We left Toronto and at the boarder into the US, the patrol stopped us and asked us the typical questions. When they asked us how we knew each other, we all knew what we were supposed to say and what were weren’t supposed to say. We all said, “We were fans of the band and saw their concert.” But Bek, good ol’ Bek…. She adds, “We met on the Internet!”
We all look at her with death in our eyes, but the guy just laughed. He asked us one more question, which was where we all worked. Everyone told him, and when it came to me, I was like “Oh, I don’t have a job.” Which made everyone, including the patrol, laugh. WTF, thanks, guys.
We drove into the same truck stop we had before, near Buffalo and that’s where we said goodbye to Tracy, then drove into Cleveland in the early afternoon. Wendy’s little boys came out and had drawn a cute welcome home picture for her on the driveway and it was a lovey dovey mommy moment. They were so cute, lol.
We stuck around for a few more minutes for bathroom breaks, to gather our things and say goodbye. Alex and Wendy were left behind then Bek, Amanda, and I were on our way to Doylestown, where Bek lived, since the NYC show wasn’t until the next day and was only a little over an hour from where Bek lived anyhow. It was a longggg drive. Felt longer than the drive from Canada, but we got in about midnight and had to creep our way in so that we wouldn’t wake her host family. We said goodbye to Amanda, who’d we’d see the next day and went right to bed.
4/20/2010
Bek woke up about an hour before me. She’d agreed to work a couple of hours for her host family so that she could use the car that day for us. We left just before noon and headed to Philly, where we were meeting Amanda, and would drive from there. Bek’s GPS got us lost for almost an hour, but we eventually found Amanda and her father, who were driving. We made it into NYC about 2pm and were luckily able to park less than a block from the venue, The Roseland Ballroom. As we came up on the line, we saw that it was the longest line we’d seen for it being the middle of the week. Apparently a lot of kids were skipping school. But not even 30 people back in the line, I heard a “Hey, aren’t you Tashia Taylor?”
I whip my head around and see a group of ladies who wave us over. They introduced themselves as the Girls of Chaos (I’d heard about them briefly in Toronto from others). It was Korey, Donna, Lisa, and a few others who were wandering. We sat with them (bonus, we got to skip more than half the line!) and talked a bit. Amanda and her father went to wander and we said we’d hold their place. Korey took me and Bek for a walk and we ended up walking around the venue randomly. On our way back, we ran into Sean Hayes (Will & Grace), well, Bek literally bumped into him, lol. And saw Eddie Murphy get into a limo and people chase after the limo! Then we ran into Chris from Neon Trees!! Said hi and took pics and wished him a good show. Right after that, also ran into Elaine and Branden from Neon Trees and got a nice group shot! We went back to the line told the others what happened. Hung out but got bored and the three of us went for another walk. This time we walked on the other side of the street, which had all the buses, and ran into Bobby Alt, from Street Drum Corps! After we got pics with him and talked for a bit, we walked a little ways and saw Kate, who’s the merch girl for Neon Trees and their friend, with Dave, who’s a touring guitarist, in the Neon Trees van. We chatted with them a bit (including something about Kanye West being a possible option for the night’s show) and went on our merry way back to the line.
Talked with a few others in the line and hung out more, even though it started raining. Doors opened about 25 minutes late, and we all tried to get in quickly, despite the slow security checking out bags.
Ran in and the place was packed already. Somehow, Korey had wormed her way to the barrier and left Bek, myself, and Donna on our own. We weren’t too far back, maybe 5 rows in, but it was definitely going to be a rough ride.
Street Drum Corps opened, and this was the first time I was seeing them. They all put on a great show! Bobby worked the crowd great and they sounded awesome. I was VERY glad that they were on tour with MARS. The drums were such a heart pumping experience and an amazing choice to have as an opening band.
Next was Neon Trees. They definitely put on an amazing show and I was very happy to see that the NYC crowd felt them more than the Toronto crowd had. Yet, once more, we were the ones who sang the loudest and once more, Tyler sought us out like a heat-seeking missile and looked totally happy that people were so enthusiastic about their songs. Despite not being close to the stage, it was still totally awesome.
Next, MuteMath was back and they definitely rocked the venue. I think of all the opening acts, the crowd liked them the most. The drummer, Darren, threw part of his kit into the audience and the crowd loved when Paul flipped over his keyboards and the band all switched instruments.
Right around the time MARS was supposed to come on stage, Donna left the crowd, which was sad. She went off to the side and watched from there.
They definitely drew out the anticipation that came with the White Curtain and when the drums of Escape started, they kept them going a few extra lines to keep the crowd pumped up. Finally Jared’s silhouette appeared, along with Shannon and Tomo’s and I knew right then that Jared was going to make the show a good one. Sure enough, the curtain dropped as the chorus of Summit participants bellowed and he was wearing a GaGa-esque outfit. Spiked shoulder pads (with a little tail) and his blue leather jacked with his typical tanks underneath. One of my favorite outfits, for sure.
The band put out a lot more energy with this show than they did with the Chicago or Detroit show and the only difference between this show and the Toronto show, besides the outfit and crazed energy, was that he had toned down the showmanship just a smidgen because it wasn’t being filmed like in Canada.
Jared definitely didn’t turn off his potty mouth for NYC, which made the show hilarious. Most people find his talking pretentious or annoying, but when you know what Jared is like at shows and you’ve seen it enough times, you just laugh because all of the crap that comes out of his mouth is ridiculously funny.
Show lasted for what seemed like forever. I’m definitely not complaining. I mean, it was awesome that they kept the show going and going. While Jared was in the crowd during The Kill, trying to get to the stage, his tanks had been ripped off (he’d already shed the spikes and leather jacket) and the crowd went nuts that little Leto was shirtless. After the song, he made a comment that the crowd had stolen his dick and that he expected it back. Got a laugh out of me, lol. He played another song shirtless then put on the blue jacket sans shirts, which looked just as good, so again, no complaining. I might not prefer him, but it is a nice view.
