the hall and we are all standing at this body length window staring at this kid with skunk like hair walk around the bus. As soon as we realize that we still need to get a few things out of the car, we burst out the door and Jade sees us in all our AFI gear and gets back on the bus. We all tried to linger around the car for a while...but we couldn't think of anything else to clean or pull out of the car. So we go back inside. As soon as the door shuts behind us we look back and we see Jade walk back out the bus and head into the venue.
Before this trip, we all had researched on how we could run into the guys and by chance get to meet them. We had heard tons of stories about them visiting the local Starbucks before the show. We noticed that there was a Starbucks about 100 feet away from the hotel and venue. We thought we would make a little trip down to that area. We first headed into Fred Meyer to get some food for after the show. Of course we walked by Starbucks on our way in, and checked it out a little. Nothin! As we are leaving Freddies we thought we would check out Starbucks again...just in case. As soon as we pass the window, Stephanie glances in and pulls us all inside. Jade Puget is sitting at a little table in the middle of the store by himself. We all sneak into the cafe trying not to be noticed. I soon realize that all of us are: #1: wearing all black, #2: I'm still wearing my AFI sweatshirt and #3: shaking like leafs. No way is he going to notice us! *rolls eyes* I'm the first to order and I sort of jumped at the chance so I could secretly gaze over at this beautiful man sitting at the table. He looked so peaceful! And shy. As soon as I'm done ordering, I glance over to the table and he's gone! Katie says she saw him leave right after I was done ordering. I wonder what made him leave so suddenly? Do you think it could have been the white jeep out front that had all this AFI releated material written on it?? We are sticking the story that he was done with his coffee.
The time has now come for us to go meet Katie and Stephanie's aunt and cousin at a local little mexcian joint called Senor Sams. Again we ran out to the car for something random. I dont recall what, but it had to be important right? I see Smith Puget (brother to Jade and tour manager for AFI) walking towards the hotel. We are all soon standing by Stephanies jeep. (thats the one that has all the AFI releated material written on it, including a window that says "Smith Puget for President.") Smith walks by the car, sees the window with his name on it, and smiles as he looks at us he heads into the hotel lobby. We follow him in and head around the corner to our room. We come out and are talking about meeting the family for lunch. Katie is talking about Senor Sam's being right around the corner, Smith decided he wanted to be a part of our conversation by adding "yeah its RIGHT around the corner!" We turn around and he is standing behind us smiling. Steph and I begin to talk to him and ask him how he broke his collarbone. (his arm was in a sling) He starts to tell us the story of his injury. After standing in the lobby with Smith for a good 20 mins we head over to the venue to talk to a few of the fans waiting in line for the show. Some had been there since the night before. Insane!
After a little chit chat with the kids in line we walk up to the hotel and Katies friend Angela is standing out front. Her and Katie chat for a while as the rest of us head into the room. 15 minutes after we get back to the room Haley heads out to see what Katie and Angela are up to. No more than 5 minutes after Haley leaves we get this pounding on the door. I open up the door and Haley begins to tell us how she just saw Davey Havok (lead singer) walk out of the hotel carrying a giant silver suitcase and wearing a white hoodie and sunglasses. She starts of the story with: "Okay so I'm standing next to Katie and I say to her; 'okay, I'm going back to Jane (me...) so she can do my makup.' I turn around and I see Davey standing right behind me. He's walking by all of us wearing his hoodie with sunglasses and carrying his makeup case!" All of us run out to Katie and Angela again. We hear the story from them too and are still in shock. Stephanie and Haley go back to the room as I stay out to talk to them for a little bit longer. According to Katie about 3 minutes after I leave Adam Carson (drummer) walks right by them, smiles and heads into the hotel.
