1 post from October 2009

My first trip to St. Louis ever began when my friends Kyle T., Ben G., and Shannon H. came up to my apartment in Jackson around 11pm so that we could sleep and then leave together early in the morning to go to St. Louis for the Brand New concert. The day started with us going to sleep around 2am and then proceeding to wake up at 6:30am and leaving by 7:15am. (We would have left by 7, but Kyle wouldn't wake up and take his shower, but I digress.) We got some breakfast at Chick-fil-a and then we got on the road. We stopped at a Target/Starbucks and they got some drinks and Kyle bought me a blueberry muffin. [Note: I am reliving all the memories, so if there is something random and trivial such as mentioned blueberry muffin, don't judge...it's my memory] We made it to St. Louis in good time arriving around 11:30-11:45 if I can remember correctly. We had found out that if we get there early and bought something at the coffee shop that was adjacent to the concert venue, we would be able to get in early. We all purchased a drink or something cheap and we got our bracelet to get in early. We were numbers 13-16, which was awesome. We headed up the street to where we also had heard that they were going to be doing an acoustic show that afternoon at a local record store. We found out that we had to buy either the CD or the vinyl version of Brand New's new album, so we all got the vinyl and another bracelet to get into the acoustic show. We were hungry, so we then went to a local eating place called Blueberry Hill. It was very cool, good food and great atmosphere. After lunch, Scratch that, I can't believe I forgot to mention something. So we are walking down the street and we see on the other side of the road riding bikes were Jesse Lacey (Lead singer of Brand New) and Andy Hull (Lead singer of Manchester Orchestra, who was one of the opening bands for Brand New). So we saw that they had gone into a game store and we (let me rephrase that, Kyle and Ben) wanted to go meet them so we all went into the store like loser fans. We acted awkward for a minute and then Kyle walked over there and shook their hands and introduced himself. Andy Hull was a total jerk and blew him off, which Jesse Lacey did as well, but after further evidence gathering, which I will share later, we realized he didn't do it on purpose and is not, in fact, a jerk. I will never buy a Manchester Orchestra cd because of Andy Hull being a jerk, though I acknowledge that he is a great musician and performer. Now back to after we left Blueberry Hill. We were walking around and we saw a cameraman and a reporter chick walking down on the other side. We crossed over and they asked us if we wanted to get interviewed. We were asked how we thought the St Louis Blues (NHL) were going to do this year. Seeing that none of us are from 4 hours of St. Louis, I made up an answer which made the girl happy and we went on. (It was funny because I asked her if Chris Pronger was still on the team, which I found out that he hadn't been on the team in a couple of years...whoops, sorry that I don't pay attention that much to the NHL) So the acoustic show at Vintage Vinyl was at like 4, so they were letting people in at 3:30, so we didn't want to go do anything, so we just hung around and Shannon and I started the line about 2:30 for the show. So we were the first couple in and all four of us were on the front row about give-or-take 5 feet from where they played. It was a decent set. They seemed like they had just woken up from a nap, so it was a little rough, but still very, very cool.

There is a video of the song "Jesus Christ" from the acoustic show, which we were standing to the right of the guy that is on the front row. After the show, they were signing autographs, so each got our vinyls signed by all of them. It was really cool. They were nice and when Kyle got up to Jesse Lacey, Jesse Lacey smiled and said "how you been" to him, which was funny and nice at the same time. We had to jet from Vintage Vinyl back to The Pageant where the concert was going to be. Like literally, I ran 5 blocks in as dead sprint as I could possibly go. We got in line and went in and go on the second row down in the pit. It was an awesome location, like literally one person was in front of us in the middle of the stage. The stinky part was that we had to get there so early to get such good places, so we had to wait an hour and a half before the first band played. We got to know some of the people around us, which was cool. Sypris was the opening band. They were decent. Kyle and Shannon liked them a lot more than me. I think the lead singer (who was a female) was drunk, but whatever. Manchester Orchestra was next. I knew of them because they are from Atlanta and when I was back home, I was in the "scene" somewhat. (I saw Cartel like at skateparks and small venues before they became really big.) Man Orch was pretty good. I dislike Andy the lead singer (see above) so it wasn't awesome, but they were really good. Then...BRAND NEW! They were awesome, though more screamy than I expected them to be. They looked exhausted, but they gave a really good show. Here was the set list if you really want to know, which "You Don't Know" was their opening song. Here is somebody's video for it, which you can see our hands in the air right below the microphone when the song gets going.

It was awesome down in the pit until it became pretty much dangerous for the fact that dumb people in the back of the pit began pushing forward. You were so close to people that you like couldn't breathe. I had to spend half my time keeping my balance and bracing myself and could barely enjoy the songs because I was afraid if I fell, I would get trampled. We left to the back of the people around the 6th song. At some point, we did see one girl get carried out of the pit, so it was pretty crazy down there. After the show, we really wanted to get White Castle, just because of the fact that I have never eaten at White Castle before. We almost died getting there, with Ben driving we almost had 2 head on collisions when he decided to first, try and go down a one way street the wrong way and second, correct his mistake by going in the other lane on a two way street. We walked in to the White Castle, which it smelled and was nasty, so we scratched that idea. We drove past Busch Stadium and the Gateway Arch (The Gateway to the West) going out of town and we stopped and ate dinner/supper at Waffle House (mind you, it was after 11:30, so (a) it was the perfect time to eat there and (b) we ate dinner at 11:30...). We decided to drive back to Jackson/Henderson because Ben had an 8:30 class (which he proceeded to skip this morning), so we left St. Louis around 12:30. I drove so Ben could sleep, Shannon napped a little bit and Kyle was a trooper and did his best to stay awake with me, though I would sometimes ask him a question and he would fall asleep before he could answer it, which was really funny to watch. I (being the safe person that I am) stopped twice and took two 30 minute catnaps, but otherwise, it was a crazy, late drive back. After we got on the road after my second nap with about 2 or 2 1/2 hrs left, Kyle and I decided to just shuffle the iPod and jam out to every dumb song we could find. We found a lot of dumb songs, which Shannon woke up and joined us, but I think by far my favorite song was "Burn" by Usher. I really didn't know that Kyle was such a huge Usher fan. We had fun. Got back to my apartment around 5:15 and back to Henderson around 5:45am. I actually was listening to Mike & Mike on the way to Henderson. I have never listened to sports radio that early in the morning. It was a crazy awesome trip. I am sure I missed a number of laughs, but I wanted to write down all that I could remember. Brand New is great in concert, and our trip to see them was one that I will remember forever.