Unfortunately, no Kanye, much to our regret. Despite how Jared kept saying something special would happen. I guess that “special” was the fact the show was two songs longer? But the show was definitely one of my favorites.
Even though someone was definitely smoking some pot in the crowd and I had to kick some ass to stop people from climbing all over me and trying to get past me.
Show ended at nearly 2am and we all found each other and went to the buses, where we planned on camping out until we were able to say hi to someone, lol. We first ran into Tyler, who is the bassist for Street Drum Corps. We took pics and talked with him for a good 20 minutes or so. It was nice talking to one of the lesser lime-lighted members of a band. Eventually, Frank Zummo came and we talked with him and got pics, too. Also, Adam Alt stumbled out of the bus, looking as if he’d already started the party, and we got pics with him.
They all went on their bus and just a few minutes later, the guitarist from MuteMath, Greg, came walking past. He happily stopped and snapped pics with us and talked for a few minutes before heading to their bus. Next was Paul, the lead singer. He took pics with us and talked with us for about 15 or 20 minutes about random stuff, including his adorable little nephew, who was an apparently YouTube star. Unfortunately, their bassist ran straight to the bus and we never saw Darren come out.
We walked up and down the sidewalk a bit, then saw that Tim and Tomo had appeared to play. At the time, there was only a small group so we were able to talk to Tim a little and get pics with him, then also hang out with Tomo and do the same. We all argued with him about the lack of S/T songs on this tour. We asked about Fallen, which he’d promised back in December to Amanda they’d play this tour. He tricked us and said that they’d played it in Lille, France. Little fucker. He knew what we wanted, lol.
Jared eventually came out of the bus with a suitcase. He talked for a minute or two, but then said he was going for some food and ran off to a waiting cab over on the curb. I’m ashamed to admit that several people actually chased after him and his taxi. WTF? Leave the man alone!
Shannon was off messing around or something, so he was never at the bus. And at this point, it was after 4am so we left and parted ways with everyone. Korey and the others said they would be at Montclair, the next day so we said we’d see them there and they’d save us a spot if we didn’t make it in time. (Bek had to work a full day, since this had been a last minute add to our trip.)
We left NYC and unfortunately, not even a few blocks from the venue, Amanda’s GPS went haywire and we went around in circles for ages because Amanda and her father evidently enjoyed yelling at each other. I was too tired and uncomfortable to say much besides things like ‘calm down’, etc and Bek kept the cool head and helped them get us out of the city and onto the highway to New Jersey and out of the mess.
At one point just outside of Pennsylvania, Amanda’s father pulled into a truck stop and went to go SLEEP. UH, what the hell??? We had to be back soon!! We had to yell at Amanda to wake him up, and when she did, he stormed off and we made her go look for him.
After all that drama, we got to Philly and got our car and sped drove back to Doylestown. We got home about 6am-ish and went right to bed. Poor Bek had to be up about 9am and work with the kids until we could leave about 5 that night for New Jersey.
NYC is done, but the road trip isn’t. Next is Montclair, NJ :)
Woke up early because we were not on the road, but rather going to the Habitat For Humanity build that The Echelon House had set up and that we’d all been fundraising for a few weeks for. We braved the insane Toronto traffic at 9am and met up with everyone else at the build site. We all got setting in the main trailer by turning in legal forms, gathering safety gear, and being assigned leaders who were our bosses for the day.
Bek, myself, Sarah, and Alex were all assigned the same group and we were given the task of dry walling the set of stairs in the house we were all working in. Bek found herself attracted to the nail gun in particular, and I was apparently good at it, too, so we were assigned that as Sarah (who became known as Rafi thanks to the leftover name tag on her helmet) and Alex became in charge of measuring out the boards.
Eventually, our leader, who’s name was Hershel, sent me and Bek and finish dry walling another set of stairs in another house.
Honestly, I think he was trying to get rid of us because we were too goofy.
Lunch came and we all met up in the trailer again. Sarah brought from her car the bike that she’d won from Jared that was in the Kings and Queens video. She’d gotten the seat signed the night before and was donating it to The Echelon House for auction. She tried riding it around but the seat fell off and she swerved and almost fell off!
We ended the day by cleaning up everything and putting tools away. Unfortunately, since the day was at an end, it meant we were saying goodbye to a lot of the friends we’d met there in Toronto. Will was going back home. He said that he’d try to come to the New York City show with us, but no promises. We said goodbye to three or four more, then we headed back to our hotel/Lily’s house to shower.
When we were all clean, we all went to Lily’s house and hung out. A lot of stories about the olllllllld days of Mars were told (which kind of made me sad. I can’t help it took me til I was 16 to find them in 2005) and after being there for about 5-6 hours, we left (which was good because I was falling asleep next to poor Wendy, who was in the same boat as me).
At one point in the day, Bek and I thought about going to the Boston show, which was the next day. We tried and planned but it didn’t really work out. Not enough time to get there.
Got back to the hotel and went to bed, since, once again, it was about 1am-ish. We had a long drive back to the States and back to Cleveland, where we’d leave Wendy and Alex and head to Pennsylvania, where we had some time off before the NYC show.
Toronto’s all done! Next is the off day and NYC!
We’d crashed at Wendy’s house after getting in at about 3:30am and we were woken up not only by Wendy and Alex, but Wendy’s two adorable little boys and her husband who was making us all fresh blueberry pancakes. It was about 8am and when I went to climb off the couch, I nearly shit myself when I saw Will was on the floor sleeping. When the hell had she’d gotten in?! LOL
Most of us ate the AMAZING pancakes that Wendy’s husband had made us and we all started getting ready. I’d been the last to get up (besides Will, who made me look high maintenance, lol) so as I got ready, everyone started packing up Wendy’s van for all six of us and simultaneously looking at the damage that had been done to Sarah’s car in Detroit the night before. By time I’d come out and put my epic bag in the van, they’d patched up her window with a UPS box and heavy duty tape. Did the trick, despite it looking like it wouldn’t.