Its now time for us all to go to lunch. We headed to Senor Sam's to meet the fam. About 2 minutes after we get our food, Katie gets a text message from Angela saying that she just saw Davey, Smith, Jade's dad and someone else at starbucks. She follows them up to the corner and as they are standing at the crosswalk Angela sneaks by them and dashes up to the hotel. As soon as we finish "eating" lunch...Katie recieves a call from her cousin Holly. Her mom and Holly were just at Starbucks and they see Jade walk out of the building. I guess their aunt was trying to get a better look...and she almost ran him over. haha!
AFI Love Like Winter Tour 2007.
Medford Armory
March 7th, 2007
Medford, Oregon
My friends and I began our trip with an exhausting drive from Bend, Oregon to Medford, Oregon. Roughly about a 4 hour drive of straight highway...very boring! We tried to get our attention away from the severe bordem with at least 3 hours of off key singing to our favorite AFI tunes. Which included "Girl's Not Grey", "Miss Murder", "Kiss and Control", "Death of Seasons" and this list goes on and on. We arrived in Medford around 9:30am. We headed straight to the hotel, which HAPPENDED to be in the same parking lot as the venue! How nice!! As soon as we pulled up to the front parking lot, we saw 2 very beautiful tour buses. One was parked in the middle of the front parking lot at the armory. Standing outside that bus was the famous "Fritch." AFI's merch guy/roadie. (AKA: Katies best buddy! ;) ) We quickly headed to Ashland for a little Dutch Bros (just one of our MANY coffee stops!) We rushed to get back because we didn't want to miss any of the excitment, if there was any. We pull back into the hotel and we are all standing outside of the car getting our stuff out to check in to the room. I (wearing my AFI sweatshirt) am approached by this random guy. He's an older gent with a beard thing happening. He smiles at me and says "Are you guys here for the show?" We all respond with "oh yeah! cant wait!" He continues to tell us that he just saw the guys dash from the bus to the venue. We soon come to find out that the creepy guy is the bus driver for AFI. AWKARD!
As we all put our stuff down in the hotel room, Stephanie and I decided we would run out to the car to get a few more things. As we walk to the end of the hallway (which has a beautiful window at the end...you can see the buses PERFECTLY, and inside them none the less) we peek out them and see that someone is moving inside the bus. We watch for about 10 seconds and we see Jade Puget (guitarist and sexy man) walk out of the bus! I stay at the window and Steph runs back to our room to get Haley and Katie. They come rushing down the hall and we are all standing at this body length window staring at this kid with skunk like hair walk around the bus. As soon as we realize that we still need to get a few things out of the car, we burst out the door and Jade sees us in all our AFI gear and gets back on the bus. We all tried to linger around the car for a while...but we couldn't think of anything else to clean or pull out of the car. So we go back inside. As soon as the door shuts behind us we look back and we see Jade walk back out the bus and head into the venue.
Before this trip, we all had researched on how we could run into the guys and by chance get to meet them. We had heard tons of stories about them visiting the local Starbucks before the show. We noticed that there was a Starbucks about 100 feet away from the hotel and venue. We thought we would make a little trip down to that area. We first headed into Fred Meyer to get some food for after the show. Of course we walked by Starbucks on our way in, and checked it out a little. Nothin! As we are leaving Freddies we thought we would check out Starbucks again...just in case. As soon as we pass the window, Stephanie glances in and pulls us all inside. Jade Puget is sitting at a little table in the middle of the store by himself. We all sneak into the cafe trying not to be noticed. I soon realize that all of us are: #1: wearing all black, #2: I'm still wearing my AFI sweatshirt and #3: shaking like leafs. No way is he going to notice us! *rolls eyes* I'm the first to order and I sort of jumped at the chance so I could secretly gaze over at this beautiful man sitting at the table. He looked so peaceful! And shy. As soon as I'm done ordering, I glance over to the table and he's gone! Katie says she saw him leave right after I was done ordering. I wonder what made him leave so suddenly? Do you think it could have been the white jeep out front that had all this AFI releated material written on it?? We are sticking the story that he was done with his coffee.
