No.35 Photo Friday #6: Reel Big Fail

These pictures are from a few weeks ago when I went to the Streetlight Manifesto/Reel Big Fish show. These are also the last pictures my camera took before the lens broke, RIGHT before Reel Big Fish. Despite the fact that I broke not only my camera, but my phone too, at this show, it was still one of the most amazing shows I've ever been to.

No. 18 Summer Show: Jazz Festival

(top-forever 21, cardigan-wet seal, jeans-pacsun, belt-tillys, shoes-payless)

When my favorite local ska band got to play at a middle school's jazz festival, I took it as the perfect opportunity to save some shoes! If plaid flats aren't perfect for skankin' around to some awesome ska music, I don't know what is.

Summer Shows: My Chemical Romance and Circa Survive

 This show was a weird one for me. Not the show itself, which was spectacular, but the overall experience of it was personally weird. I loved MCR's old stuff, from back when I was in 8th/freshman year. The new stuff is way too Glee/dancey for me so, to be truly honest, I was more excited to see Circa Survive again than anything else.

(I had to give myself a sharpie-tattoo of my signature Hippo with a mohawk and tie, throwin up a peace sign.)

The kickoff to the strangeness was when we got to our seats and I had some guy come up to me (it was insanely dark, I had no clue who he was,) and go, "Patricia?" Turns out he was an old classmate of mine I knew from 3rd-6th grade! I suddenly got self-conscious.

I mean, I don't know about you, but I kinda like to let loose at concerts, and knowing there was someone I knew standing 4 inches away from me, who knew me back in my long-hair-and-Harry-Potter-glasses days, was just tooo weird.

Then Circa Survive came on and I totally got over it. Lol.

Later on though, some weird feelings came back when this song started to play:


I honestly can't remember if I've ever talked about this on my blog but, I was a very depressed kid when I was in middle school. I mean, walk home everyday from school crying, contemplating suicide constantly, completely withdrawing from life, depressed. My entire 7th grade year was a complete nightmare, and I honestly don't like to think about how close I was to doing something stupid. And I remember this song and Good Charlotte's "Hold On" being played more than any that year. Hearing that song live was just, a really surreal experience.

Towards the end of the show, this next song started playing, and I swear I could not handle how amazing I felt hearing those first few keys and lyrics...


The song just reminded me of being a freshman, hanging out with my friends, singing this song at the top of our lungs during our morning PE classes. I remembered how happy I had become being able to start over in high school.

"When I was, a young boy, my father, took me into the city, to see a marching band...."

To feel the emotions I attached to each song in such a short period of time was a little overwhelming to me. I started to tear up and in a theatre full of hundreds of people I was grateful it was so pitch black. Knowing what I had almost done in 7th grade also knowing how happy I was going to be in high school made me so happy that I had pushed through my depression.

There I was, standing next to my best friend (my sister), a guy I knew when I was a little kid, hearing songs that reminded me of some major life moments, I just can't explain it. I was just so happy to be apart of that moment. To be able to look back on the person that I was in elementary school, to middle school, to high school, to who I was, standing there right then, this person had become, it was all triggered because of these songs, and this experience, and it was absolutely amazing.

And if you don't believe that it had been a rough night, the evidence is all in the hair.

Summer Shows: Aiden

This is the first post of five that will be recapping some of the awesome concerts and shows I went to this summer!

Aiden has always had a special place in my heart because it takes me back to my middle school days when I was trying to find my style and in turn, finding new music by watching music videos on Fuse and wearing waaaay too much black eyeliner. When me and my sister found out they were coming to town we were pretty excited. Die Romantic will always my favorite song of theirs because it was the first one I ever heard and really opened up their type of music to me.




I always loved We Sleep Forever too but the video still scares the bajesus outta me. Dolls=NOT OK.

I basically wanted to keep my outfit simple because it gets reeeally hot in the venue. (Jerry's Pizza in downtown Bakersfield is pretty much famous for it's basement, where countless of awesome bands have played, and for how FRICKIN HOT it gets down there.) I had to take these tights off within 5 minutes of being there, no joke.

 And to satisfy my 8th grade self, waaaay too much eye makeup :D

 The show itself was pretty iffy for me. I mean I LOVED the way Aiden puts on a show, seriously it was fantastic, but the audience was really off putting. I'm all for mosh pits and walls of death, that's pretty much routine, but when you have actual fistfights breaking out and grown men drunkenly kicking at group of girls to make them move, yea, that's pretty much not ok. None of that happened during Aiden, mostly during the opening bands, but once Aiden did finally come on, I had already moved to the back to escape claustrophobia and just let my sister do her thing. (She's pretty much the toughest little girl I know. She once got trampled in a Taking Back Sunday show and had the most insane bruises to prove it, but came out ALL SMILES. She can hold her own in ANY crowd, I never worry.)

By the time the show was over and all the fake fog had settled, I had a really great time enjoying the show despite having to watch it covered in sweat from the back of the basement. As the crowd parted for everyone to leave, I made my way to the front where I knew I'd find my sister.

As I walked forward through the crowd I noticed I was in someones way, who was walking in the opposite direction as me. I looked up, RIGHT into the face of the lead singer himself, William Control. Dripping in sweat and smeared eye makeup he gave me a half smile.
"Great show" is what my mouth said calmly, even though my 8th grade girly mind was saying "OH MY GOSH YOU ARE AMAZING AND OH MY GAWD STANDING SO CLOSE TO MY FACE"

He leaned in and whispered in my ear as he passed by, "Thank you." Never in my life will I forget how raspy and amazing his voice was and how I could feel his breath on my cheek. I'm usually not super star-struck anymore because I've seen so many bands and know a lot of musicians, but I TOTALLY geeked out when that happened.


My sister found me by then and was going on and on about how she was RIGHT in front of him and how he had grabbed and held her hand and hugged her because she was so close. We were both geeking out a bit, and agreed it was a show to be classified under the "great" column.