After many failed attempts at trying to get tickets to see One Direction on any of their tours, they added a Connecticut show and I somehow managed to get a ticket for it. It was not the best seat in the world, but it was in the upper level in the section closest to the stage – so I suppose it could have been worse. And it turned out that it ended up being their first headlining show in the USA as well.
When we arrived, I had to laugh at the parents who were trying to bring their kids through the casino. You can not walk through it unless you are 21+ and there are signs all over the parking garage with details on what entrance to use if you have people under 21 with you. This was just the beginning of dumb parents (more on that later)
There was a mob for the doors so I decided to go and gamble for a bit before heading inside. I ended up losing $5 on a Lobster Mania machine and then I found the handicapped accessible line (this is awesome, because I never would have survived standing in that mob of girls who were all way too excited to get inside and therefore could not stand still or control themselves) waited a few minutes for the woman checking bags to fight with a mother over a poster that would not be allowed in and then take toothbrushes from some young girls. My section was directly across from the doors to get in, which was nice because the floors in the arena have a design on them and I trip over the design EVERY. TIME.
I was concerned I might be the last row in the whole arena, but fortunately there were 3 rows behind me. (For future reference I think the section ends with row M.) The tickets said possibly obstruction and there really wasn’t one, except that the screen behind the guys on stage couldn’t really be seen at the angle we were at. This could have easily been remedied if the videos in between sets were shown on the screens on the side as well, but for whatever reason they decided not to pipe the video in on them.
The first opening act was a 12 year old named Camryn. She didn’t really seem to get the crowd pumped up at all, although she tried to get everyone to jump and fist pump along with her. I had my earplugs in and had a hard time hearing her singing over her backing track. You can find out more about her at her website: http://www.camrynmusic.com/
The second opening act was an 18 year old named Manika. Her singing was at least louder than the music, but I wasn’t in to her at all. You can check out her at her website: http://manika-music.com/
When the lights came back on after Manika’s set there was an “awwww” from my section because they thought that One Direction would be on next. I guess I have to try and remember back to my first concert – before a lot of the girls who were at this show was born – to see if I felt the same way. (I don’t really remember) The music in between Manika and One Direction’s set had the crowd more pumped than both openers combined. Everyone was jumping around and dancing to songs from Grease, Kriss Kross and “I like to move it move it”.
At the Mohegan Sun Arena, they have a band of screens that go around the arena that show ads for upcoming shows and alcohol. (I never realized the amount of ads for alcohol that they showed until last night. There were at least 3!) Some of these ads are bright and some are dark. Every time a dark ad came up everyone would scream thinking that the lights were going out for One Direction to take the stage. (I can’t fault the girls too much – this tends to confuse me at times too!)
Before the show started, I was able to see the guys walk up the back of the stage and get ready for the show to begin. They had the same stage clothes as their set during their tour with Big Time Rush. Each of the guys had their chance to talk to the crowd during the set, though pretty much everything they said I could not hear because the screams were insane! At one point they took questions from twitter – which resulted in them doing American Accents and singing the theme song to the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
From what I could tell from the videos – it seemed like each set was supposed to represent one of the seasons. For the final set it was winter and Liam was wearing a scarf! There was even snow falling in the arena and the guys were throwing snow balls at the crowd and each other.
I certainly missed the choreographed dancing of the boybands of “my day”, but the guys had high energy and were running, jumping and spinning all around the stage and seemed to genuinely be having a great time. I took an insane amount of photos, so choosing what to post here was difficult. I am hoping to get the Concert Katie gallery updated soon and whenever that happens I’ll post a link so you can check out more of my photos from this concert and others as well.
After the show, leaving the arena was very difficult. Parents were waiting for their kids to come out and some of them gave NO ROOM for people to exit. It was ridiculous going through this wall of parents. (My parents went with me too, mainly to gamble and so I wouldn’t have to ride there alone – but we made a deal to meet at a restaurant so they could order me some food before the place got mobbed. It was a genius idea, even though I thought I was never going to make it to where they were because I had to navigate through the sea of parents!)
Na na na
Stand up
I wish
I gotta feeling
Stereo hearts
Valerie
Torn
Moments
Gotta be you
More than this
Up all night
Tell me a lie
Everything about you
Dj zayn
Use somebody
One thing
Save you tonight
What makes you beautiful
I want