The time has now come for us to go meet Katie and Stephanie's aunt and cousin at a local little mexcian joint called Senor Sams. Again we ran out to the car for something random. I dont recall what, but it had to be important right? I see Smith Puget (brother to Jade and tour manager for AFI) walking towards the hotel. We are all soon standing by Stephanies jeep. (thats the one that has all the AFI releated material written on it, including a window that says "Smith Puget for President.") Smith walks by the car, sees the window with his name on it, and smiles as he looks at us he heads into the hotel lobby. We follow him in and head around the corner to our room. We come out and are talking about meeting the family for lunch. Katie is talking about Senor Sam's being right around the corner, Smith decided he wanted to be a part of our conversation by adding "yeah its RIGHT around the corner!" We turn around and he is standing behind us smiling. Steph and I begin to talk to him and ask him how he broke his collarbone. (his arm was in a sling) He starts to tell us the story of his injury. After standing in the lobby with Smith for a good 20 mins we head over to the venue to talk to a few of the fans waiting in line for the show. Some had been there since the night before. Insane!
After a little chit chat with the kids in line we walk up to the hotel and Katies friend Angela is standing out front. Her and Katie chat for a while as the rest of us head into the room. 15 minutes after we get back to the room Haley heads out to see what Katie and Angela are up to. No more than 5 minutes after Haley leaves we get this pounding on the door. I open up the door and Haley begins to tell us how she just saw Davey Havok (lead singer) walk out of the hotel carrying a giant silver suitcase and wearing a white hoodie and sunglasses. She starts of the story with: "Okay so I'm standing next to Katie and I say to her; 'okay, I'm going back to Jane (me...) so she can do my makup.' I turn around and I see Davey standing right behind me. He's walking by all of us wearing his hoodie with sunglasses and carrying his makeup case!" All of us run out to Katie and Angela again. We hear the story from them too and are still in shock. Stephanie and Haley go back to the room as I stay out to talk to them for a little bit longer. According to Katie about 3 minutes after I leave Adam Carson (drummer) walks right by them, smiles and heads into the hotel.
Its now time for us all to go to lunch. We headed to Senor Sam's to meet the fam. About 2 minutes after we get our food, Katie gets a text message from Angela saying that she just saw Davey, Smith, Jade's dad and someone else at starbucks. She follows them up to the corner and as they are standing at the crosswalk Angela sneaks by them and dashes up to the hotel. As soon as we finish "eating" lunch...Katie recieves a call from her cousin Holly. Her mom and Holly were just at Starbucks and they see Jade walk out of the building. I guess their aunt was trying to get a better look...and she almost ran him over. haha!
We get back from lunch and I see Davey standing over by the bus with a bunch of kids talking to them. Since I'm not a Despair Faction member yet, I didn't get a meet and greet like the other guys did so I beg Steph to come over and meet him with me. As soon as I cross over the parking lot a ton more kids notice that Davey Havok is out in the open and I see them all run over to him. I realize there is no chance that I'm going to get to him so I turn around to go back and then I see Adam behind me. I say to myself: "OOO! I'll just go to Adam." He hears me talking to myself and opens up our conversation with "what am I your back up plan??" I take him seriously and try to apoligize and explain to him that I didn't see him. He soon informs me that he is just teasing me and we have a nice little converstation for about 15 minutes about random stuff. I tell him why I dont have a meet and greet and he informs me that the DF registration should be working by now...yeah no its not FYI! After I introduce myself and he does the same we part ways and I turn around to go meet Davey. But he's gone! GREAT! I head back to the room with Steph and once I get back I start to tell the girls that I just met Adam and they are all really excited for me.
