Ruth Sadelle Alderson

We arrived in time to catch the second half or so of Colour Revolt's set. This was not a good decision. Colour Revolt is a lot of very loud noise. They really like their reverb at the end of songs. Lucky for me, this was the second show in a row where I remembered to bring earplugs. Unlucky for me, Colour Revolt still sounds like a bunch of noise even with earplugs.

Let me pause to describe the venue. After they check IDs and the will call list, they slap a wristband on you and send you up the stairs to the venue proper. It's about a third as wide as it is long, with the stage at one end and the bar at the other. There's another staircase to the U-shaped upstairs. There's a second bar, merch, and a railing around the inside of the U where you can lean and look down. There's a wooden sculpture above the stage that you can't see during the show because it's too dark. There's a spiral staircase that comes down from upstairs onto the stage.

When it was time for Empires, siryn99 led the way into the crowd so we could get closer. We ended up about seven rows back, slightly to the right side of the venue where all the other short people were. It was an interesting height division. I could barely see Ryan, and I didn't know the bassist, so I wasn't paying much attention to him. They are Sirs Not Otherwise Appearing In This Entry. Tom looked better than I've ever seen him. His hair was still messy, but more like he slept on it than like an unkempt werewolf. Sean started the show in a leather jacket, but eventually stripped to his black Henley. The rest of our group was not thrilled with Sean's dance moves. The literal choreography is pretty ridiculous - and I couldn't see what his hips/legs were doing from my vantage point - but I thought he was better than he was when I saw him in May, and yet I wasn't quite was willing to follow him off into his cult. There is a possibility that both of these are opinions brought on by seeing him from a slightly larger distance. What I really liked were his interactions with the crowd. The stage has a block with monitors on it in front of it, and Sean kept stepping down onto it. He came all the way down into the crowd to start "Hello Lover," and then kept pointing up into the balcony. He came down again for "I Want Blood," and that time he came so far into the crowd that he stopped right in front of us.

I'm not sure if it was them or me, but it took two songs through - "Bang" and "Damn Things Over" - for me to get into the show. Then, though, I was hooked, at least partially because they played a lot of my favorite songs (this is out of order, but will give you the idea): "Hello Lover," "The Night Is Young" (which they started out soft), "Voodooized," "Spit the Dark," "Hell's Heroes" (which also had an amazing opening), "Hard Times," "Shame."

Tom looked happier and more into it than I've ever seen him. Sean sang a whole round of "Does anybody else know / does anybody else know / does anybody else know you like I do?" to him. On the other side of the stage, Sean went over to sing to Max a few times - including a block of "b-b-b-baby" - and every time, Max tossed his hair out of his face and just beamed at him. Where is the Sean/Max fic? Or even the Tom/Sean/Max fic?