I’m going to try and keep these next two posts as short as I can but we’ll see.
Also I don’t think I picked very good photos but I couldn’t be bothered picking out the best ones and putting them together nicely
I took the bus to Cheltenham and was surprised when I saw Ayanthi there. We got the train together to the city, she had a class at 4 so we both went to Flinders and walked to the Hi Fi bar. Ayanthi then left and I went and said hi to Jenny, she introduced me to a girl called Katrina (I think) then left to go find Chris Carrabba (Dashboard Confessional) who said he was going to do a little acoustic show in the park that day.
I talked to Katrina and she told me that she went to The Cab’s sideshow on Monday and that there weren’t a lot of people there and stuff but it was good and she showed me her photos with the band. We stood around and just talked about the other bands at soundwave and music and concerts in general. Katrina told me that Jenny and she saw Nick Santino (A Rocket To The Moon singer) earlier and they showed him the way to the venue. Across the road we saw two people and I realised it was Eric Halvorsen aka Halvo (ARTTM bassist) and Justin Richards (ARTTM guitarist), the girls infront of us told us to mind their spot and they all left to go take photos with them. I kept hoping they would walk past us and not go to the back entrance and luckily they did. I said hi to them and got a photo. They looked like they were in a bit of a rush so I didn’t say anything and let them go into the venue.
At this point another group of girls came and stood behind us and Susan also came, Jenny texted me saying she was outside the Hilton and that she was waiting for Chris Carrabba to come out. Katrina said she was going off for a second and that she would come back, she came back and said something about Joey Thunder but I didn’t really hear her.
“Joey Thunder is just over there”
“Wait WHAT he’s here!?”
“Yeah he’s over over this way”
Sure enough there he was. I started fangirling so the girls behind me asked who he was and I told them it was Joey Thunder from The Cab and that excited a few of them. I went over to him, Katrina was talking to him then I got to talk.
“Hi Joey!”
“Hey sweetie”
asjcbaskjvbladkv;ladkvnladjkblajdbvkjbavk OMG I know it's weird, him calling me sweetie and all because he's only a couple of years older than me but I was so happy!
“Could you please sign this for me?”
“Sure”
He then signed the photo and got the guy next to him to sign it too
“Go on sign it, you’re part of the band too”
He then told me he was their drummer so I said hi to the drummer.
I was shaking completely at this point, I was shaking when I met Halvo and Justin before but I was getting worse. I HATE that this happens to me when I get nervous.
A few of the other girls started crowding around him so I went to put my photo in my bag and fangirled a little to Susan. I then went back and stood next to him, waiting to ask him for a photo because he was talking to some other girls.
HE THEN PUT HIS ARM AROUND ME
Like around my waist, no higher up and I was just standing there with his arm around me and I was dying and I asked for a photo and he said yes so I got one with him and the drummer.
I was a tiny bit bummed out because I wanted another one with just him but I didn’t want to bother him so I didn’t ask. He was about to leave and Katrina asked if he was coming to the show tonight and he said no, we then said bye and he left.
After a bit of waiting, Halvo and Justin came out again and people started taking photos with them so I went up to Halvo first and asked him to sign my photo then got a photo with him.
“Are you going to hang around after the show?”
“Yeah we’ll have to”
He’s so cute.
I said bye then went over to Justin, I asked him how he was and he asked me how I was and I got my photo signed and got a photo with him.
I think he’s oddly sexy.
I did get a little upset though because Halvo seemed a little disinterested and didn’t look all happy and stuff. I always thought he would be super happy and goofy because that’s how he comes across in videos and things. Justin was smiling but I felt like he was a little disinterested too, maybe they were having a rough day, I don’t know.
Nick Santino came out of the venue and people went up to him to get photos but he told them he was just going to the shop and that he would be back. He never came back.
Jess Bowen and Stephen Gomez from The Summer Set then came and they looked like they were in a rush to get in so I didn’t go up to them. Brian Dales (TSS singer) soon followed then I saw John Gomez and Josh Montgomery. People were getting things signed by them so I waited to go up to John, these girls were looking at Josh and I called him Jobe because that seems to be his nickname. I was like I wonder how he got the name Jobe and this random girl was like maybe because of his last name to which I replied but it’s Montgomery... she said said oh. I got a photo with John and asked him to sign my photo.
Gosh this is such a bad photo, I look disgusting and he looks funny (but still manages to look good), I really hate photos where I’m sort of side on, so if you ever take a photo of me please do it front on. Oh look Jobe is in the back
“How long have you been waiting in line for?”
“Err around three hours?”
It was actually two
“Get a life, haha no I’m joking, that’s cool you’ve been waiting”
I didn’t know how to react
“Are you going to hang out after the show?”
“Yeah for sure”
This person came up and went, your band is doing sound check now
“Oh fuck! Sorry I’ve gotta go, I’ll see you later”
I said bye and went back in line.
