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rsadelleIn case you missed it, I spent a long weekend visiting friends in New York. This involved a movie premiere, a concert (the reason I went this particular weekend instead of some other), other fannish delights, and food. Plus a lot of just hanging about with some of my favorite people in the world.
Talihina Sky
Thursday night was adventure number one: Talihina Sky. In case you have never heard of it, it is a documentary about the Kings of Leon. We did not just see this movie; we attended the premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. There was a red carpet. It looped around the community college's courtyard in front of the auditorium. We had general admission tickets with an orange dot on them, which meant we could sit in any orange row. The orange rows were marked by half-sheets of orange paper taped to seats at the end of each row with blue painter's tape. There was a very, very patient usher near where we ended up who explained orange to people over and over and over again. This is a kindergarten-level skill. A girl asked for a picture from some guy and asked him to tweet her back. We figured out he's on the CW, but not which show until later when someone looked up the cast of Gossip Girl online. We were also apparently right in front of MTV's James Montgomery, although I didn't know it at the time.
I do not know enough about the Kings of Leon for this movie to work for me. There are no subtitles identifying people, so it took me about half the movie to figure out who was who. (Caleb wears the cross. Nathan has the long hair. Matt is round. Jared is the other one.) The main takeaway from the film is how messed up they are about their itinerant Pentecostal upbringing. Also, that if you're going to make a film about your friends, you also need an outsider perspective to let you know when it's not going to make sense to people who don't already know about your friends. There was a brief Q&A with the filmmakers and three-fourths of KOL (Matthew was at home with his wife because their baby was due in four days) after the movie, which turned out to not be as horribly embarrassing as we thought it might be. The most interesting question was someone asking how they were going to raise their kids with respect to religion, which none of them really had an answer for. It's possible they just didn't want to answer it in front of their mother, who was in the audience.
My Chemical Romance
On Friday night, we went to see MCR. You can read an actual review of the show here. We skipped the floor and went up to the balcony where we were just behind a counter/bar thing that meant (a) we had a place to put our coats, (b) we were not in the midst of the extremely active crowd/pit on the floor, and (c) I could see.
The first opener was The Architects. They were okay. I would probably like them better recorded - they were somewhat melodic rock, but I was still a little too overwhelmed by the whole experience to focus on them much. Also, they were just four dudes on a stage. I did like that at the end of their set, their guitarist (who shared frontman duties with the lead singer) turned his guitar over and the back said, "THANK YOU."
The second opener was Neon Trees, who I'm pretty much sick of. I make annoyed faces and change the station when "Animal" comes on the radio. I liked them much better live, largely because their lead singer is fascinating to watch. He's very glam. His head is mostly shaved with a strip of hair down the center. He started out with a white leather jacket that he lost after a few songs. His pants were very tight. He likes bending his knees as much as possible and leaning backwards, to the point that he sometimes ends up balancing on the tips of his shoes as if he's en pointe. Their stage setup includes a box center stage whose sole purpose appears to be giving him a place to stand and pose. He eventually took off his shoes and threw them off toward the techs too. Their drummer is a very glam woman who sometimes sings, and their bassist and guitarist are unremarkable. I barely noticed any of them because I was so fascinated by the singer.
And then there was MCR, and they were amazing. I'm not sure I had quite the same emotional/religious experience my companions did, but they did rock my fucking socks off. I also know fewer of their lyrics than I thought. They apparently usually play "Cancer," which they did not do. We did get "Famous Last Words," which I adore. For "The Black Parade," they played the opening notes on the keyboard, Gerard sang the first few words, and then we sang the rest of the first verse ourselves. A venue of five thousand people singing. Amazing. There was nothing overtly Waycesty about the show (although one of the few times anyone in the band got near anyone else was when Mikey came over to use Gerard's mic for the intro to "Vampire Weekend"), but I came away from it wanting to read a lot of Waycest. (Recs welcomed!) I have an odd mental contortion about Gerard where I can objectively see that what he is doing right now is incredibly hot (there were points in the show where he both got down on his knees and laid down on the floor), but he looks too much like someone I used to know for me to find him personally attractive. (And said person is female, so it's not just the I'm a dyke thing.) Frank had pictures (going by reports from people who have been closer to the action at other dates on the tour, they're of his girls) on the box behind him (I'm pretty sure the boxes lined up behind them were purely part of the decor and their only function is to hold things like picture frames and beer), and he got down on his knees and bent back toward the audience playing at the pictures. Things on the set list I haven't already mentioned (out of order and probably incomplete): Na Na Na, Sing, Teenagers, I'm Not Okay, Destroya, Planetary (Go!), Bulletproof Heart. MCR, you should come to Sacramento, because I would go see you again.
