Last night I headed into the city, met up with my friend Jaime and we were headed to the South Street Seaport to check out Paper Magazines “Sounds Like Paper” concert with Hanson and Drake. We ended up taking a wrong turn out of the subway and took the looooooong way to the Seaport. When the Seaport was off in the distance, we took a seat on a bench and were wondering why we didn’t hear any music, since it was after 6pm (the scheduled start time). Then I got a text from a friend asking where I was saying that the place was absolutely packed with Drake fans.
We got to the Pier 17 area and it was CRAZY how many people were there. Every inch of the stairs was full of people, and the whole pier area was covered with people and overflow was across the street. We wandered around a bit and decided staying in the back was our best bet, but since there was still no music and SO many people, I didn’t think anything was going to actually end up happening. Jaime and I decided that if by 7:30 nothing started happening, we’d leave. Although about 5 minutes after we made that pact, we ended up going across the street anyway, because it seemed like a lot more people were leaving at once so we knew something had to have been going on and we didn’t want to be in the middle of it.
Turns out that people on the stairs started throwing things at people down below and vice versa – and even CHAIRS were being thrown down. I mean, cmon, how stupid can you be? Apparently the Drake fans were getting pissed that nothing was happening yet – whereas the Hanson fans are used to nothing ever happening on time!
I tried to get in touch with my friends who were there, but due to the massive amounts of people it was nearly impossible to text, make a phone call, or even check twitter to see if anyone had said it was canceled.
We sat on some steps near the Seaport shops and my friend was able to get through to me and said that Hanson had tweeted it was canceled, but Drake said he was still coming. (and I’m pretty sure he did end up showing up and sticking his head out of his bus) We waited for my friends to get out from the restaurant where they were, and while we were waiting a bunch of people came running down the street and we didn’t know what to do. But then they all turned around and went back. Apparently about that time the cops were using mace to get people to leave.
We hung around til about 9pm, when there was still a HUGE crowd of people around (when the concert had been called off about an hour and a half before) We decided to head back to Grand Central and go home (since it didn’t appear that Hanson was going to play a secret show anywhere) While walking to the subway, a fight broke out so we ran off to the side so as not to get stampeded by people running to see the fight. (At least, we think it was a fight) and a couple of guys blocked us saying “Protect the white girls!” We were definitely out numbered lol
When we finally got to Grand Central, I had missed the 9:37 by like 2 minutes. Decided I would take my trusty 10:22 which was at track 18… except no train ever showed up even once 10pm hit. (And usually I am on the train sitting for a bit before it leaves) I went over to the screen that shows the track and the 10:22s track was now BLANK. With about 5 minutes to spare, they announced we’d be on track 16 instead and a TON of people rushed to the track. Then once we got down to the train, the doors weren’t even open! I walked down as far as I could handle and was able to get myself a window seat. Then halfway through the ride the PA system in the train went out and the AC went out (or turned down) too because they said we were in the hottest car and could move back if we wanted.
Also, at our first stop the doors never opened, we were told that the police had to get on the train to deal with something… luckily it was not in my car!
Then when I finally got home I got stuck waiting for ambulances and fire trucks to go by! It was a crazy night.