saturday

[phineasjones]

panic at the disco in wallingford, connecticut. plus getting there and such. no pics of the concert. i didn't bring the camera - figuring i'd see them at least once without worrying about pictures and such.


getting there
despite being completely wiped from the night before, we managed to get up and out of the hotel in reasonable time. jjtaylor was up at some insane hour like 8 am. she took at train back to boston. the rest of us hopped in inkjunket's car and headed over to her sister's dorm. there we split with wildgreentide and fuschia who took a train to CT. ink and her sister and i had an awesomely awesome lunch at red bamboo - possibly my favorite restaurant ever. observe -


soy chicken satay


collard green spring rolls


ink and i enjoying the yummies


a lovely fortune

and then we helped ink's sister move her stuff from her dorm room to the car - surprisingly easy - and headed off for connecticut.



another delightfully uneventful drive. i made myself sick by journaling about the mcr concert. i knew it would make me motion sick, but i couldn't resist the urge to write some things down. and we made it to wallingford without event.

wallingford
wgt and fuschia arrived before us and i met them in the vip line. this was good because it meant zack came out to check tickets and such. so we got to see him running around being srs bznz. but the vip thing was pretty much a sham. they let the vip line in and there was some confusion about where we were supposed to go and what we were doing. we ended up forming lines to get the wristbands for the pit. and then, while we were still in those lines, they opened the main doors. yeah. whatever.

we were all feeling really low-key about this concert. so we staked out spots at the back of the (quite small) pit where we could lean against the barriers and sit down when we felt like it. and, you know, hang out with all the parents. the venue was all shiny and new and pretty nice. the floor of the pit was sloped so pretty much anywhere you stood, you could have a decent view. i was pleased with ours - ryan's side-ish, which means spencer's side too. and since we weren't trying to mash up to the front, we had another comfortable concert-viewing experience. complete with AC so powerful it was almost too much.

pre-concert (and zack)
we spent a whole lot of time watching the screen and reading the texts, which tended more and more toward "scream if you _____" as the night went on. we all tried to text a few things, but none of them made it up. not while we were looking anyway. the very best texting moment was before panic came on, when zack was out on the stage duct-taping shit down. someone texted "scream if you think ryan ross is cute!" and zack went \o/! and omg, we died. but mostly we saw more than our fair share of videos and messages about how much honda civic and panic at the disco care about the environment. none of which were quite as bad as the actual honda ad that played right before panic came on. as if i needed more of a reminded after seeing the nokia that green gentleman video that these boys are corporate pwned.

doug
doug came out early and played 3 songs (dance, dance; we intertwined [for which he was briefly joined by bob morris]; and but it's better if you do). i hadn't heard doug before and i was in just the right mellow mood for him. good fun.

phantom planet
phantom planet was up first and they were really fun. i enjoyed them, but inkjunket loved them. which was fun to see. :) i don't know their stuff at all (except for the one song we all know and love, thank you, OC - which, haha, they had to point out that they wrote in their intro). but i enjoyed their antics - getting the crowd to do some um, demon-esque chanting. (more on that later - i caught the boston version on video.) and 'do the panic' was especially fun. when the singer climbed up and stood on the drum, fuschia and i (and probably a whole bunch of others) had frank flashbacks. but no, he didn't fall over onto anything.

also, i might not have given phantom planet my full attention bc... hi. spencer smith was watching them from the side of the stage. and i was supposed to look where? SPENCER SMITH!

the hush sound
next up was the hush sound! they were GREAT. really, i don't know if everyone else was having as much fun as i was, but i loved their set. EXCEPT for how it was really short and they didn't play enough new stuff. here's what i remember (and i don't really know 'like vines' yet, so i probably have holes) -

medicine man
we intertwined
don't wake me up (with added brendon)
wine red
as you cry
a song i don't know the title of
honey

and that's all i can remember. i might be missing something, but it really was short. i was all :( MORE! because i was having a grand old time dancing around and watching greta. she's so awesomely girly. she wasn't wearing a pretty dress that night though, which was a little disappointing. she had on leggings and a greyish shirt-dress kind of thing. the best feature of which was it's low-cutness. fuschia and i approved. also, bob morris is awesome. he was a lot of fun to watch and i like his voice even better live. it was also fun to see how much singing chris did, something i hadn't realized. i loved the panic set to come, but i think the hushies set may have been my favorite part of the night. they just made me so happy and i love their music so very much.

motion city soundtrack
next up, motion city soundtrack. eh. i actually have one of their albums but i never really listen to it. i don't dislike them, i'm just not very enthusiastic about them. their stage presence was a little weird. the singer is an endearing nerd. he was wearing a sirius black t-shirt and talked about it at one point. and about how he was trying to get his hair to look like gary oldman's. it was all cute and funny in a nerdy way but the teenagers in the audience were all "....? where is ryan ross?" he also had some prolonged trouble changing the height of his mic and... idk. he was a nerd. it was cute. but the keyboardist seemed to think he was in a different band altogether. he had a lock of rocker-long hair that he flipped all over the place as he tilted his keyboard around and basically seemed to attempt to single-handedly make their stage show rock out in some crazy way. which also didn't seem to fit the music.