Other Fannish Viewing
We watched a bunch of fannish things, as you do when spending a long weekend with fangirls.
First there was Get Me Out Of My Mind, which is a Panic! thing that is half adorable behind the scenes things (shortly after they talk about not talking about Ryan and Jon in interviews, Spencer, while having his makeup done, blabs to the camera about how it was hard at first) and half trying to be arty in the snow. There are two women, one in black and one in white, whose presence makes no sense. They kiss at the end, and we all agreed this would be better if they were Sarah and Haley. There is one story Brendon tells about the time he almost peed his pants on stage: he'd had a lot of water to drink right before going on, and he went over to Spencer to try and get him to stall for three minutes so Brendon could dash offstage and go, and Spencer told him no. The more I think about it, the more it reminds me of the similar scene in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
boweryd's Pull Your Tangles Out. Fangirls: making things happen with our minds.
Then there was part of the making of MCR's "Teenagers" video. This is most notable for two things: 1. Bob sticks to facts of the "we did A, now we're doing B, then we're going to do C" variety. 2. Gerard looks incredibly young.schuyler and eleanor_lavish laughed at me: "This was, like, two years ago."
Then there was the All American Rejects' tour documentary. This is a half hour thing that took us about an hour to watch because we had to keep pausing it to gape at/discuss how incredibly gay this band is.
And finally, we watched last week's ep of Community. I don't watch Community, andeleanor_lavish said that this was probably not the episode to start me with, which is true. However, she assures me that it got better after the first six eps or so (I tried watching the first one or two when they originally aired and hated them), so maybe I will give it a try someday.
Food
One of the promises about this trip was that we would go to BabyCakes, which is a vegan, gluten-free bakery, so on Saturday night we did just that. I bought a cupcake and an apple crumble thing (kind of like a coffee cake). The cake part of the cupcake was fine. The frosting was amazing. It tastes like a cream cheese frosting, but it's vegan. I had the apple crumble as part of my breakfast on Sunday morning, and then promptly started googling vegan, gluten-free apple cake recipes. I may have to buy one of their cookbooks. We also went to Risotteria, a gluten-free Italian place, where we each had a different kind of risotto. I may also have to learn how to make risotto now.
Concluding Note
Fangirl weekends are the best. You should have them if you don't already. ♥
Talihina Sky
Thursday night was adventure number one: Talihina Sky. In case you have never heard of it, it is a documentary about the Kings of Leon. We did not just see this movie; we attended the premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. There was a red carpet. It looped around the community college's courtyard in front of the auditorium. We had general admission tickets with an orange dot on them, which meant we could sit in any orange row. The orange rows were marked by half-sheets of orange paper taped to seats at the end of each row with blue painter's tape. There was a very, very patient usher near where we ended up who explained orange to people over and over and over again. This is a kindergarten-level skill. A girl asked for a picture from some guy and asked him to tweet her back. We figured out he's on the CW, but not which show until later when someone looked up the cast of Gossip Girl online. We were also apparently right in front of MTV's James Montgomery, although I didn't know it at the time.
I do not know enough about the Kings of Leon for this movie to work for me. There are no subtitles identifying people, so it took me about half the movie to figure out who was who. (Caleb wears the cross. Nathan has the long hair. Matt is round. Jared is the other one.) The main takeaway from the film is how messed up they are about their itinerant Pentecostal upbringing. Also, that if you're going to make a film about your friends, you also need an outsider perspective to let you know when it's not going to make sense to people who don't already know about your friends. There was a brief Q&A with the filmmakers and three-fourths of KOL (Matthew was at home with his wife because their baby was due in four days) after the movie, which turned out to not be as horribly embarrassing as we thought it might be. The most interesting question was someone asking how they were going to raise their kids with respect to religion, which none of them really had an answer for. It's possible they just didn't want to answer it in front of their mother, who was in the audience.
My Chemical Romance
On Friday night, we went to see MCR. You can read an actual review of the show here. We skipped the floor and went up to the balcony where we were just behind a counter/bar thing that meant (a) we had a place to put our coats, (b) we were not in the midst of the extremely active crowd/pit on the floor, and (c) I could see.
The first opener was The Architects. They were okay. I would probably like them better recorded - they were somewhat melodic rock, but I was still a little too overwhelmed by the whole experience to focus on them much. Also, they were just four dudes on a stage. I did like that at the end of their set, their guitarist (who shared frontman duties with the lead singer) turned his guitar over and the back said, "THANK YOU."