With all the make up done and still 50 mins to kill before the meet and greet we jet over once again to Starbucks to get the boys their flowers for the meet and greet. We find these beautiful Daisys and they are all different colors. We get Davey pink ones, Jade Orange, Hunter Yellow and Adam Blue. We pull up once again to the hotel and Adam is still standing outside the venue. I walk back over to him to try and give him his flowers. I get stopped by this retarted "security guard" and he asks me what I was doing. I said I just wanted to give Adam his flowers really quick. The moron responds with, "which Adam? That Adam?" I so badly wanted to say..."No moron, the Adam across the street!" But I knew if I did...no way was I going over there! So I say in shock of what he just said: "uh...yeah" he says to go ahead but do it quickly. I walk over to him and explain that since I couldnt give these to him in the meet and greet, I wanted to suprise him now. He thanks me a ton and we go our sepreate ways once again.
With all the make up done and still 50 mins to kill before the meet and greet we jet over once again to Starbucks to get the boys their flowers for the meet and greet. We find these beautiful Daisys and they are all different colors. We get Davey pink ones, Jade Orange, Hunter Yellow and Adam Blue. We pull up once again to the hotel and Adam is still standing outside the venue. I walk back over to him to try and give him his flowers. I get stopped by this retarted "security guard" and he asks me what I was doing. I said I just wanted to give Adam his flowers really quick. The moron responds with, "which Adam? That Adam?" I so badly wanted to say..."No moron, the Adam across the street!" But I knew if I did...no way was I going over there! So I say in shock of what he just said: "uh...yeah" he says to go ahead but do it quickly. I walk over to him and explain that since I couldnt give these to him in the meet and greet, I wanted to suprise him now. He thanks me a ton and we go our sepreate ways once again.
We are in the room about 10 minutes before we head over to the line thats already forming for the concert! We get there and meet this awesome girl Lindsey! We ended up hanging out with her for the rest of the night.
Now the entire time I'm hanging out in line with everyone (including some newer people I met: Eliza, Jen, Britt and Megan) and so I didn't see to much action. But here's a little blurb from Katie's blog about the show. This includes the meet and greet and the reason behind Katie and Fritch's friendship:
"As we're waiting in line, Haley and I decide to run back to the hotel to get something, I don't even remember what it was. As we go into the hotel, Fritch is standing outside there. He smiles at us but he's texting on his phone or something. So as we're coming out, we see that Stephanie's jeep window is down. So we go back to the line to ask her where her keys are and she says they're in the hotel. So we go BACK to the hotel and Fritch smiles at us again and as we come out he's like "Are you lurking?" I say no and Haley says yes. Then I tell him we just had to roll up our car window. So we walk past him again to put the keys back in the room after taking care of the window and as we come out he laughs and says (pardon my language, this is Fritch not me, lol) "You guys are fucking funny." So after that I decided that I love Fritch.
We get back to the line and it starts raining and hailing but we really didn't care. Finally, around 5ish we see some movement over by the front doors and realize there's a seperate section where the meet n greet people are waiting. As we get over there, we see Smith standing in the door with the list and he's getting people's names. So we get in line and get our wristbands for the meet and greet. WHOO!
I ask Smith how long it's going to be and he says about another hour. So about an hour later, they let us in. As we walk into the area where the guys are (which is right by the stage where they would later perform) they're all standing around talking to each other. When they saw us coming in, they all seperated.
So we decide to go up to Jade first because Angela said he usually leaves first (which was the case). By this time, I was so nervous that everything I planned to say completely went out the window and I could barely look him in the eye. I know, I'm completely, absolutely, 100% lame! But oh well. So I go up to him with my sister and she has her Love Like Winter vinyl and asks him to sign in. He's like "Hey, I didn't get one of these!" and Steph tells him to go to hot topic because that's where she got hers. And he's like "Maybe I'll just take this one." And acts like he's going to steal it. So he signs it and gives it back and signs my Jade cover from my Decemberunderground 7" box set. Steph gives him the orange flowers we got for him and he's like "Thanks! They're orange!" haha. Then we got pictures with him, thanked him, and moved on to Adam.
Adam was really sweet and signed his cover from my box set. Then he signed my sister's Love Like Winter vinyl and also mentioned how it was cool and he didn't get one either. So I had a bunch of stuff in my hands and when I was going to take a picture with him, I went to his other side so I could put my arm around him and he's like "Oh, you like to be on the left side, do ya?" haha. Then we got the pictures with him and moved on to Hunter.