I then saw Jordan Witzigreuter aka The Ready Set and told Katrina because she was mainly there for him. She went off to get a photo. Jenny then joined us and told us about how Chris Carrabba came out and played some songs for a group of them and oh gosh it sounded so awesome. I can’t imagine how happy she would have been watching him.
When it was almost time to go inside, Susan left. Once inside, I put my bag away and went out onto the floor, we had barrier on the left side of the stage. There weren’t a lot of people there; I’ve never seen the Hi Fi so empty before. It was good for us because it meant that we wouldn’t get pushed around too much and the crowd wouldn’t be annoying but I felt bad for the bands because of how empty the place was. I still don’t understand why they put an 18+ show and not an U18 show too. The U18 would have definitely been full but oh well, I just felt bad for the bands.
The Dangerous Summer were on first, I didn’t know any of their songs so I just bopped along to them and they were pretty good live. At one point the lead singer asked the crowd if they were excited for the other bands and the cheer wasn’t very loud so he was like what was that? And this guy yelled out it’s all about you brother! Which made everyone laugh and the singer went na fuck that.
While watching TDS we saw Alex Deleon aka Singer from The Cab walk through to backstage so this was exciting. Also saw Chris Lilley (yeah the Summer Heights High and Angry Boys guy), all these girls kept going through too and we didn’t know who they were.
Also there was this oldish lady photographer who Jenny and I thought looked cool so we decided she was our grandma. She disappeared after a while thought and that made us sad.
Next up was The Summer Set. I actually can’t remember what song they sang first.
John Gomez was closest to us; he was wearing a cork hat so he looked funny.
I thought they were good live, Brian’s voice sounded a lot better and it was fun singing along to the songs.
During one of the songs, don’t remember which one, Singer came on stage and sang with Brian so that was cool.
After they sang Chelsea, Brian said something about how we all make mistakes when we’re young and that song was a mistake. “What were we thinking?”
The Summer Set with bonus Singer (had no good photos of Jess)
While waiting for The Ready Set to come on, we saw this halfy looking tech guy who was really cute and Jenny mistook him for Jordan.
The Ready Set was next up. I hadn’t really heard any of his songs except one but he was good. The songs were really catchy and I liked how he moved around the stage a lot. Yeah I guess he won me over a little bit and I’m going to check out his music now. The sound control guys kept messing with the guitarist’s microphone so whenever he talked it would come out like the chipmunk voice so that was funny.
While waiting for A Rocket To The Moon to come on we turned around and saw that Jess came outside and was walking around. Also saw Jay O’Brien who is a photographer. Katrina said she thought she saw Blake Harnage (Versaemerge guitarist) but I didn’t know what to think because when we were outside she kept thinking she saw Gabe Saporta but this time it actually was him and Sierra Kusterbeck (Versaemerge singer) was also there.
There was music playing and Sierra was dancing along to it and it was so cute. I wanted to go up to them and get a photo but I didn’t want to lose my spot. Katrina went to them and I saw her getting a photo and talking to them, I thought I would go when she came back but she didn’t come back so I didn’t go over. This girl took Katrina’s spot next to me and oh gosh she was so short! I felt tall standing next to her.
A Rocket To The Moon came on and started playing. Justin was closest to us, Jenny wanted Halvo to be there instead but I didn’t mind that much. I thought ARTTM were great! Nick’s voice sounded really good and so did all the songs. Justin would randomly comment about things and I kept laughing at what he would say. He played these riffs from different songs and went “Free merch for anyone who can name these songs”.
I hate the stupid red lights
They did a cover of a song called Jolene by Ray LaMontagne and when they finished they went
“Oh that was a cover by the way, it wasn’t actually our own song” and Justin started joking about how it was their song.
After a song ended, someone yelled out Dakota (it’s one of their songs) and Nick went we’ll get to that. This happened a couple of times so that was funny. After they played Annabelle someone asked Nick if he still kept in contact with her and he laughed and said she’s a slut.
I was melting a little when they played Baby Blue Eyes, aaah I love that song.
After a couple of songs they did play Dakota and it was awesome.
For one of the songs (forgotten which one) John, Brian and Stephen came out to sing with them and it was so cute when they were singing next to Justin because they all looked so happy and John was hugging Justin and aah so cute!
They talked about how their friends were here today watching them and that they were going to stay back and hang out with everyone after the show.
They then went we have one more song to play which made me go WHAT because their set was so short! They’re supposed to get at least an hour because they’re headlining but no it was short.
Mr Right was their last song (I think) and it was great but the show was over and I was sad. We stayed around hoping to get something, they were throwing things into the crowd. Andrew (drummer) threw a water bottle and I wasn’t expecting it so it hit me in the shoulder and it really hurt. Jamie (the cute tech guy) came out and gave Jenny and I guitar picks (yaaaaaay my first guitar pick/anything from a concert).
I got my bag and we went outside because everyone was getting kicked out, I realised that I forgot to ask them for the concert poster that was on the wall, once I got outside. Argh frustration!
