Hey, so, I haven't been blogging much because my laptop's down, but I'm borrowing one just for this occasion. Because this is an important occasion, an occasion of all occasions. The night of all nights. The night when Protomen played their CD release show, for Act II: The Father of Death (which I, being the loyal/impatient fan that I am, bought at midnight on September 8th. Oh yes I did). If you don't have it, you should pick it up either on iTunes if you're lazy like me, or on either Amazon or Zambooie, both I believe, it is possible to order the hard copy (which is recommended because it comes with a pamphlet of lyrics/storyline that's vital to you understanding what's going on). Because, as previously explained, the Protomen do a face-melting rock opera that has a real, heartfelt story to it. And you want to hear the story, I promise.
Oh, my dears. What to say, what to say.
It started out with the long trek to Maryville College. Thank you, Debra, for understanding my pain and longing for this show enough to drive me there. There I met 4 men and 1 woman, all dedicated to the cause of making it to the show (the occasion of all occasions, night of all nights, etc etc etc). They were kind people, by the names of Bryan, JP, Mikey, Vinny, and Bunny, and they took me under their wings (or in JP's car, whatever, same thing) and swept me away to Nashville. It was a 3 hour ride, only uncomfortable in that someone always ended up in someone else's lap, because there were 4 people in the backseat. BUT THAT DID NOT DETER US. There were other soldiers hailing from much further places, like Arizona and Detroit and Colorado.. There was no need to complain of conditions when we compared it to their struggles.
Upon checking into the hotel, where several other groups of soldiers were also lodging, Bryan and I departed to meet the forum people for dinner at Wild Wasabi, where they lied to me about a dynamite roll and made me sad. But no matter, because we were in good company, and the people at our table ended up being our group for the night. Or as I will forever call them, my Protofamily.
After dinner was a confusing mash-up of things, but mostly we just hung out in the hotel until it was time to depart. And depart we did. Depart by foot, because everyone who could drive was drinking, and that was just the logical thing to do. Except that it was raining. So I will say for myself that I looked like a hot mess by the time we got there, and perhaps I was not alone, because the line was massive, full of dedicated fans, all standing outside in a fine drizzle. I should have taken a picture of the line, but I'm an idiot. These things do happen. We did ask a random person to take a picture of us, though.
Not sure how my dress ended up on sideways but.. Once again, these things do happen. But in all seriousness, the people I met that night were some of the coolest people I've ever spent time with. We came together for a love of one pretty awesome band, but just in general they're great people. Half the fun I had that night was just due to the crowd; Once inside, packed in with 500 superprotofans, the percentage of douchebaggery was surprisingly low. It made my night being able to have tons of pleasant interaction with strangers I know I could totally be best friends with, if they hadn't traveled to middle Tennessee from all over the country. I bought an armful of merch and one sweet fellow by the name of Bader offered to let me leave it in his car during the show. When we squeezed up into the crowd in front of the stage, one guy had a nice laugh with us about how
drunk-ass Ama kept accidentally rubbing up on him. Once I worked my way to the front, all the moshing and pushing and squeezing made me uncomfortably close friends with a LOT of strangers. I had some funny exchanges with the guys around me, and also some apologies for the roughness of the crowd. And I loved every second of it. I loved dancing with strangers, I don't care how ridiculously close we were together. I loved bonding over what is most likely my favorite band with people dedicated enough to drive hours and hours to see them. Nothing could have made me happier. One thing is an absolute truth, though -
I have never been sweatier in my life.
-- The lovely Courtney and I after a few delicicously sweltering hours of feverish dancing and fist pumping.. I'm not gonna lie, either, guys, I am POSITIVE that it's not all my sweat. We were
all just drenched.
Oh, it was so good. From what I read, a lot of people were complaining about the technical work, the choir, the strings, etc. Honestly, I was so happy to be there and high on the atmosphere that I didn't notice anything bad. Negative thoughts were swept from my head. Yeah, the Protoman helmet malfunctioned.. It
always malfunctions. It's not exactly a shiny new piece of machinery. But it's too cool/important not to use. It also caused one of my favorite moments of the night:
Protoman: Can you hear me?
Panther: Yes, you're right here, but nobody else can.
Protoman: I'm saying some really deep shit here!
Ah, so, basically I love them.
Act I was cozily familiar, but it was cool to hear it all in order, which they don't usually - or ever - do. The moshing was predictable and in all the right places, and the singing coming from the crowd was loud, but I could hear Panther just fine. It was Act I. It just was.
Then during the intermission, Makeup and Vanity Set was amazing - this dude rocks.