and there was one point when the singer stopped and tried to read some signs that were in the audience. we all looked on curiously as he finally made out, "man.... soup? soup man? what is that? i don't know what that is." and the internet hid their faces in embarrassment for those girls.

and then! panic!


panic at the disco
ok, the first and most important thing about panic in CT or anywhere: SPENCER FUCKING SMITH. omg, people. it was hard to see or even hear anything else. SPENCER'S AWESOME IS MESMERIZING. he has a special way of doing his drumming thing that is EXTRA PRETTY and... and... IDEK! SPENCER! srsly. i flailed. and squeaked. and did other embarrassing things. just, watching him do his crazy, flaily-armed thing, all the while smiling like a crazy (but beautiful) person... whew. it just about did me in.

whew. now that that's out of the way. how about a vaguely recalled setlist?

we're so starving
nine in the afternoon
i constantly thank god for esteban
lying is the most fun...
i write sins not tragedies
pas de cheval
time to dance
there's a good reason
camisado
martyrdom and suicide
that green gentleman
she's a handsome woman
folkin' around
northern downpour
behind the sea
mad as rabbits

i wasn't sure how i felt at this concert about their new takes on their old stuff. the new panic and the old panic... i'm not sure they mix so well. i totally support their new, happy, hey-man-whatever songs and performances, but that applied to their old, frantic, driven songs... it's weird. i liked it better in boston the next night, so maybe they just had to grow on me? but i'm still not sure how i feel. brendon's solo guitar version of time to dance is an exception, though. that was just awesome. but we all know how i feel about brendon and his guitar. :)

so. aside from SPENCER SMITH. there was...

jon. being barefoot. inviting the audience over to his house for hot dogs and hamburgers. ok, jon. ok.

spencer (whoops, did i go back to spencer?) having a mic! and talking! jon said something like now that he has a mic, he's unstoppable! i can only hope. he introduced behind the sea, by his friend, ryan ross. *__*

i'm sure you've all heard about the bracelet thing by now, right? how someone threw one on stage and then more people did. and then brendon said, 'if you have bracelets, keep throwing them up to me.' and... everyone there seemed to be wearing a bracelet. and everyone threw one. brendon was madly collecting them, then SPENCER came down and helped. and eric too. and then brendon started singing a song about bracelets and ryan and jon picked it up. and it was just frickin adorable. there's video. i particularly love in that video how into the security guy is. cute.

ok, ryan? was not was i expected. he was a skinny little ball of happy. and he did most of the front-man work, chatting up the audience, walking forward and playing to them. he also did a whole lot of initiating of playing with brendon, sharing his mic, getting all in his space. he was all sweetness and happiness. it was kind of crazy.

to intro folkin' around, jon talked about how ryan had just got this tambourine three weeks ago and he was kind of obsessed with it and thank god they had a song for him to play it on. so, hi, i also LOVED this song, obvsly. brendon on solo guitar with his friends bopping along. and now with added harmony from jon and ryan. schweet. at some point a little later on, brendon put the tambourine on his head. dork! <3 and then took it off and threw it offstage - to zack, no doubt.

they did some drinking during the show. jon had a glass of wine when they came out and then shortly after that had a beer. and brendon had a corono toward the end. no comment, really, just what i saw.

there were also a whole bunch of times when ryan went back and played to/chatted with spencer. they are the beffies of my HEART.

ok, and also? brendon is just adorable. the little, puppy-like head-shake thing he does? could that be any cuter? i did notice, and it have me pause, that he often does that when ryan comes up and plays in his space. hmmmm. but brendon. for real. you are 1. the cutest thing ever and 2. so very talented. i heart you.

to intro their "encores" there was this odd little exchange between ryan and jon (as most of the stage banter was) where jon said, 'as ryan ross always says" and ryan said, "if we have time, you have time." and we all kind of looked at each other like ??? the next night would reveal that he meant - or usually says - "if you have time, we have time" which makes a whole lot more sense.

oh! and! they had shane come out and take a picture of the audience! wtf, second night in a row to be in a photographed audience. weird. but fun! and shane!

overall, a great show. they were mellow yet high-energy and oh, so happy. it would be really hard to watch that set and not get some of the happy on you. which is another reason their earlier songs seem kind of weird and out of place. i mean, it's probably a relief to them that they can now actually do a whole show with all their own music. two whole albums to pick from. but it has to be kind of a bummer that those two albums are so disjunct. and i assume that's part of why they're try to play the old stuff more like the new stuff. i have further musings on this - about how young they were when they made fever and how i wonder if they regret that and how i wonder whether pete wentz's penchant for signing really young bands is really good for them all in the end. but that's for another post. this one ends with panic! yay!

i'll be back with a post about boston and the meet and greet. and more pictures - including a bunch of shane (me? stalker? what?) and videos.

for now...

SPENCER SMITH!