Hunter was by far the coolest person I've ever met in my life. We give him some flowers and he's like "Thanks! These are cool. I want to make a garden out of them. There's only one problem." And he holds the flowers up in front of us like he's all mad and he's like "They're broken! You cut the ends off!!" hahah. So I hand him my cover with him on it and ask him if he'd sign his face for me. He looks at me and he's like "You'd be disappointed if I signed it somewhere else wouldn't you?" and I said yeah and so he laughs and signs his forehead. So he's staring at it and he's like "Wow, look at how the 'R' contours perfectly with my skull." And I say "Yeah, you could totally get that tattooed on your head." And he's like "Yeah. And that squiggly 'H', that's never going to happen again." So I point to the 'E' which looked like an 'I' and I'm like "And what's that?" and he's like "Well, thats an E. You see the slight curvatures on the top and bottom?" So he was hilarious and I get a picture with him, which ended up being the best picture in the history of Hunter pictures. haha. Then my sister goes up to him and has him sign her LLW vinyl. He signs it and slashes right across Jade and Steph goes "You got Jade!" and he's like "A little ink won't hurt him." So by this time Smith is telling everyone to wrap it up because we've gotta go. So my sister goes to take a picture with him and I have the camera. And I'm kind of close and he's like "Whoa whoa whoa! Back up! You're awfully close!" So I take a few steps back and he's like "Okay, okay, right there!" Then I take the picture and he's like "To be that close, it's like macro!" So Smith is still telling people to hurry up so I run over to Davey to get in line so he doesn't leave before we get a picture with him. But I guess while I was over there, Hunter pulled a werewolf action figure out of his pocket and said it was wolfie and he never went anywhere without it. His point for that was that to be as close as I was with the camera, it would have to be for something small like wolfie. haha. Hunter is awesome.
So I get up to Davey and I didn't have time to talk to him because people were still waiting to get pictures with him. So I just asked him to sign my cover with his face on it and he did and then I got a picture with him. And my sister got one with him too after giving him flowers and a picture she made for him. He was soooo sweet and so polite and really liked the picture.
So while Haley and Lindsay were getting pictures with Davey, Steph and I ran over to Smith to get his autograph and pictures. Well on the way to Medford, we drew some crazy little stick figure drawings of some of Smith's greatest moments. Such as him getting hit by a car, him getting a broom thrown at him, him with the snakes in the tree, and him flipping off babies. These were like the most basic stick figure drawings ever. So Steph tells him that we know how people like to draw them really great pictures so we thought we'd give it a shot. And we gave him the pictures and he loved them. He was laughing as he went through all of them and he would get to the next one and be like "Oh yeah!" like he forgot it happened to him. haha. So he said thanks and we went out into the middle section between outside and the actual concert area. Haley and I decide to make a run for the hotel to put our stuff away and we run back and get back into the little waiting area where the meet and greet people are waiting to get let in before the rest of the crowd. We stood in there for probably a half of an hour before they started searching us. Two guys tried to sneak in with us but they had to go back out because they didn't have wristbands. Douchebags.
Anyway, I didn't want to go up to the front because of my experience near the front at the 30STM concert. But Steph and Haley and Lindsay convinced me to go up there and I'm sooo glad I did. They let us in before the rest of the crowd and we get right up at the barricade directly in front of Jade. Oh, and as we were walking in, we passed the merch booth and Fritch was watching everyone go in and he saw me and got this HUGE smile on his face and waved really big and I waved back. So yeah, Fritch and I are bffs. LOL"
Needless to say the opening bands were amazing! Viva Hate and Love = Death are both great bands.