Wendy, Alex, Bek, myself, and Amanda climbed in the van and left a little after 9, Sarah and Will followed us out in her car. About an hour in, Bek dozed off with her Pringles in her lap. From the corner of my eye, I saw movement, and saw as the open can tipped. But it all happened in slow motion and I barely caught any as I panicked and was all “BEK BEK BEK!!” She took her merry time waking up and turning over to see what I wanted. When she did, she looked at what I had in my hand (a ton of fucking chips) and what was on the ground and was all “WTF”. I have no idea what went through her mind but I said, “Hey Bek. You’re chips tipped over. A little.” Everyone saw the muthafuckin’ mess that Bek had made and we were like, SHIT and laughed at the same time. Wendy was cool with it, though and Bek tried cleaning them up, while salvaging what was in my hand and transplanting them to her mouth, lol. We stopped at a truck stop in (around?) Buffalo, NY to meet Tracy, who was joining us to Toronto. Bek tried cleaning up her chip fiasco a bit as we waited for Tracy.
While we were all stretching our legs and getting food, drinks, etc, Bek had made a sassy little comment along the lines of “Let’s have sex” (or something, but delivered much better) and I told her, “Not here. A parking lot isn’t classy.”
Some random dude walking by with his dog butted in and said “Its a truck stop, so it doesn’t count!” and kept walking… We all waited til he rounded the corner of the building and burst out laughing. Me and Bek were just creeped out!
Did he make truck stop lovin’ a regular occurrence? OMG.
Right before we left, we had window markers and wrote the glyphs and triad on the back windows. We also got the idea to write “Echelon Tour Bus” on the side (that I sat on, left) in bright white. Now it was official lol.
We all (except Wendy and Alex) seemed to doze in and out until we got to the US/Canadian border and waiting in a surprisingly long line to cross in. As we waited, we collected all our passports and speculated on whether or not they would make it hard because of Bek. As we waited in the traffic, everyone around us stared at the glyphs, triad and “Echelon Tour Bus” that we’d written. Yes, Canadians and Americans, bask in the glory of the Echelon.
We didn’t have too much trouble, but we had to pull over so both Bek and Tracy could go in and talk to official people. It took under ten minutes though and we were back on the road. Bek snapped pics of everything the second she noticed things like roadsigns had the Queen’s crown on it and that things were in the Metric System. She hadn’t realized that Canada was like the rest of the world (no, its only America that has to be different…) and she was very excited.
We dropped Alex and Tracy at Lily’s (remember her from Detroit?) house (which was near our hotel) and then went to the hotel! Dropped our stuff off and did a bit of pre-concert prep and headed out into the crazyyyy traffic of Toronto. (As we drove down the streets and the highway, people would honk as us…. Umm, what? It took us FOREVER to realize that it was because they all must have been MARS fans lol.) It reminded me of the bumper to bumper impoliteness of Chicago, to be honest lol. When we got into the actual city of Toronto, we got hardcore lost, twice. And as we got lost and wandered around, I noticed something.
Canada is a lot cleaner, newer and prettier looking than America. And EVERYONE is out doing things like walking, running, riding bikes, rollerblading, etc. We are such fatasses here in the US lol. We somehow found The Sound Academy at about 3pm-ish and Sarah and Will were already there. Will had somehow gotten her way into VIP again, so she was MIA but Sarah was there with silly string and extras. I got in line and held our place (which looked to be about 80 people down the line) as the others helped a now arrived Lily set up things for HFH and Echelon House.
Someone came up behind me and was all “TASHIA!!” which scared the crap out of me! It turned out to be Kelly (hazeleyemarsfan) who had spotted us and our van as we’d pulled in (who WOULDN’T notice our van? lol). I hugged her and got all excited because I finally got to meet her! She had Maya with her, too which was awesome!! Such a nice girl! We talked for a few minutes but they had to go for the VIP thing and I was left alone til Amanda, Sarah, Bek and the others all filtered in one by one, done with HFH stuff.
Venue workers came through the line, checking bags and pockets and stuff. I was carrying two water bottles with me, but thankfully they weren’t taken. I think my tampons and stuff stopped them from inquiring further LOL. A few minutes later, people came through the line again and gave wristbands to people who were over 19 (drinking age in Canada) but wouldn’t give me one. WTF? Their reason? My ID could be fake.
FUCK YOU CANADA. I’M MOTHERFUCKING 21 AND I DON’T WANT TO DRINK ANYWAY.
I got real stressed out about that because the under age people were supposedly separated from the over age ones. I was trying to come up with clever ways to bypass this Canadian bullshit as the line moved in and was slowly let in. Right before we got inside the venue. Some dumbfuck got another dumbfuck pissed off and he got his lights knocked out, bloody nose included and he had to be dragged aside.
Got inside and me and Bek somehow got a tiny bit separated from everyone (I do not know how. Maybe the extra set of security inside the doors?) and I was able to magic my way in the over age area. We got right by the barrier Tomo’s side again and lo and behold, right on the barrier, in front of us is Kelly!!!! We talked and stuff and while we waited, Wendy and the others found us and were right behind us.
Now, for the show (finally, right? Bet you’re tired of this bullshit extra stuff lol)!
NEON TREES TIME!!
I was able to record this night! THANK YOU CANADA!! And once more, opening song was Love and Affection, after recording the crowd with his little Flip. I could feel, as their opening song went on, that this was going to be a hard crowd for them. Bek and I both agreed that we had to do some serious singing along and yell loud for them. Neon Trees was the only opening band for MARS so this was going to be the last time they’d have a long set and we ate it up!
