So May 14 and 15, 2010 were two of the best days of my life for a number of reasons...Let's just start from the beginning, shall we?
Back in the beginning of the year, Ricky Gervais announced 2 shows in Los Angeles, May 15 and 16. I couldn't decide which one to go to, so I just searched for tickets to both and picked the one that had the better seat. That ended up being the first show, because I got a seat in the front row right behind the orchestra pit (which I was in the front row of for Eddie Izzard). Then 30 Seconds to Mars announced their tour and there was no San Diego show, even though Jared had told me they were playing in SD for sure. I guess it didn't work out like they planned. So I thought I'd just go to the show in Los Angeles, then I realized that it was on May 15, the same day I had a ticket to see Ricky Gervais. Then I checked the tour dates again and saw a show in Santa Barbara on the 14th. I talked to my friend Matt, who lives up there, and said that he would let me stay at his place overnight if I needed to. I took him up on that and bought a ticket to the show in SB.
Now...onto last week. I drove the 4+ hours up to Santa Barbara, hung out with Matt briefly after I got up there, then went to the Santa Barbara Bowl for the concert. Street Drum Corps opened the show, which surprised me because the only bands I heard about being on the tour were Neon Trees and MuteMath. I've seen SDC a few times in the past, actually they opened for 30stm the first time I saw them back in 2006. They used to be a couple of guys banging on random stuff to make industrial-ish music and it was pretty cool. But now....I have no idea when they decided to be a traditional band....but it was a terrible choice. They are just a regular band now, with the exception of the dude banging on trash cans. They were HORRIBLE, I can't stress that enough. The singer they have was unbearable to listen to, and the songs were just so over-the-top corny and lame. I couldn't even believe this is the same "band"...Talk about selling out, Street Drum Corps is the epitome of a selling out. After them, MuteMath came on, which was another surprise because no one ever announced why Neon Trees wasn't playing...not that I was upset, I was actually quite happy. From what I've heard of Neon Trees, they suck. But I was really looking forward to MuteMath, and they didn't disappoint. They put on quite a good show. For most of their set they were pretty tame, they sounded great and had good energy but it wasn't anything like people have told me about how they are insane live. But then....for the last song they just went all out. At one point the singer did a handstand on the keyboard, then came back around and somersaulted over it. The drummer took one of his drums and went and climbed the speakers while banging on it, while the bassist took over playing drums. Then the drummer, bassist, and singer were all playing on the drum kit at the same time while the guitarist messed around with some electronic gizmo. And there was a point where the singer also played some other sort of electronic instrument. They were brilliant and I'd love to see them play a show of their own.
Now, I must point out that I was very disappointed at the turn-out of the show. The venue was about 1/3 empty, which is a stark contrast to the sold out show in Los Angeles. But after the set change, 30 Seconds to Mars came on and just blew me away. It's been over 3 and a half years since I've seen them play a headlining show, the only time I've seen them in that time was last December at Wrex the Halls where they only played a 40 minute set which consisted of 5 songs. The band was fantastic, the crowd however, not so much. It seemed like very few people knew the words to any songs other than The Kill. In fact, the song that had the most people singing along was their cover of Lady Gaga's Bad Romance...that was a huge disappointment. The setlist was very new album heavy. Which I am fine with because the album is a masterpiece in my opinion, but there are a lot of sing-along parts in every song, lots of "whoa-oh's" and bombastic choruses and other lines. The crowd, for the most part, didn't sing ANY of these parts. And even on the song they sang along to most, Kings and Queens, most people just did the "whoa oh" part during the actual chorus instead of singing the words because they clearly didn't know the song very well. The crowd at Wrex the Halls was much better. I was really looking forward to a 30stm headlining show with songs from This Is War because I thought the crowd was going to come through and take the roles of the crowds on the album....but no, not even close. Other than that, the show was amazing. Jared is an incredible performer and just flat out hilarious when he interacts with the crowd between songs. I had a lot of fun watching the band. I would have just gone crazy and shouted out all of the lines and parts of the songs that I complained the crowd didn't, but I recorded the whole show pretty much. If you're interested, those videos are up on my youtube.
After the show, I headed over to my friend's place right next to the UCSB campus. The area he lives in is one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in the country, and it's all college students. So you can imagine how wild that area was on a Friday night. He took me over to a 24 hour walk to earn money for the fight against cancer, where a bunch of his friends were, and a band he's the neighbor of was playing. This was quite the interesting experience, needless to say most of the people were drunk, so that made stuff interesting. The band was pretty good and they played a bunch of random songs, from Johnny Cash to a song from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (which was a blast to sing along to). After meeting most of Matt's friends and hanging out for a few hours we went back, played some Brawl then went to bed.