Around 9pm AFI gets on stage! They open up with Prelude 12/21 and Girl's Not Grey. Two of my favs! Here is the offical setlist and this is a link to all the pics from the show:
Set List
Prelude 12/21
Girls Not Grey
Kill Caustic
The Leaving Song pt 2
Summer Shudder
File 13
Silver and Cold
Dancing Through Sunday
The Missing Frame
The Boy Who Destroyed the World
This Time Imperfect
Death of Seasons
The Leaving SongSong 2
Love Like Winter
God Called in Sick Today
Miss Murder
"As we're waiting in line, Haley and I decide to run back to the hotel to get something, I don't even remember what it was. As we go into the hotel, Fritch is standing outside there. He smiles at us but he's texting on his phone or something. So as we're coming out, we see that Stephanie's jeep window is down. So we go back to the line to ask her where her keys are and she says they're in the hotel. So we go BACK to the hotel and Fritch smiles at us again and as we come out he's like "Are you lurking?" I say no and Haley says yes. Then I tell him we just had to roll up our car window. So we walk past him again to put the keys back in the room after taking care of the window and as we come out he laughs and says (pardon my language, this is Fritch not me, lol) "You guys are fucking funny." So after that I decided that I love Fritch.
We get back to the line and it starts raining and hailing but we really didn't care. Finally, around 5ish we see some movement over by the front doors and realize there's a seperate section where the meet n greet people are waiting. As we get over there, we see Smith standing in the door with the list and he's getting people's names. So we get in line and get our wristbands for the meet and greet. WHOO!
I ask Smith how long it's going to be and he says about another hour. So about an hour later, they let us in. As we walk into the area where the guys are (which is right by the stage where they would later perform) they're all standing around talking to each other. When they saw us coming in, they all seperated.
So we decide to go up to Jade first because Angela said he usually leaves first (which was the case). By this time, I was so nervous that everything I planned to say completely went out the window and I could barely look him in the eye. I know, I'm completely, absolutely, 100% lame! But oh well. So I go up to him with my sister and she has her Love Like Winter vinyl and asks him to sign in. He's like "Hey, I didn't get one of these!" and Steph tells him to go to hot topic because that's where she got hers. And he's like "Maybe I'll just take this one." And acts like he's going to steal it. So he signs it and gives it back and signs my Jade cover from my Decemberunderground 7" box set. Steph gives him the orange flowers we got for him and he's like "Thanks! They're orange!" haha. Then we got pictures with him, thanked him, and moved on to Adam.
Adam was really sweet and signed his cover from my box set. Then he signed my sister's Love Like Winter vinyl and also mentioned how it was cool and he didn't get one either. So I had a bunch of stuff in my hands and when I was going to take a picture with him, I went to his other side so I could put my arm around him and he's like "Oh, you like to be on the left side, do ya?" haha. Then we got the pictures with him and moved on to Hunter.
Hunter was by far the coolest person I've ever met in my life. We give him some flowers and he's like "Thanks! These are cool. I want to make a garden out of them. There's only one problem." And he holds the flowers up in front of us like he's all mad and he's like "They're broken! You cut the ends off!!" hahah. So I hand him my cover with him on it and ask him if he'd sign his face for me. He looks at me and he's like "You'd be disappointed if I signed it somewhere else wouldn't you?" and I said yeah and so he laughs and signs his forehead. So he's staring at it and he's like "Wow, look at how the 'R' contours perfectly with my skull." And I say "Yeah, you could totally get that tattooed on your head." And he's like "Yeah. And that squiggly 'H', that's never going to happen again." So I point to the 'E' which looked like an 'I' and I'm like "And what's that?" and he's like "Well, thats an E. You see the slight curvatures on the top and bottom?" So he was hilarious and I get a picture with him, which ended up being the best picture in the history of Hunter pictures. haha. Then my sister goes up to him and has him sign her LLW vinyl. He signs it and slashes right across Jade and Steph goes "You got Jade!" and he's like "A little ink won't hurt him." So by this time Smith is telling everyone to wrap it up because we've gotta go. So my sister goes to take a picture with him and I have the camera. And I'm kind of close and he's like "Whoa whoa whoa! Back up! You're awfully close!" So I take a few steps back and he's like "Okay, okay, right there!" Then I take the picture and he's like "To be that close, it's like macro!" So Smith is still telling people to hurry up so I run over to Davey to get in line so he doesn't leave before we get a picture with him. But I guess while I was over there, Hunter pulled a werewolf action figure out of his pocket and said it was wolfie and he never went anywhere without it. His point for that was that to be as close as I was with the camera, it would have to be for something small like wolfie. haha. Hunter is awesome.