A one-man dance show of 8-bit quality. Dude was ridiculously drunk, but managed to crank out some awesome tunes; it surprised me how much I like 8-bit dance music. I was packed in so tightly that I had a hard time dancing, but I did what I could. Ama was behind me screaming 'schitzo dancer!' between every song, a futile effort that I
tried to help with. And she said she was sober by then.. Anyway, I would love to see him again when there's not 500 sweaty nerds packed into one tiny venue, and hopefully they'll bring him on tour with them. Or at least to Knoxville. Knoxville is all I care about. ;D
AND THEN ACT II. OH LORD, WAS THERE AN ACT II. I took a bunch of photos while they were setting up, like so:
The anticipation building, building. I'm having a hard time finding the right words to do Act II justice. I've been listening to it on loop for weeks now, but nothing compared to hearing it live. It felt really natural being ushered into the Good Doctor after the beautiful opening chords of Intermission, like I had seen them do it before a zillion times. I can't say how wonderful, wonderful it was to see.
And there was an addition to Act II that Act I has never had - Turbo Lover. I've got to say, his acting skills are impressive - he was one scary dude onstage, smug and threatening. His performance and stage presence was as phenomenal as the first time I saw him perform, but this time he was absolutely evil looking. It was gooood. I don't have any pictures of him that decently illustrate that, so you'll just have to take my word for it.
He just looks like a pretty nice guy in creepy makeup in all my photos. My bad.
I was disappointed during Give Us the Rope, I won't lie, because it didn't seem like the crowd was chanting along as strongly as I was looking forward to. It was still beautiful, though, and I was happy to see the live trumpet player there. I'm sure in the future once everyone has the words down it will be a really great song for the audience. That's the one thing I will always love about Protomen shows - there is always room for audience participation. We have a part in the story being told just as much as the band members do, and I think engaging the fans in that way really brings them closer to the music.
I was also happy when the moshing calmed down in appropriate spots, like when the strings were playing (for the most part). Because, damn, you don't have to shove all concert long. It
was fun bouncing around in a crowd of sweaty nerds, though, I will readily admit. When moshing was appropriate, it was ALWAYS fun. I never experienced anything too violent for me; I even got plenty of smiles and pleasant eye contact. I love Protofans, in short.
Then.. then.. after Act II, when we were all yelling for another song, you won't believe..
He's... he's alive.
VIVA FETTERMAN. We shared a wonderful rendition of 'We Don't Need Another Hero.' AND THEN AND THEN AND THEN EVEN BETTER (well maybe not better but still awesome)
they faded to Phil.
Yes. Yes, they did. And I sang Against All Odds with the guy next to me, and gave him a high five. And later that night, that same guy was dancing with the guy that kept asking to french kiss Makeup and Vanity Set, and might I say those boys were some mighty fine dancers. Especially the lap dancing. Oh yes, nerds can give lap dances. Don't even question it.
But my camera had fizzled out by that time, so I don't have any photographic proof. Once again, you'll have to take my word for it. Because I'm not giving out any lap dances anytime soon, so you'd have to look elsewhere for proof.
Ugh. I don't think there's anything else for me to say. It was the best night, the best band, the best fans, and I passed the hell out when we got back to the hotel.
And then it was over.
But we had fun while it lasted.
Farewell, bloggers. Thank you, Protomen. ;D
Love,
Aria
Super Van for the win!!
Dear Reader,
can anyone tell me what this is from???
Damn. He is so creepy. Even when you laugh at him. Funny picture please!
This is kind of like dead baby humor- you feel bad about laughing at it, but it's still funny. I didn't know if it was too creepy to post, but Debra laughed, so I figured it was ok.
This is what happens when some people hear Disney bought Marvel.....
It's spider....elephant?
This is how they pitched the scene to the studio
I mean sure.... I don't even know what to say on this one
and that my friends is terrible.
Holy elephant calf, Batman!!
stardate: 63150.6 (corrisponds with the reposting of the blog and please to all my fellow nerds out there I hope I got this right), Bloggers log... it seems with my partner out of commission due to this earth disease called Swine flu the need to publish something for the week has fallen on my shoulders.... it seems there is no origianal thought in me this week so I have chosen to reblog... and while I do not think Starfleet or the Federation would approve of my blatant re-posting and it is not against the Prime Directive in any way... I must give you my apologies reader for this is not normally my way.... but I was detained in the sickbay from midnight till 7 in the morning (YES 7 IN THE FUCKING MORNING FREAKING ER ASSHOLE DORCTORS) last night and simple chose to be lazy....