The next morning I woke up and started my drive to Los Angeles. I wanted to get to LA early so that I could get to the Greek Theatre and possibly meet 30 Seconds to Mars again. I got there at about 1:20 and waited by the bus, unfortunately I didn't see them walking around, but I did get to hear them do their sound check. It was all just instrumentals, probably because Jared wanted to save his voice for the show, but it was fun to listen to. Some of the songs they played included Night of the Hunter, This Is War (about 6 times, ahaha) and even a few cover songs, Nothing Else Matters by Metallica and YYZ by Rush. I was a very happy camper when they played YYZ, which is an instrumental anyway haha. On my drive to LA, my friend Nicole told me that her favorite band in the world, the Jonas Brothers were playing a free concert at The Grove at 3pm. Since I had several hours to kill, I couldn't stay parked outside the Greek Theatre past 3pm, and I thought it would be hilarious to see that insanity go down I decided to go to The Grove despite not liking the JoBros. As you would expect, the parking structure was pretty much completely full, it took me 45 minutes of driving around it before I found a space, which was about 15-20 minutes after they had started playing. Luckily they went on 30 minutes late, otherwise I would have missed it entirely and all that would have been for nothing. But I found a space, and tried to head into the mall to see the show, but they had closed it off because it was at full capacity or something. So I was forced to try to watch from the parking structure, with hundreds of other people. It wasn't the best view and I couldn't hear the music that well, but it was the Jonas Brothers, so I didn't really care. I just wanted to be able to take a few pictures for Nicole, which I did. Unfortunately, no one fell off the top of a building or anything. I just wanted to see a news report saying "TRAGEDY STRIKES AT THE GROVE DURING A JONAS BROTHERS CONCERT" and be able to say I saw it happen, haha.
After that, I got some food, killed some time and headed over to the Nokia Theater for the Ricky Gervais show. I soon found out that an event was happening next door...that event was KIIS FM's Wango Tango featuring artists like Ke$ha, Justin Bieber, Usher, and many other shitty artists....sigh. So that, coupled with the street construction in the area made driving around that area particularly frustrating. I eventually managed to park, and headed over to the theater. I took my seat, which was amazing. I was in the front row of the ORCH section, behind the Pit, which is only 6 rows. I had nothing in front of me, it was just a walkway so virtually endless leg room, it was fantastic. I was just chilling there, and I reached down to tie my shoe. Then as I was looking back up, I nearly had a heart attack...because MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG was standing directly in front of me. Now I should point out that I've had a crush on her literally since I was 8 years old, when I saw Harriet the Spy on Nickelodeon. In my opinion, she's grown up into one of the most beautiful women that's ever lived. My brain froze as I tried to figure out what to do/say. All that I managed to do at that time was stand up and say "Michelle, I'm a HUGE fan of yours. Can I please just shake your hand?" and she said "Thanks" and reached her hand out and shook mine, in a very girly way, haha. I sat back down, shaking. I was in a state of disbelief, the 2 usher women in front of me asked me who it was and I told them. They were amused by my reaction and thought it was cute. I immediately texted several people to tell them about what happened. After several minutes I gained my composure back and a man and woman took the seats next to me. The man commented about my Eddie Izzard shirt and we got to talking, turns out they had come all the way from Calgary just to see Ricky Gervais, now that's dedication. A few minutes after 8pm, a comedian came on to warm up the crowd. I turned around and notice about 6 empty seats directly behind me and wondered how they were empty and if anyone was going to come sit in them...well a few short minutes later I got my answer and then some...A very tall man, a shorter man, and several women walked in front of me....those 2 men happened to be LUKE WALTON AND JORDAN FARMAR OF THE LOS ANGELES LAKERS! My mind froze up even worse than it did when I saw Michelle Trachtenberg. They took their seats, Jordan in the seat right behind me, the ladies (who I imagine were their wives/girlfriends and possibly friends of theirs) in the middle, then Luke on the aisle seat. I turned around to Jordan and quietly said "Jordan, I'm a die-hard Lakers fan, can I shake your hand, man?" he smiled and obliged. The entire show felt very surreal knowing that members of the Lakers were sitting behind me.