So I get up to Davey and I didn't have time to talk to him because people were still waiting to get pictures with him. So I just asked him to sign my cover with his face on it and he did and then I got a picture with him. And my sister got one with him too after giving him flowers and a picture she made for him. He was soooo sweet and so polite and really liked the picture.
So while Haley and Lindsay were getting pictures with Davey, Steph and I ran over to Smith to get his autograph and pictures. Well on the way to Medford, we drew some crazy little stick figure drawings of some of Smith's greatest moments. Such as him getting hit by a car, him getting a broom thrown at him, him with the snakes in the tree, and him flipping off babies. These were like the most basic stick figure drawings ever. So Steph tells him that we know how people like to draw them really great pictures so we thought we'd give it a shot. And we gave him the pictures and he loved them. He was laughing as he went through all of them and he would get to the next one and be like "Oh yeah!" like he forgot it happened to him. haha. So he said thanks and we went out into the middle section between outside and the actual concert area. Haley and I decide to make a run for the hotel to put our stuff away and we run back and get back into the little waiting area where the meet and greet people are waiting to get let in before the rest of the crowd. We stood in there for probably a half of an hour before they started searching us. Two guys tried to sneak in with us but they had to go back out because they didn't have wristbands. Douchebags.
Anyway, I didn't want to go up to the front because of my experience near the front at the 30STM concert. But Steph and Haley and Lindsay convinced me to go up there and I'm sooo glad I did. They let us in before the rest of the crowd and we get right up at the barricade directly in front of Jade. Oh, and as we were walking in, we passed the merch booth and Fritch was watching everyone go in and he saw me and got this HUGE smile on his face and waved really big and I waved back. So yeah, Fritch and I are bffs. LOL"
Needless to say the opening bands were amazing! Viva Hate and Love = Death are both great bands.
Around 9pm AFI gets on stage! They open up with Prelude 12/21 and Girl's Not Grey. Two of my favs! Here is the offical setlist and this is a link to all the pics from the show:
Set List
Prelude 12/21
Girls Not Grey
Kill Caustic
The Leaving Song pt 2
Summer Shudder
File 13
Silver and Cold
Dancing Through Sunday
The Missing Frame
The Boy Who Destroyed the World
This Time Imperfect
Death of Seasons
The Leaving SongSong 2
Love Like Winter
God Called in Sick Today
Miss Murder
Here are the pics: http://s173.photobucket.com/albums/w60/AFIOregon/
After the show I thought I would head out to the back of the venue to see who I could snatch a picture with. I'm not out there 10 secs and I see Adam walking towards me. I hear him yell across the parking lot: "Hey Hailey!" I respond with the normal "Hi Adam!" He comes over and I'm soon joined by the girls I hung out with in line. Awesome people I must add! I ask Adam for a quick picture and he was glad to give me one. I start to move in and he notices their is a light behind us...he cant have that in his picture! haha He says to me: "Here, lets move out of the light" and he begins to move me over. I stop in one spot and I guess thats not good enough, he continues to walk over with me until we are havng the light face us. He's so sweet! We all get little autographs and pics and I start to tell him about the massaive security over at the hotel. He stright up tells me: "why? We aren't even staying over there!" (lie) (little does he know that we all saw him and the other guys walk out of the hotel earlier that day) I just kind of pretend like I believe him. After chatting about the new tour and Bend, etc. another jackass security guard comes over to us and says that we have to leave the parking lot, Adam looks at him in shock and asks him why, he claims thats what he was told by their people. AFI couldn't go out after the show and meet people. Adam responds with this kinda offended tone: "Are you saying I cant stand here and talk to them?" The secuirty guard looks speechless and says: "Oh...well I dont care what you do, I was just telling you what they told me." Adam comes back with "Well I guess I cant argue to much with them." He completly ignores what the security guard has just told him and continues to talk with us for a good 10 more minutes. After Adam leaves I see Smith and his dad walk towards us. I catch Smiths attention and ask him for a picture. He too was more than happy to give me one. The other girls also ask for one with him and his dad too. I wanted one with the dad...but it was to late. After Jade's dad talks with us for a while about our safe drive home, he drives off in a big blue truck with Oregon plates. Right then the jerk off sec. guard comes over to us again and tells us that we HAVE to get back over to the sidewalk. After that...I just gave up on meeting anyone else.