The second opener was Neon Trees, who I'm pretty much sick of. I make annoyed faces and change the station when "Animal" comes on the radio. I liked them much better live, largely because their lead singer is fascinating to watch. He's very glam. His head is mostly shaved with a strip of hair down the center. He started out with a white leather jacket that he lost after a few songs. His pants were very tight. He likes bending his knees as much as possible and leaning backwards, to the point that he sometimes ends up balancing on the tips of his shoes as if he's en pointe. Their stage setup includes a box center stage whose sole purpose appears to be giving him a place to stand and pose. He eventually took off his shoes and threw them off toward the techs too. Their drummer is a very glam woman who sometimes sings, and their bassist and guitarist are unremarkable. I barely noticed any of them because I was so fascinated by the singer.
And then there was MCR, and they were amazing. I'm not sure I had quite the same emotional/religious experience my companions did, but they did rock my fucking socks off. I also know fewer of their lyrics than I thought. They apparently usually play "Cancer," which they did not do. We did get "Famous Last Words," which I adore. For "The Black Parade," they played the opening notes on the keyboard, Gerard sang the first few words, and then we sang the rest of the first verse ourselves. A venue of five thousand people singing. Amazing. There was nothing overtly Waycesty about the show (although one of the few times anyone in the band got near anyone else was when Mikey came over to use Gerard's mic for the intro to "Vampire Weekend"), but I came away from it wanting to read a lot of Waycest. (Recs welcomed!) I have an odd mental contortion about Gerard where I can objectively see that what he is doing right now is incredibly hot (there were points in the show where he both got down on his knees and laid down on the floor), but he looks too much like someone I used to know for me to find him personally attractive. (And said person is female, so it's not just the I'm a dyke thing.) Frank had pictures (going by reports from people who have been closer to the action at other dates on the tour, they're of his girls) on the box behind him (I'm pretty sure the boxes lined up behind them were purely part of the decor and their only function is to hold things like picture frames and beer), and he got down on his knees and bent back toward the audience playing at the pictures. Things on the set list I haven't already mentioned (out of order and probably incomplete): Na Na Na, Sing, Teenagers, I'm Not Okay, Destroya, Planetary (Go!), Bulletproof Heart. MCR, you should come to Sacramento, because I would go see you again.
Other Fannish Viewing
We watched a bunch of fannish things, as you do when spending a long weekend with fangirls.
First there was Get Me Out Of My Mind, which is a Panic! thing that is half adorable behind the scenes things (shortly after they talk about not talking about Ryan and Jon in interviews, Spencer, while having his makeup done, blabs to the camera about how it was hard at first) and half trying to be arty in the snow. There are two women, one in black and one in white, whose presence makes no sense. They kiss at the end, and we all agreed this would be better if they were Sarah and Haley. There is one story Brendon tells about the time he almost peed his pants on stage: he'd had a lot of water to drink right before going on, and he went over to Spencer to try and get him to stall for three minutes so Brendon could dash offstage and go, and Spencer told him no. The more I think about it, the more it reminds me of the similar scene in
boweryd's Pull Your Tangles Out. Fangirls: making things happen with our minds.Then there was part of the making of MCR's "Teenagers" video. This is most notable for two things: 1. Bob sticks to facts of the "we did A, now we're doing B, then we're going to do C" variety. 2. Gerard looks incredibly young.
schuyler and eleanor_lavish laughed at me: "This was, like, two years ago."Then there was the All American Rejects' tour documentary. This is a half hour thing that took us about an hour to watch because we had to keep pausing it to gape at/discuss how incredibly gay this band is.
And finally, we watched last week's ep of Community. I don't watch Community, and
eleanor_lavish said that this was probably not the episode to start me with, which is true. However, she assures me that it got better after the first six eps or so (I tried watching the first one or two when they originally aired and hated them), so maybe I will give it a try someday.Food
One of the promises about this trip was that we would go to BabyCakes, which is a vegan, gluten-free bakery, so on Saturday night we did just that. I bought a cupcake and an apple crumble thing (kind of like a coffee cake). The cake part of the cupcake was fine. The frosting was amazing. It tastes like a cream cheese frosting, but it's vegan. I had the apple crumble as part of my breakfast on Sunday morning, and then promptly started googling vegan, gluten-free apple cake recipes. I may have to buy one of their cookbooks. We also went to Risotteria, a gluten-free Italian place, where we each had a different kind of risotto. I may also have to learn how to make risotto now.
Concluding Note
Fangirl weekends are the best. You should have them if you don't already. ♥
(no subject)
Date: 2011-04-28 03:53 am (UTC)Oh, hah! <3 They opened up for Flogging Molly when I saw them last February. They're pretty unremarkable, but really decent. Plus, their guitarist totally looks like the Axel Steel character from Guitar Hero, so I guess I spent most of their set laughing my ass off in delight. XD
I'm so glad you had a good time!
♥
(no subject)
Date: 2011-04-28 11:56 pm (UTC)♥
(no subject)
Date: 2011-04-28 04:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-04-28 11:57 pm (UTC)