After the first comedian had finished, Ricky Gervais took the stage and was absolutely hilarious, just as you would expect. Anytime I felt like he was getting close to wrapping the show up, I started to feel incredibly anxious because I wanted to try to get pictures with Luke, Jordan and Michelle, but I didn't know if it was a douchey move to do it in a crowded theater, or if they'd say no and just exit as quickly as possible. Or even if they'd leave a minute early and beat the crowd out. But none of that happened. I waited in front of my seat and when Luke got near me, I politely got his attention and asked if it was ok to get a picture with him, he said yes. I thanked him and waited for Jordan then asked him. He tried to call Luke over to get in the pic, not realizing that I had gotten a picture with him already. I thought that was a super cool move on his part. But I just said "it's cool, man. I got one with him already." I tried to look for Michelle Trachtenberg in the crowd of people but I didn't spot her. I had accepted that I wouldn't get a picture with her, when I got to the stairs leading to the exit and I saw her standing off to the side. I approached her, freaking out inside my mind, I'm sure I came across as weird, but she was nice enough to take a picture with me as well. I was so happy and freaking out so much that I was shaking violently, so much so that I couldn't even get my cell phone out of my pocket at first. I called Nicole and told her about what had just happened, then headed over to the Greek Theatre to take one last shot at meeting 30 Seconds to Mars.
Since the Ricky Gervais show ended at around 9:50, I was able to get over to the Greek and listen to the last few songs of the show. I waited over by the bus and after a while Tomo came out to meet fans, I got a picture with him just before he left. Later Shannon came over and spoke to the fans briefly then said goodnight. Then after several minutes of the crowd chanting for Jared, he came out and talked to the crowd, asking what venue in LA they should play next. The consensus was the Wiltern, which I hope happens. After he said goodbye, I walked back to my car and the night was over.
I've decided that May 15 was the greatest day of my life, for all of those reasons. May 14 wasn't too shabby either. It was an overall great 2 days.
And here are those pictures.
And on a very serious note...On Sunday, May 16 the world suffered a monumental loss. The passing of the legendary Ronnie James Dio, one of the greatest vocalists ever and from everything I've heard about him, an incredible person. So I would just like to pay my respects to the man that I had the privilege of seeing, and even meeting last August at the Greek Theatre. Rest in pease, Dio. You will never be forgotten and your music will live on forever.
Back in the beginning of the year, Ricky Gervais announced 2 shows in Los Angeles, May 15 and 16. I couldn't decide which one to go to, so I just searched for tickets to both and picked the one that had the better seat. That ended up being the first show, because I got a seat in the front row right behind the orchestra pit (which I was in the front row of for Eddie Izzard). Then 30 Seconds to Mars announced their tour and there was no San Diego show, even though Jared had told me they were playing in SD for sure. I guess it didn't work out like they planned. So I thought I'd just go to the show in Los Angeles, then I realized that it was on May 15, the same day I had a ticket to see Ricky Gervais. Then I checked the tour dates again and saw a show in Santa Barbara on the 14th. I talked to my friend Matt, who lives up there, and said that he would let me stay at his place overnight if I needed to. I took him up on that and bought a ticket to the show in SB.
Now...onto last week. I drove the 4+ hours up to Santa Barbara, hung out with Matt briefly after I got up there, then went to the Santa Barbara Bowl for the concert. Street Drum Corps opened the show, which surprised me because the only bands I heard about being on the tour were Neon Trees and MuteMath. I've seen SDC a few times in the past, actually they opened for 30stm the first time I saw them back in 2006. They used to be a couple of guys banging on random stuff to make industrial-ish music and it was pretty cool. But now....I have no idea when they decided to be a traditional band....but it was a terrible choice. They are just a regular band now, with the exception of the dude banging on trash cans. They were HORRIBLE, I can't stress that enough. The singer they have was unbearable to listen to, and the songs were just so over-the-top corny and lame. I couldn't even believe this is the same "band"...Talk about selling out, Street Drum Corps is the epitome of a selling out. After them, MuteMath came on, which was another surprise because no one ever announced why Neon Trees wasn't playing...not that I was upset, I was actually quite happy. From what I've heard of Neon Trees, they suck. But I was really looking forward to MuteMath, and they didn't disappoint. They put on quite a good show. For most of their set they were pretty tame, they sounded great and had good energy but it wasn't anything like people have told me about how they are insane live. But then....for the last song they just went all out. At one point the singer did a handstand on the keyboard, then came back around and somersaulted over it. The drummer took one of his drums and went and climbed the speakers while banging on it, while the bassist took over playing drums. Then the drummer, bassist, and singer were all playing on the drum kit at the same time while the guitarist messed around with some electronic gizmo. And there was a point where the singer also played some other sort of electronic instrument. They were brilliant and I'd love to see them play a show of their own.