I was able to record Animal and Tyler recognized us immediately because we were the only people singing and cheering so hard for them! He kept pointing to us and came over to our side in the crowd and everything!
The band had a really hard go with the crowd, who only warmed up for the last song, but even then, it was nothing like it had been in Chicago or Detroit. I was glad both Bek and I had given them as much love as we could without annoying Kelly in front of us. Kelly LOVED Neon Trees by time they played Sins of My Youth, which I was so happy about!
So, then the White Curtain dropped and we all had to endure the typical wait…. The looonnggg wait.
I asked Wendy and the others what they thought of Neon Trees, since they’d never heard them before, and they liked them too! Yay!!
Right before MARS came on, the venue people came on a mic and said that the show would be specially filmed and that if anyone had a problem with being in the film, especially those who were in the font, they’d have to leave or go to the very back of the venue. No one near me left. I mean, who in their right mind would?
IT’S TIME FOR MARS
So it went the usual Escape, Night of the Hunter, Attack, Vox Populi, A Beautiful Lie, From Yesterday (or some variant order of those last three) without much happening besides some extra talking from Jared. And you could totally tell in just that first half hour that Jared was playing the part for the film crew that was there. He was going all out in his acting on stage and trying to be funny.
Shannon was right in front of us, just a tad to the right for L490 which it was awesome to be so close to just him and Tomo and Tim playing together. And then Jared did his magic trick where he goes to the other side of the venue. He did a LOT of talking over there and almost did Oblivion again and talked a lot about how those who liked the Self-Titled were fucking weird. SHUT UP YOU ASSHOLE. ITS A GREAT ALBUM. ITS YOUR ALBUM.
Caught him singing Echelon and Capricorn (A Brand New Name) acoustically and at some point in the night, he talked about socks for some weird ass reason. And then of course he did The Kill half acoustic, half full band. Right before Jared started on The Kill, I’d been trying to have a weird hand-sign-language-convo with Tomo, he was coming back in stage to get ready for Jared’s return. Was pretty funny, because I pointed to the flag and he’d given me a thumbs up and a goofy smile.
More talking, then songs like Search and Destroy, Closer To The Edge, The Fantasy and of course, Kings and Queens. For the dreaded part of people trying to crowd surf and get on stage, I got knocked in the head really bad by Lily’s sister. It knocked on my cartilage piercing weird and made it bleed, but not bad enough to where I hadn’t noticed til we got back that night. (Unfortunately, it did make it infected for about a week.) Again, almost got on stage but was shoved back into the pit by the security. WHAT THE HELL? I KNOW I’M FAT BUT I DON’T NEED YOUR FUCKING HELP. CHILL.
Right before Kings and Queens ended, I had to get out of the pit. For some reason, I’d gotten really hot. Air in the venue was great. It was kept a nice temperature the whole time and the venue had security hand out FREE WATER to anyone who signaled for it!!! (I LOVE YOU AGAIN, CANADA!) Anyway, I got hot and made my way somehow out (it was really hard in the crush of Canadian people!) and found Wendy, who had to get out around the time of the acoustic set. We watched the last song from the side and waited as Bek and the others made their way out.
While they all went to find the bathrooms and stuff, Bek and I went to go buy stuff so we could get in line. They wouldn’t take Bek’s credit card, so let her hold one of my posters that I’d bought so she could get in line. As we fought to get through and find the end of the signing line, we realized that Canadians needed to either shower more or use better deodorant because it stunk sooooo fucking bad, lol.
The line for some stupid reason went OUTSIDE in like, 35 degree weather (don’t ask me what it was in Canadian/Metric/Celsius, please) and the venue was right next to the lake, so that made it colder. Took ages and while in line, found Wendy and the others who just waited for the very end of the line. We were almost at the end, but we didn’t really wanna wait that long because of how cold it really was. Shannon and Tomo didn’t really talk… But Bek…good ol’ Bek got something out of Jared.
She asked him, “Do you know if Neon Trees is still here?”
He gave her a really weird look and said, “Uh, no…”
And she asked, “Do you know if they’ll stay after in Boston?” (That show was the next one, on Tuesday.)
And he gave her another flabbergasted look, and shifted his eye nervously. Tomo must have picked up on his demeanor because he looked up at us, then Jared like What’s going on? And he answered Bek, “Oh, I don’t know, sorry.”
Bek just shrugged, said thanks, and walked away. I was just as stunned by what had just happened and as soon as Jared signed my ticket, I said thanks and took a few extra steps to catch up to Bek.
As we both walked away, Jared shouted to us, “WE LOVE YOU GUYS!”
I think we bruised the fragile ego of Jared Leto and made him think he was losing Echelon to Neon Trees! LOL
We went outside, ran back into Will, who was all high on MARS concert, like us! She left to go home (or was it a hostel? I actually don’t know where she went!) (she’s from Canada, go figure!) Met others who also noticed how Jared played up the act because of the cameras and who had been to the Detroit show. Besides talking about that night, I didn’t talk too much because of how cold I was in only my shirt (damn my sweater for being in the Echelon Tour Bus!). The others had just come out as we found someone handing out small Neon Trees posters by the entrance (SCORE!!) and we wandered around finding everyone before all climbing into the ‘Bus’ and driving to Lily’s to drop off Tracy and Amanda and Alex again.
Went to the hotel and Sarah took a quick shower, and I followed suit. I smelt horrible from the crowd and couldn’t take it! Wendy and Bek couldn’t believe we weren’t too tired to do it, but I wouldn’t have been able to sleep with the smell. Sorry Canada. I’ll send you guys some Dove deodorant or something. USE IT PLEASE.
Fell into bed after 1am (not sure what the exact time was, but I know it was after midnight) and passed out almost immediately.
Now, this is only the end of MARS on the Lake, but more Toronto adventures are coming next time!
