Warped Tour post
So today I went to Vans Warped Tour. Though I'm sure I've mentioned I was going before. I've been so excited.
And it was pretty awesome. Going there I had the feeling I was the only one out of us (us being me, Maddy, and our moms) that wanted to go there, and that the others would have been much happier hanging out at Grant Park at Lollapalooza, but I think we all had a good time. I know I did. And both of our mom's bought CDs, though one was of a band that approached us (well, the keyboardist did), we didn't get to see them play. But The Hanks are so awesome, I wish we had.
Now for the pictures. Beware... I apologize if this is making things take forever to load. The thumbnails all link to larger pics.
Going there we saw a couple of accidents. Based on the people in the cars, we guessed they were probably going to Warped Tour. I hope everything turned out okay for them.
On the road.
In the parking lot going there. It didn't take too long to get in. They took the caps from our bottle. You couldn't have capped water. They sold more inside, but they always kept the caps. One lady told me it had something to do with people throwing the water at the performers onstage.
Once we were inside I was determined to find out when The All-American Rejects were playing. We walked to the Ernie Ball stage only because at first it was the only place we could find. There were also bathrooms (actual bathrooms, which were pretty clean) near it, and we chose a meeting place. We never used the meeting place. We listened to a song of the band on the Ernie Ball stage, Felix something, I don't really remember their name. I'd signed up for the text messages with the schedule, but only got the Ernie Ball stage for some reason.
Eventually I found the Vans tent, and the big schedule board was there, and so I saw the time that The All-American Rejects were on. At that point, it was 12:10, and it said 12:15... so we had to go find the Mike Stage. Fortunately we walked in the right direction on the first try. I wanted to get as close to the front as possible, and not end up in the pit. Maddy wasn't so happy about me dragging her, but I managed to get around without really squeezing through people and get a pretty good place on the sides in the front row. If the set had been later in the day, I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it as much or gotten into the front without getting sucked into the mosh pit. I could never see Chris, the drummer, but I could see everyone else pretty clearly, and enjoyed it.
They played: One More Sad Song, My Paper Heart, Dirty Little Secret, Your Star, Move Along, and The Last Song. They might have played one other song, but I think that's all. They probably played Swing, Swing... but those are the songs I remember them playing.

After seeing AAR, we walked by Hawthorne Heights playing Ohio Is For Lovers, so Maddy and I stuck around for that song then went in pursuit of lunch. And our moms (since we'd met up with them after AAR, and lost them when I stopped for Hawthorne Heights.) <-hawthorne heights

Calentura was playing on the Shiragirl stage. It was the only time we went by the stage when someone was playing, so we stayed and watched and caught the last song or two of their set. The singer wasn't the actual singer because the singer had had to go home for some reason.

Maddy and I wandered around until 3:35, in that time we picked up stickers, I bought an AAR shirt, Maddy bought some compilation CD, we wandered around to different stages, when I went by the Cingular booth, text messaged them, and finally got the schedules on my phone, which was quite nice. Out moms also text messaged us with "line forming for AAR signing" and "do you want me to get in line". I didn't notice these text messages though, because they came right after the stage schedules, so I figured it was another stage schedule, and since I really had to go to the bathroom, went to the bathroom, but on the way, ran into my mom in line for the AAR signing. She stayed in that line for the next hour and a half (how nice of her!) Maddy and I stood in line for water for maybe 15 minutes, the line had barely moved, and there were maybe 10 minutes until My Chemical Romance, so we headed for the Bishop Stage where they were playing at 3:35.
We were in the very back sitting down until they came on. When they did come on, Gerard screamed "Hello Chicago" or something like that, and then they went into playing "I'm Not Okay", which was definitely not okay. The speakers were wacky and kept going up and down, and I couldn't really hear it, and what we could hear didn't sound so great.

So we went back to our moms because it was around 3:45, and so we figured we'd get in line with them for the AAR signing. The line was really long. If our mom's hadn't been in it, we never would've gotten to the front of it. (The picture is of us standing in line.)
When we got near the front of the line, the girl asked me if I would take a picture of them for her and she handed me her camera. I said sure and asked which one since it would be easier to take just one extra picture. She wanted the lead singer, so when I got up there (around 4:25), I took a picture of Tyson for her and threw her her camera back. I didn't get one for me, or of him signing my shirt, but that's okay. Maddy got some pictures.
Then Mike signed my shirt and poster they give you when you get to the signing stage. I told him Happy Belated Birthday, and he smiled. Maddy told me that was a creepy thing to say, but it was like an assembly line, so there really wasn't anything else to say other than thank you.
Then Chris signed my stuff.
Then I asked Nick if I could take a picture of his Muppets tattoo, and he pulled his sleeve up so I could, and then I asked if I could also take a picture of him, too. Then I walked off the stage and waited for Maddy and our Moms. Mommy got Keri's old CD slip signed for her. She got the first three on the cover, and then she got Nick to sign it on the back and write "To Keri". Pretty awesome.
I then looked at the pictures I'd taken, and realized I'd left my camera settings on the lowest quality, which bummed me out a bit.
The four of us walked around a little bit. Mom and Michelle seemed a bit starstruck. They said that AAR seemed surprised and was all "thank-you" and really nice to them and shook their hands and stuff. I guess seeing mom's twice their age surprised them a lot more than teenage girls half their age. They won mom back over though. After hearing Tyson's potty-mouth when they were on stage, she was doubting them.

Mom tried to get one of us to go over there and get a free hug from the people doling them out. I settled for taking a picture.

After that, I wanted to go see Bedouin Soundclash. Maddy and I hung around there for three songs. They were at the Hurley Stage, which was at the actual stage there, so we sat down and watched from the sides because it was 4:45 and we were a bit exhausted. Though actually seeing The All-American Rejects face to face, even in assembly-line fashion, had made me a bit excited.

After that we went to check out Jupiter Sunrise in the myspace tent since their merch guy had tried to get us to check out their CD and buy it earlier. After seeing them, I went back to the merch tent bought the CD from the guy that was trying to sell it to me earlier (he remembered us, we'd ran into him twice before) and went back to the Myspace tent, where I talked to all of them and they signed my CD, except the drummer. I didn't see him.
Not too long after that, our Moms showed up, and they were tired and ready to go home. I still wanted to see The Offspring and check out Motion City Soundtrack, but since they were at 7:15 and 8:40, respectively, they didn't want to stay around that long. And we were all hungry.
We went back to the city, went to my favorite restaurant for dinner and sat on the roof. Then we came home, but I stopped at Keri's on the way and gave her the CD cover and poster. She seemed happy.
It took me a while to get this all together, but it was worth it, and I had a very good day. But now I am EXHAUSTED, and my right leg is a bit sore for some reason.

Song I'm listening to: September Girl - Jupiter Sunrise
- salam az Mar @ 10:00 PM