We looked around but Versaemerge were gone and we couldn’t see any of the other band guys so we said bye to Katrina and walked over to Billboard so see if we could see the Kids In Glass Houses band guys. We didn’t see them so we walked back down to Hi Fi and when we were almost there we saw Nick Santino and I’ve forgotten who he was with. I was planning on going up to him for a photo but then all of a sudden all of ARTTM and TSS were there, along with some other girls (when I saw girls I don’t mean ones like us). We couldn’t go up to them now so we sort of just stood there until they walked past us. We followed them but not in a running after them kind of way, we paced ourselves and soon they were standing outside The Rooftop bar (is that the actual name?). We stayed near a bench and pretended we were talking on the phone to Susan. Soon enought they all went inside.
Naturally we went in too.
After climbing a set of stairs we came to a door, walked in and we were inside this restaurant/bar place. Walking through it was like a scene from a movie, the place was all dark and it had individual booths and I don;t know how you can eat when it’s that dark but I guess your eyes get adjusted to the light.
I felt so clumsy walking around with my massive bag, knocking into people and blocking the way (there wasn’t a whole lot of room to walk around in that place). After a lap we concluded that they weren’t here. Out the door we went and into the next one, this was a club sort of place but it was just a really dark room filled with smoke and loud music and lots of people and a little bar in the corner. A quick look around and we left. Next flight of stairs brought us to the cookie bar, walked in and saw that they weren’t there. Another flight of stairs and we heard people coming up so we pretended to look at the Rooftop Cinema times, Jess, Brian and a few other people walked up so after a little bit of waiting we went up too.
The place looked pretty cool, there were two areas where you could sit and we walked over to one and saw that they were all sitting there so we backed away and stood there, I felt a little overwhelmed. Jenny told me to let my hair down so we looked a little different, I did and we walked over and looked for the burger place because we had seen posters on the way up. We found the bar but no burger place so we went back to the side where they were all sitting hoping to find the burger place. While standing around this guy walked up to us and started talking to us, he asked if we were looking for anything so we said the burgers and he was all but it’s so late! Haven’t you had dinner yet? (It was past 12) we said no we haven’t even had lunch so we’re a bit hungry. He then asked if we were locals, said yes, he was a journalist from Brisbane who was covering bands at Soundwave. Said he wrote for Empire magazine (I thought wow but then I realised the Empire magazine is a movie magazine and that it was American). He said it was a Queensland based music magazine, he then told us to ask the security guy for the burgers (At this point Brian walked past us). He then said good luck trying to find food and to come and sit over there with him later (he was a bit drunk).
He left and we asked the security guy for the burgers, he told us it closed around 3 hours ago.
The poster said that the place was open till late (nine o’clock is not late! LIES). Since we couldn’t get food and we wanted to hang around there we went over to the bar and got lemon lime bitters then walked over to the other side and sat at a table where we had a clear view of the band guys.
All of ARTTM and TSS were there, along with Chris Lilley and three other girls. They were all sitting around drinking beer and talking. We sat there sipping our lemon lime bitters and tried not to look like we were watching them. We didn’t stare at them or anything because we mainly just talked amongst each other about the band guys and things, it felt really nice. The Rooftop bar had a nice view and it was cool just being there. Halvo and Justin got up and started talking to one of the girls; they both then started smoking which made me go oh gosh I can’t believe they smoke. Pretty much all of them smoked, I was mainly shocked at Halvo smoking I guess (oh gosh I sound so stupid saying this). We joked around about them and the girls who were you know those ‘typical girls’ and just sat and sipped our drinks away.
Omg there’s a couple making out behind us
After a while of doing this we saw some of them get up and they took photos with Chris Lilley and those girls had their arms wrapped around him and stuff then they asked this person who was sitting at the table next to us to take the photo and we were like omg imagine if they asked one of us, we wouldn’t stop laughing. Stephen and John left with two of the pumpkins, Brian soon followed. The rest of them got up from their table and moved to a table on the other side; I no longer had a view of them. The people in the table next to us left so we thought it would be best if we left too.
We walked down and saw the posters for the burgers again and wrote on them (this made us laugh a lot).
Walked out back to the bench and stood there for a bit until Jenny called her dad. Nick and the other girl who we didn’t know walked past us and we were like omg, we once again paced ourselves and walked behind them but this time it wasn’t like we were following them because we actually needed to go that way.
We got to the corner of burke and saw that they had stopped there and were talking to Jamie and another tech guy. We didn’t want to walk past them so we crossed the road, looked through and mX and waited till they left (they walked along burke). Crossed then went to Town Hall and waited to get picked up. These drunk people walked past us and one went “You ladies are astonishing” (or something along those lines, memory a bit foggy there). It was so odd.
While waiting to get picked up we saw the girl who was with Nick before, she was walking on the opposite side of the street.
We got back to Jenny’s house past 2am, had instant noodles for dinner then went to sleep around 4.
(Soundwave post should be up within a week)
-Scissorhands