Amanda and I both woke up about 6am, but decided to go back to bed that next morning…. You can’t really blame us. Bek was still out like a light, Phina didn’t even have to be up and we had time before we had to be in Detroit. We ended up going back to bed til about 8ish and started getting ready.
We packed up Amanda’s car and delayed leaving just because we didn’t want to leave Seraphina. I wanted to steal her and pack her in the trunk…but I didn’t think her mom would have liked that. So we left about 9am and drove through terrible Chicago traffic and hit the highway.
After about two hours, we were in Michigan and stopped at my house. Bek, for some god awful reason, wanted to see my house and family. We stopped at my local McDonalds for lunch, then drove out east for Detroit. The more we drove, the more we could see that the weather was going to be shit. It kept getting cloudier and colder, which didn’t bode well for the many hours we were going to have to spend in line outside.
Erin and Jaz had made it about an hour and a half, two hours before us and again, were right at the front of the line, just behind a few other people. We got into Ghettoville—I mean Detroit—about 2pm and joined Erin and Jaz for the long wait. Standing in the cold wasn’t bad…for the first 30 minutes. Bek was amazed at how trashy and scary Detroit looked, but the rest of us expected it since D-town is sort of the butt of all jokes when it comes to that kind of stuff.
We quickly realized that the weather was going to be just like the night before at the buses, but worse. It felt like it was January all over again, sans snow. Group huddles and accidental (yeah, right) touches and such were common. Despite freezing random body parts off in those five and a half hours, we were all high spirits and kept joking and talking the whole time.
We met back up with Angela, who we’d briefly met in Chicago (it was a name from Twitter I’d recognized but didn’t know until Phina had introduced us) and she kept conversation going and…interesting. To say the least.
Will had also come, which was great! She’d magicked her way on a Greyhound and made it just in time to wait in the cold for 3 hours, lol.
At one point while waiting, we had a bum come up and down the line, asking for cash and when you wouldn’t give him anything, he’d yell at you and call you all sorts of names and such. Was entertaining when security made him shuffle along… And again when he came around a second time.
By time we were let into the venue, I couldn’t feel my fingers, which was just fantastic. Not. As we went in, I saw signed that said that MuteMath wouldn’t be there “because of weather” and such. Umm, its April. Even though its like, 20 degrees, its not snowing. That was obviously a lie. Especially because I knew from the start of the US tour that they wouldn’t be there. They were at Coachella that whole weekend. This meant it was just Neon Trees and MARS, which got me all excited.
We ran to the floor and got right on the barrier on Tomo’s side. It was the perfect barrier spot too because it was right at the end and had a security guard who wasn’t letting any one else get in front of us or smash us up bad. I looked around as we were waiting for the venue to fill and knew immediately that Seraphina and Lilly should have come to this show because the venue was much smaller and looked like it was going to be easier for the security to control. SCORE!
We ran into Sarah, who had made it finally (again!) and Lily, who was from Canada and the head of The Echelon House (the Echelon who work with Habitat For Humanity) and I had two more people from Twitter recognize me and say hello.
The lights went out and we saw that the venue/tour people had organized a local band to play a super small set. I think their name was The No Name Band…? Okay…. They were pretty good. They reminded me of Nickelback and Chevelle (I think) which was a weird combo but they sounded good.
Then because the local band’s set was so short it obviously meant Neon Trees was going to have a nice, long set before MARS came on!! Woo!
Neon Trees time!
Once more, Tyler ran on stage after his bandmates and recorded the crowd with his Flip camcorder and went right to his keyboards so they could give the crowd some Love and Affection. I immediately went to record some footage but security stopped me and told me they’d kick me out if I did it again. It was my “only warning”. Uh, what the fuck, you ass?
The band ended up playing what sounded like their ENTIRE ALBUM and I wasn’t able to record any of it, which made me want to cry. I got some nice shots for pictures, but it cut me up I wasn’t able to record anything!
Tyler showed our side some extra love when he realized we were some of the only people singing along and doing the crowd parts that he has us do, which was great. I am pretty sure he recognized us… We have those kind of faces, LOL.
He came down to the crowd for a bit, all across the front, and hopped back on stage to use a mic stand as a stand in for his junk. Great times.
Crowd loved them by time their set was done, which was great! I know Bek and I were already in love with them at this point. When they did Sins of My Youth, the crowd ate it up, despite not playing along correctly with the part they were supposed to sing. But that’s okay. Our group did just fine, haha.
We started the wait then, for MARS. The White Curtain came down and we were so close to the stage we were able to touch the curtain and see right through it to the roadies and people setting up for the band. We saw immediately that the flag we’d handed to Tomo had not only made it to the stage and his keyboards in Chicago, but was also flying high at The Fillmore as well! ANOTHER SCORE!
MARS time!
Lights went out, a single spotlight shown on the curtain as Jared started what is now their usual opening song, Escape. His vocals led us all to sing along (while others screamed and cheered them on) and the crowd lost their shit when the curtain fell and Night of the Hunter started. This crowd was obviously much better behaved than Chicago, despite it being Detroit (which should explain things, but color me shocked!) Attack thankfully wasn’t stopped this time and we went straight into Vox Populi and From Yesterday, which was obviously another one that Detroit LOVED to hear.
The show went so fucking well. Much better and more fun than Chicago. The crowd, while being rough because of course its a mosh pit, had manners and knew when to let people out and to not knock people breathless. The venue had great air circulation and was serving water (though obviously over priced), which made the pit experience much more manageable to handle.
Jared coming into the crowd after his acoustic set was comical. It took him ages to get through because the fangirls did not want to let him go. Once again, he ended the acoustic with The Kill and it launched into full band during his trek back to the stage.
Funny thing was though, before the acoustic set, somewhere near the beginning of the show, the band had done The Kill already, full band and all. I was a little thrown when I realized this, but I don’t think anyone else did til the end of the show. (If I’m confusing this with Chicago or Toronto, I apologize. That first weekend kind of blended together.)
