Honor Society – Serendipity the Tour
Katie Friday night, Honor Society played a free show at iPlay Live in Freehold, NJ. I had never been there before, but my friend Kim lives nearby so we decided we’d pick up some VIP tickets and check it out. VIP entitled us to early entry, a photo with the band, a poster and a 4hour play card for iPlay’s rides. The guys had been promoting a Serendipity poster, so when we got there and we got a different 11×17 poster from the box office, I was bit bummed because I LOVE the Serendipity tour artwork!
We were let in and watching some of what I guess was considered soundcheck. They played a couple of songs that they intended to play, attempted a couple of songs that they couldn’t remember how to play… and even sang the new remix of Happy Birthday – Happy HALF Birthday.
After the performance / Q&A / whatever… we all lined up to say hi to the guys and get solo pics with them. I had been stressing over who to stand near now that there was only 3 of them – but Andy pulled me between him and Mike so that pretty much solved that issue! 🙂 Then we found out that we’d ALSO get the poster that I had wanted – Andy said they didn’t know anything about the ones that the venue had done up and that he had wanted one. After the group pics the guys mingled and signed the posters so I told Andy to go to the Box Office and tell them he was in the band and that he wanted the poster and he said “PLEASE” lmao because I had left that out of my instructions. Such manners. Kim had been talking to Alex on Twitter about going to White Castle after the show and when I said I had never been, he gave me a history of the burgers and how they are square and have wholes in them because of WWII.
Then it was time for everyone else to be let in and shortly after that This Is All Now took the stage. I remember not liking them in Boston last summer, but they were not as bad as I remembered (and re-reading my old reviews, I came to the conclusion he was sick in Boston so I should probably stop basing my opinion of them off of that performance!) They did a cover of Michelle Branch’s “Everywhere” which I thought was really weird. But pretty cool too – I mean, I’d prefer that over a Katy Perry or Ke$ha or whoever else.
Next up was Deleasa – who is Kevin Jonas’ brother in law. He hurt his foot playing soccer while on tour opening for the Jonas Brothers recently, so he sat for his set and played some songs on his guitars. The crowd seemed to love him. There were some girls in the back with light up “WELCOME HOME” signs too. I only caught the tail end of his set when he opened for Nick Jonas and the Administration, so it was nice to see a full set from him. He was really funny chatting with the crowd throughout his set.
Then it was time for Simple as Surgery. They had two guys on stage in masks with signs trying to get us hyped up. Kind of weird. I actually really liked SAS to the point where I considered making my way over to their merch table to pick up an EP but ultimately was too lazy. They had a keytar which was awesome, I mean, can a keytar be anything other than awesome?
Then it was time for Honor Society! Since the last time I had seen them, Jay has left the band. Their set up on the stage was a little bit different and I have to say there were a couple of times where I really felt Jay’s absence but over all they sounded just as great as ever and while it will be weird without Jay, I’ll eventually get used to it and hopefully his new project does well. (The Smoke Season – check them out.)
The show was a ton of fun (I expected nothing less) and I think I went a little over the top singing along at the top of my lungs (and for the last song Mike asked if we did know the words to sing along at the top of our lungs. Obviously that challenge was accepted by my very early on) They added a little Timberlake to the 99 Problems / Nobody Has to Know mashup. They did a variety of songs, some of which I hadn’t heard in a while (Gentleman After Dark) and then of course ones I’ve heard probably every show like See U In The Dark 🙂
After the show we got solo pics w/ all 3 and I was prepared this time when Alex didn’t have a sharpie and he was impressed! I told him how last time he asked me I didn’t have one and that I’d gone out and bought a pack the next day so I’d be prepared for the next time lol. (Shortly after he was brought one from the merch table so I got mine back)
The venue was in an arcade which was open until midnight, so we checked the place out a bit and hopefully when the guys come back it’ll be a Saturday so we can have the day to play around before the show!