Now, I must point out that I was very disappointed at the turn-out of the show. The venue was about 1/3 empty, which is a stark contrast to the sold out show in Los Angeles. But after the set change, 30 Seconds to Mars came on and just blew me away. It's been over 3 and a half years since I've seen them play a headlining show, the only time I've seen them in that time was last December at Wrex the Halls where they only played a 40 minute set which consisted of 5 songs. The band was fantastic, the crowd however, not so much. It seemed like very few people knew the words to any songs other than The Kill. In fact, the song that had the most people singing along was their cover of Lady Gaga's Bad Romance...that was a huge disappointment. The setlist was very new album heavy. Which I am fine with because the album is a masterpiece in my opinion, but there are a lot of sing-along parts in every song, lots of "whoa-oh's" and bombastic choruses and other lines. The crowd, for the most part, didn't sing ANY of these parts. And even on the song they sang along to most, Kings and Queens, most people just did the "whoa oh" part during the actual chorus instead of singing the words because they clearly didn't know the song very well. The crowd at Wrex the Halls was much better. I was really looking forward to a 30stm headlining show with songs from This Is War because I thought the crowd was going to come through and take the roles of the crowds on the album....but no, not even close. Other than that, the show was amazing. Jared is an incredible performer and just flat out hilarious when he interacts with the crowd between songs. I had a lot of fun watching the band. I would have just gone crazy and shouted out all of the lines and parts of the songs that I complained the crowd didn't, but I recorded the whole show pretty much. If you're interested, those videos are up on my youtube.
After the show, I headed over to my friend's place right next to the UCSB campus. The area he lives in is one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in the country, and it's all college students. So you can imagine how wild that area was on a Friday night. He took me over to a 24 hour walk to earn money for the fight against cancer, where a bunch of his friends were, and a band he's the neighbor of was playing. This was quite the interesting experience, needless to say most of the people were drunk, so that made stuff interesting. The band was pretty good and they played a bunch of random songs, from Johnny Cash to a song from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (which was a blast to sing along to). After meeting most of Matt's friends and hanging out for a few hours we went back, played some Brawl then went to bed.
The next morning I woke up and started my drive to Los Angeles. I wanted to get to LA early so that I could get to the Greek Theatre and possibly meet 30 Seconds to Mars again. I got there at about 1:20 and waited by the bus, unfortunately I didn't see them walking around, but I did get to hear them do their sound check. It was all just instrumentals, probably because Jared wanted to save his voice for the show, but it was fun to listen to. Some of the songs they played included Night of the Hunter, This Is War (about 6 times, ahaha) and even a few cover songs, Nothing Else Matters by Metallica and YYZ by Rush. I was a very happy camper when they played YYZ, which is an instrumental anyway haha. On my drive to LA, my friend Nicole told me that her favorite band in the world, the Jonas Brothers were playing a free concert at The Grove at 3pm. Since I had several hours to kill, I couldn't stay parked outside the Greek Theatre past 3pm, and I thought it would be hilarious to see that insanity go down I decided to go to The Grove despite not liking the JoBros. As you would expect, the parking structure was pretty much completely full, it took me 45 minutes of driving around it before I found a space, which was about 15-20 minutes after they had started playing. Luckily they went on 30 minutes late, otherwise I would have missed it entirely and all that would have been for nothing. But I found a space, and tried to head into the mall to see the show, but they had closed it off because it was at full capacity or something. So I was forced to try to watch from the parking structure, with hundreds of other people. It wasn't the best view and I couldn't hear the music that well, but it was the Jonas Brothers, so I didn't really care. I just wanted to be able to take a few pictures for Nicole, which I did. Unfortunately, no one fell off the top of a building or anything. I just wanted to see a news report saying "TRAGEDY STRIKES AT THE GROVE DURING A JONAS BROTHERS CONCERT" and be able to say I saw it happen, haha.