Show ended with more awesome. Almost got one stage again, but the same asshole security guy wouldn’t let me. He let Erin go, which was sweet! I totally knew why he wouldn’t let me. And I wish I could prove it. Fuckin’ jerk. But I was glad Erin got up! :)
Crowd dispersed and we went and walked around. I bought more merch and found the signing line, which started right where we’d been standing during the show! LOL Got in line and the others found me there and joined me. The line went all the way out to the lobby and up these fancy stairs. As we approached the table and it was our turns, the drunk guy and his girlfriend were at the bottom of the steps, shouting up at Jared. They’d apparently gotten kicked out of the line because they didn’t have merch to be signed. But they’d caught Shannon’s drum stick that he’d thrown in the crowd and wanted that signed.
Drunk Guy: “Jared Leeto! Come down here! Come down and face me! Why won’t you sign this, Leeto!”
I looked at Shannon, who shook his head and Tomo looked and me and leaned back and said, “Ah my hometown. Its Detroit, yeah?” And I nodded and agreed. Michigan people are nuts (me being one of them, I’m allowed to say this.)
Jared stood up and tried telling the guy to come up and talk with him, but security wouldn’t let him up. Signing line commenced after a few minutes when the drunks had been toted out. Tomo recognized me but didn’t say as much as yesterday. Shannon was quiet too, but looked at me and smiled when he saw that I’d brought my Self-Titled to be signed along with my ticket. Jared gave me a funny look when he saw what he was signing, which I don’t know how to interpret.
We went out the venue and decided to go out to the buses which were right by where we parked. We waited for ever and never really saw anyone. But at one point, the back door opened and a group of maybe 7-10 girls came out…. Um…. Can you say groupie/hookers? Yeah. Grotesquely skinny in colorful spandex pants and animal print shirts and jackets. Klassy.
We hung out a bit more and Shannon eventually came out. He chatted for a few minutes and I was able to call him over and showed him my tattoo. Unfortunately, I didn’t really get a reaction out of him. Even a fake one would have satisfied my radar. But he read it out loud and was like “Huh…” and looked at me… I quickly withdrew my arm from his sight and we kept eye contact as he backed up and started paying more attention to the mob. I have no idea what happened in those 15 seconds. But it kind of left me hollow.
Jared came out and said he wasn’t really gonna talk. He whispered that it was great seeing us and he had to go rest his voice and went on the bus. We never saw Tomo, mainly because before we could wait around more, a cop car came directly to our group and yelled hardcore at us and told us to leave before they arrested us… Don’t arrest me! I’m a lil girl from wine country!!
We (Amanda, Bek and I) went to the car and found our route on the GPS and as we settled in for a drive and left Detroit, Sarah text Bek and told us that her car, which was two blocks down, had gotten broken into and trashed! Nothing had been stolen, but she said they fucked up all her MARS cds and stuff and wrecked her right front window. She told us she’d meet us in Cleveland in the morning, which was where we were headed that night.
We drove straight from the venue to the highway and headed for Cleveland to meet up with Alex and Wendy (who we knew from the December show in Cleveland). On the drive, we talked about the show and what had happened and been seen at the buses. Everyone in our group saw how Shannon had reacted to my tattoo and they’d been unsettled about it. I was, and still am, just confused about it. I fell asleep and woke up just as we pulled off the highway in Cleveland and we all left everything in Amanda’s car and went straight into Wendy’s house and crashed on the sofas, floors, whatever space there was for a few more hours before having to get up later and the long drive to Canada. Sarah had thankfully come a few hours later and was able to rest a bit as well.
That’s all for Ghettoville Adventures!
Next is Toronto!
I took the train to Chicago early Thursday morning and was met my Erin and Jazmyn, and Seraphina a few minutes later! We headed out and took our merry time to Erin and Jaz’s hostile in Greek Town. We dumped my stuff in their room and chilled there for a bit as we figured out what we wanted to do.
We decided to go walk around like tourists and went up the Sears Tower then walked around sight-seeing and decided to paint Chicago in MARS stickers and do some promo for the show the next day. It was all recorded by Erin and it was Seraphina and Jaz who did the dirty work. I played the part of promo dealer.
Most memorable parts of our promo afternoon:
- A guy letting us cover him in MARS stickers in exchange for buying one of his post cards he was selling. He asked what they were for and we told him about the show. He and his friend sounded interested! (score!)
- A homeless guy letting Phina put stickers on him (it sounds horrible, but he didn’t mind lol)
- Jaz chasing after pigeons and trying to put MARS stickers on them!
Our time ended with us grabbing late lunch together then Seraphina and I left Erin and Jaz and hooked up with Lilly, Seraphina’s close friend. We drove around with her and her mom to her house, where we made plans for Bek and Amanda, who were driving in from Pennsylvania and New Jersey (respectively), and where we were all going to sleep. Lilly’s mom offered to put us in a decent motel for the night, where we all stayed.
Here, we discovered Bek’s love of white noise and letting the rest of us freeze our asses off and that Seraphina could fit into a TV cupboard.
Some other interesting stuff happened, but that’s a little on the private side. Needless to say, though, it was awesome.
The next morning, after we tried to unthaw, get over the stained sheets, and the middle of the night excitement, we got ready and headed over to The Aragon Ballroom, where the show was, where we also met up once more with Erin and Jaz. It was about 11am, but to our surprise, there were only 5 other people outside our group of friends there! (Was it just because it was a Friday and a school day?)
We got in line with Erin and Jaz, who were the second group of people in line. While we were in line, we snapped some pics, met an awesome person by the name of Will (who shall be mentioned again, never fear!) and just hung out…. For a LONG time. The doors weren’t set to open until 6pm, so we had someone of a long time to go. We basically stood, sat, moved around, and took a lot of bathroom breaks in those 7 hours.