I see the rest of the crew head towards me and we go back to room to jump in our suits for the hot tub. As we are all sitting in this sauna like room, we see these figures walk past the "window" aka: ice cubey things and they are wearing all black. We thought, okat there is no way we are THAT lucky. We peek out the door and see the band Viva Hate walk into the room right next door to our room! How sweet! After a little hot tubbin we go back to the room with Lindsey and Angela. We can hear the guys every now and then laughing and chatting. hehe how fun! About 1-2am the girls head back to their room. We agree to meet up for breakfast around 9...for some reason I have a very hard time sleeping so I get up at 6 because I hear comotion next door. I peek out the door and I quietly walk to breakfast. Hoping to see someone, but then again...not..because I looked like shit! haha. I get back to the room and fall asleep for another good 2 hours. I soon hear the song "Summer Shudder" (katies ringtone) and its Angela claiming that she thinks that she heard the guys heading down to breakfast. We all jump out of bed and head down to the lobby. Nothing.
After breakfast we all headed down to starbucks for one last time and we ended up not seeing any of the BAND members there, but we sat down with our coffee and tea and we see this older couple walk up. They had to be in their 50s/60s. They are both wearing AFI sweatshirts...odd. They see that we all are decked out in ours and they ask us if we went to the show...they start to tell us how they really enjoyed it and the nice lady says to all of us: "oh yeah we are jade and smith's aunt and uncle. It was really nice to be able to see Jade play again." :O we are all in shock...and I think steph is a little embarassed considering she is wearing their nephew on her chest! haha (smith) We begin chatting about Smith and his broken collarbone and she starts telling us how its kind of a common thing with him: "It's pretty usual for him to have something broken on him, thats our smith." Hahaha! She was awesome!
After breakfast we all headed down to starbucks for one last time and we ended up not seeing any of the BAND members there, but we sat down with our coffee and tea and we see this older couple walk up. They had to be in their 50s/60s. They are both wearing AFI sweatshirts...odd. They see that we all are decked out in ours and they ask us if we went to the show...they start to tell us how they really enjoyed it and the nice lady says to all of us: "oh yeah we are jade and smith's aunt and uncle. It was really nice to be able to see Jade play again." :O we are all in shock...and I think steph is a little embarassed considering she is wearing their nephew on her chest! haha (smith) We begin chatting about Smith and his broken collarbone and she starts telling us how its kind of a common thing with him: "It's pretty usual for him to have something broken on him, thats our smith." Hahaha! She was awesome!
We then headed to say bye to Lindsey and we took goodbye pics. :( Later we all headed to the mall and walked around for a bit in hopes for another glipse of the guys. No luck. We decided to leave Medford around 4pm that day.
And so ends my AFI trip, and my first review of a show. Look forward for many more to come. I still have about 4 shows that I will be going to this year...so yeah!
And so ends my AFI trip, and my first review of a show. Look forward for many more to come. I still have about 4 shows that I will be going to this year...so yeah!
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