After that, I got some food, killed some time and headed over to the Nokia Theater for the Ricky Gervais show. I soon found out that an event was happening next door...that event was KIIS FM's Wango Tango featuring artists like Ke$ha, Justin Bieber, Usher, and many other shitty artists....sigh. So that, coupled with the street construction in the area made driving around that area particularly frustrating. I eventually managed to park, and headed over to the theater. I took my seat, which was amazing. I was in the front row of the ORCH section, behind the Pit, which is only 6 rows. I had nothing in front of me, it was just a walkway so virtually endless leg room, it was fantastic. I was just chilling there, and I reached down to tie my shoe. Then as I was looking back up, I nearly had a heart attack...because MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG was standing directly in front of me. Now I should point out that I've had a crush on her literally since I was 8 years old, when I saw Harriet the Spy on Nickelodeon. In my opinion, she's grown up into one of the most beautiful women that's ever lived. My brain froze as I tried to figure out what to do/say. All that I managed to do at that time was stand up and say "Michelle, I'm a HUGE fan of yours. Can I please just shake your hand?" and she said "Thanks" and reached her hand out and shook mine, in a very girly way, haha. I sat back down, shaking. I was in a state of disbelief, the 2 usher women in front of me asked me who it was and I told them. They were amused by my reaction and thought it was cute. I immediately texted several people to tell them about what happened. After several minutes I gained my composure back and a man and woman took the seats next to me. The man commented about my Eddie Izzard shirt and we got to talking, turns out they had come all the way from Calgary just to see Ricky Gervais, now that's dedication. A few minutes after 8pm, a comedian came on to warm up the crowd. I turned around and notice about 6 empty seats directly behind me and wondered how they were empty and if anyone was going to come sit in them...well a few short minutes later I got my answer and then some...A very tall man, a shorter man, and several women walked in front of me....those 2 men happened to be LUKE WALTON AND JORDAN FARMAR OF THE LOS ANGELES LAKERS! My mind froze up even worse than it did when I saw Michelle Trachtenberg. They took their seats, Jordan in the seat right behind me, the ladies (who I imagine were their wives/girlfriends and possibly friends of theirs) in the middle, then Luke on the aisle seat. I turned around to Jordan and quietly said "Jordan, I'm a die-hard Lakers fan, can I shake your hand, man?" he smiled and obliged. The entire show felt very surreal knowing that members of the Lakers were sitting behind me.
After the first comedian had finished, Ricky Gervais took the stage and was absolutely hilarious, just as you would expect. Anytime I felt like he was getting close to wrapping the show up, I started to feel incredibly anxious because I wanted to try to get pictures with Luke, Jordan and Michelle, but I didn't know if it was a douchey move to do it in a crowded theater, or if they'd say no and just exit as quickly as possible. Or even if they'd leave a minute early and beat the crowd out. But none of that happened. I waited in front of my seat and when Luke got near me, I politely got his attention and asked if it was ok to get a picture with him, he said yes. I thanked him and waited for Jordan then asked him. He tried to call Luke over to get in the pic, not realizing that I had gotten a picture with him already. I thought that was a super cool move on his part. But I just said "it's cool, man. I got one with him already." I tried to look for Michelle Trachtenberg in the crowd of people but I didn't spot her. I had accepted that I wouldn't get a picture with her, when I got to the stairs leading to the exit and I saw her standing off to the side. I approached her, freaking out inside my mind, I'm sure I came across as weird, but she was nice enough to take a picture with me as well. I was so happy and freaking out so much that I was shaking violently, so much so that I couldn't even get my cell phone out of my pocket at first. I called Nicole and told her about what had just happened, then headed over to the Greek Theatre to take one last shot at meeting 30 Seconds to Mars.
Since the Ricky Gervais show ended at around 9:50, I was able to get over to the Greek and listen to the last few songs of the show. I waited over by the bus and after a while Tomo came out to meet fans, I got a picture with him just before he left. Later Shannon came over and spoke to the fans briefly then said goodnight. Then after several minutes of the crowd chanting for Jared, he came out and talked to the crowd, asking what venue in LA they should play next. The consensus was the Wiltern, which I hope happens. After he said goodbye, I walked back to my car and the night was over.
I've decided that May 15 was the greatest day of my life, for all of those reasons. May 14 wasn't too shabby either. It was an overall great 2 days.
And here are those pictures.
And on a very serious note...On Sunday, May 16 the world suffered a monumental loss. The passing of the legendary Ronnie James Dio, one of the greatest vocalists ever and from everything I've heard about him, an incredible person. So I would just like to pay my respects to the man that I had the privilege of seeing, and even meeting last August at the Greek Theatre. Rest in pease, Dio. You will never be forgotten and your music will live on forever.