Highlights:
- A pigeon pooped dead center on Erin’s boobs. I gather this was revenge for the pigeons Jaz chased the day before.
- Secret, exciting things!
- Bek and Seraphina, and CO went and bought a Chicken Chucker (I kept calling it a Chicken Choker) and stuff and put it with books and a Croation flag Jaz had brought and gave them to Tomo when we spotted him outside the venue.
- Seeing Shannon drive by in an SUV the same time my head is in Seraphina’s boobs.
Branden and Tyler (Neon Trees) walking past everyone and no one but me noticing the first time, then the second time coming back, me shouting to them and them saying hi back! :)
- Someone offering our group a free ticket to VIP and us all letting Will go because she wasn’t in a group! Was so glad she got to go!
Doors opened at 6 and we all started to filter in, I stopped at the Faces of Mars booth and got my picture taken! Very quick process. But I lost the group! (Oh noez!) Found them over on Shannon’s side of the stage (stage left, by Tim) and we were all about 3 people back from the barrier. We did our best to cement our places, which were really good and talked and all that. Had someone from Tumblr find me and we talked for a bit! How random is it that people online recognize me so easily? (I found out later that this was going to be the norm for all the shows.)
Lights went out and up first was Neon Trees.
I had downloaded their new album Habits the week it had come out, about a month before the show, and liked it a lot. I didn’t think I’d put them in my Top 10 of favorite bands, but of course, I was so wrong. They started out the show with Tyler (vocals and synth) running out and with a Flip camcorder in hand, he taped the crowd cheering as Branden (bass), Elaine (drums) and Chris (guitar) played the opening to their first song Love and Affection. Before the first chorus, I was in love. Not only with the music (because hearing something recorded and hearing something live are TOTALLY different things) but with the magnetic stage presence that Tyler exuded. Bek and I looked at each other and I could tell that we both thought the same thing.
Anyone could tell just by how he’d hump the amps or the floor that he liked using sexual innuendos and hypnotic movements to draw the crowd in along with his never ending energy to run around the stage to get the crowd pumped—which worked!
The band also played 1983, Animal (their current single), Calling My Name (from their EP Start A Fire), and several others before closing with Sins of My Youth, and handing the stage to the next band.
Needless to say, our whole group fell in love with Neon Trees. This show was the roots to our soon to be love affair with this band from Provo, Utah. We were given a musical high with them on stage and the buzz lasted as we waited for MuteMath to set up and impress us and show us just why they were a Grammy-nominated band.
MuteMath now had their chance. Darren King, their drummer, ran out first to his kit and proceeded to tape his headphones to his head. Uhh yeah, he’s hardcore. Next came Roy Mitchell-Cárdenas and Greg Hill, the bassist and guitarist, and then came Paul Meany with his keytar and vocals.
They started their set with a song that was fast enough to get the crowd going if they didn’t know the song and familiar enough to all the fans who did know their stuff. Most people in our group didn’t know MuteMath that well but I’ve known about them for a few years now thanks to a friend that I worked with and his love of them.
They impressed us all with their collective energy, swapping of instruments, and the feats of Paul who decided just dancing wasn’t enough and did back flips over his keyboard several times! This was followed by Darren trashing his kit in the end and throwing his stuff into the audience!
Songs I remember them playing were Spotlight (an obvious choice because its on the Twilight soundtrack), Chaos, Typical, and Break The Same.
Something that’s a bit different for people who are fans of MARS is that this band doesn’t do a ton of interacting with the crowd. They’ll do a bit of chitchat here and there, but they mostly will keep to themselves and do a great show. Darren interacts the most with the crowd, I will say right now. Which is awesome because I haven’t seen too many drummers who do the hyping up and stuff.
MuteMath finished their set and we all talked eagerly about how much we liked them too! And as the roadies cleared away their gear and started setting up for MARS, the White Curtain fell, which caused the crowd to cheer, despite us all knowing there was still time before MARS came on.
As we waited, we talked about how Phina had noticed a figure from stage right’s balcony during Neon Trees and MuteMath, who was backlit by what seemed to be a holy glow (but was more likely the backlight of a certain Leto’s BlackBerry).
“Look, Jesus is watching us!”
It was actually Tomo, but yeah. We waved, he waved back.
The lights dimmed and that’s when we knew it was time…for MARS.
The place went dark and a single spotlight shown on the curtain, the silhouette of Jared was prominent and captured all our eyes as the music started and he started: Time to escape the clutches of a name. No this is not a game….
And as the song continued, more lights lit the curtain and we could see the poised position of Shannon and Tomo, guitar raised high in the sky to the rock gods.
Escape ended and the French woman started the countdown for Shannon to beat at his kit with vigor for Night of the Hunter. Jared whipped around the stage in his spiky costume (a la Lady Gaga) and Tomo was totally immersed in his roll and the music. We the crowd ate up every bit of energy that the song gave off and the show started off well. Unfortunately, it went downhill after there.
After Night of the Hunter, MARS played Attack (a personal favorite forever). During the song near us, a fight broke out between a guy and a girl (and maybe a third person?) and security did their job and went in to stop and and pull the jerks out. But half way through the song as this happened, Jared saw the commotion, stopped the band and it went quiet.
He basically told the security to FUCK OFF, thinking they were trying to stop us from moshing. UM, NO. They were doing their job and keeping us safe. And the crazy thing? SECURITY VANISHED. They were gone quick like Jared’d Houdini’d them out of there! And Jared, being oblivious, told the pit to smash together by taking three steps forward. All of us in the front were immediately molested from the back and those against the barrier had their breath taken out of them from slamming against the bars so hard.
And the insane and asinine part? JARED TOLD THOSE WHO YELLED ‘NO’ TO GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE PIT IF WE COULDN’T HANDLE IT.
Uh, no Leto. I’ve been in crazier pits (Sick Puppies is insane). This was chaos not only thanks to your oblivious hand, it was also the fault of the venue. They REFUSED to serve water to the pit. ONLY BEER. And the air circulation was atrocious. It felt like we were at the muggy Lollapalooza rather than in an indoor venue in April. And of course the security who were not not touching the obvious fights within the pit. Did they fear Jared Leto? I sure hope not. Its like they were afraid he’d eat them.
Jared had the band pick up where they’d left off with Attack and the crowd was from then on out of control. People, thanks to the newly found penchant for roughness, were fainting left and right because of overheating and exhaustion. Girls and guys. And they all had to be pulled out by security and taken to the side.
Our group stuck around but we were all unsure how the rest of the show was going to play out. We were only three songs in for Christ’s sake!
Next were A Beautiful Lie and Vox Populi, which sounded great. Unfortunately, it was near impossible to keep my eyes on stage and enjoy them not only thanks to the crowd, but by then, Seraphina couldn’t take the heat anymore and fainted. We got her taken out of the pit and before the fifth song was done (she later told me as she was taken to the staircase to rest, Paul Meany walked by, saw her, and asked if she was okay and was really worried about her. He’s a super nice guy), Lilly, Bek, and Amanda were out too (they had to have help getting out from the side just because everyone was so jam-packed that it was impossible to get through).
I lasted for the next song, From Yesterday, and by some miracle got it recorded. No thanks to a fanboy behind me trying to either use me as a step ladder or rape me (still not sure). But during the entire song, he kept shouting “Rockstar was your first dream!” to Jared every time he came to our side of the stage and was punching me in the back of the head continuously. By time the song was done, I had to get out before the guy gave me a concussion and I passed out in the middle of an insane pit from the fucker. So I left and immediately went to find Phina.
I found her on the steps and we headed for the balcony where it was cooler. We watched part of the show, Shannon’s performance of L490 and Jared’s acoustic. He started to sing the first two lines of Oblivion before telling the people who were asking for it to FUCK OFF.
WHAT THE HELL, LETO. SOME OF US WHO HAVE BEEN AROUND FOR AGES WOULD LIKE TO HEAR SOME SELF-TITLED. I DON’T CARE IF YOU’RE ASHAMED OF IT.
I felt so bad that Phina was missing L490 from the floor because I knew she’d been so excited to see that one. I tried recording some of it from the balcony and still have the video, but its such odd quality because of how far away we were….
Jared finished his acoustic with The Kill, which soon became full band and he used that opportunity to go through the crowd and get back to the stage.
Phina asked me to find Lilly, which I was able to do down on the side on the floor. I told her where Phina was and she went to find her as I looked for Bek, who I found getting water. We all went to the balcony and watched a bit of the show before going back downstairs and finding Amanda and getting in the queue for Kings and Queens. As The Fantasy played, Erin and Jaz found us and we prepared to go on stage for Church of Mars.
We got on stage as Jared did his usual talking. Lilly and Seraphina got near the front, by Shannon, Amanda in the middle same side, Erin and Jaz were just in front of Bek closer to the center stage, and Bek and I were right in back right next to Shannon.
When the song was done, we were promptly ushered off stage by the stage hands in white lab coats and bow ties. By time we got off stage, the majority of the floor was clear and we all were able to congregate and we ran into our friend Sarah, who had gotten to the show just as doors opened and had driven from Kentucky!
We went to the merch table to check out the wears and bought some shirts. We decided to get into the signing line (me, Bek and Sarah) after taking for ever to decide but by time we went to get in line, security said no more people! We started walking away, dejected when I said, FUCK THAT. I told Bek and Sarah to melt into the line with me.
With 10 seconds of quick thinking, we’d successfully melted into the mob called a line and cut more than 100 people!
We got to the table and here is what is hilarious.
I say to Shannon: “Hey man! Great show! We’ll be seeing you all weekend and next week!”
Shannon: “Love it!”
L.O.L.
If I’d said “I enjoy eating babies and killing kittens” would he have had the same response?
Tomo picked up on the fact I wanted a conversation and said: “You’re coming to my hometown show in Detroit?!”
Me: “Hell yeah! My hometown show too!”
Tomo: “Heck yeah!” and a high five.
I was so irritated at Jared and his cuntfuckery at the top of the show that I didn’t say anything to him. He looked at me with a generic, dopey grin and as he signed my ticket I said “Thank you” politely and walked away. Bek did the same and I don’t know about Sarah…I know she talked to Tomo, though, lol.
We rejoined the others by the doors and talked about if we wanted to go out to the buses, which we ended up doing. We froze our non-existent balls off (yeah, thanks midwest April weather) and saw Tomo and Tim run to a waiting SUV to take them immediately to Detroit (and I don’t blame them since Tomo got to go home!)
We waited a bit more but no one came so we decided to leave . We found out later that five minutes after we’d walked away, Shannon came out and chatted a bit. GODDAMNIT.
We split with Erin and Jaz, who were going back to their hostel, and Sarah who was going to another band’s party then her hotel, and were picked up by Lilly’s mom. When she asked us how the show went, the poor woman was bombarded with tales of why it sucked. We made sure to tell her about how the bands were great, but it was the crowd that had sucked so bad.
We were dropped off at Phina’s house and told Phina’s mom the same tale as she fed us—YOU ARE AMAZING FOR FEEDING US THANK YOU—because we hadn’t eaten all day thanks to being in line.
We went to bed at about 2am to get ready for the trip to Detroit.
And thus ends the tale of Chicago adventures and the Aragon Brawlroom.
my concert blog. I’m going to write about all of them. Including the past ones.
I’ve written about a few in my other blog and I’ll copy those on here. But I need to catch up because I have four more next week. And roughly 15 others to write about.
Fuck.