Atlanta October 21
I flew to Atlanta after work and everything went fine until we landed and they said we needed to stay seated for paramedics to arrive. Then they started having us get off because they weren’t there yet. When it was about to be my turn, they said the paramedics had arrived and we needed to sit and wait again. Then they had gotten rid of all the wheelchairs and I had to wait for them to track down new ones. Once that was done, I waited for my friend at baggage claim and then we realized Uber was a liar and the times they quote are way off.
Atlanta October 22
The first show in Atlanta was Zac’s 39th birthday. We had intended to get there a bit earlier to trade bracelets in the line, but all the uber wait estimates were lies, so we ended up getting there a bit closer to doors than we actually wanted to. About halfway through the show I found myself zoning out, wondering why I was even there (aside from it being Zac’s birthday) the cake after Zac’s solo seemed a bit anticlimactic, but considering it came during the show and not at the end it probably was in their best interest NOT to smash it in his face and make a mess of the stage while they were still needing to use it. Then, Taylor’s solo kind of turned everything around for me. (No, it wasn’t Pink Moon) We were hoping when he sat down at the piano it may be “The Luckiest” which has been on setlists and constantly skipped and my friend had asked him about it in Pittsburgh – but it was not. He ended up saying, “You won’t get this from Taylor very often. The three of us fight all the time. Like a lot. But that doesn’t mean you don’t love each other. Cheers to all the people that drive you crazy that you love. If you get to have anything with anybody for more than 3 decades, it’s worth fighting for, even if you have to fight over it. Cheers to everybody that is putting in the time for the fight” and went in to A Song to Sing. Isaac joined him for a verse and then Zac, but for whatever reason they stopped singing and the crowd took over and it was like nothing I had heard before. I’m not one to get goosebumps but WOW. After the show people closer to the front were mentioning that Taylor may have been crying during it. He was pretty sappy, and also informed us that the reason Matthew Sweet was no longer on the tour was that he had had a stroke. There is a GoFundMe out there to help raise money for his medical and recovery expenses. After the solo I was re-invigorated, but the rest of the set was more of the same.
While we had tickets to Taylor’s dance party, we opted to not go. We waited outside a bit to chat with some friends (one of which was also having a birthday!) and ended up calling an uber right around when Taylor took the stage for his DJ set – as they were piping some of the music outside. Keep in mind if you’re going to a future show – check if there is No Re-entry – it seemed like there were several girls who left and couldn’t get back in. (This is probably due to the fact that they don’t want to reset the security checkpoints) We had also seen this at some previous shows as well.
Atlanta October 23
For the electric show I was a bit worried going in as we had 2nd row balcony instead of my preferred first and the girls in front of us stood for a lot of the acoustic show and we assumed the electric show would lead to even more standing but to my surprise it was way more chill and I had a great view. Again – nothing really different in the setlist. Taylor did no solo (still no Pink Moon!) and the setlist didn’t even have a spot for it this time so maybe we freaked him out mentioning Pink Moon / The Luckiest to him. I have one set of shows left. Will I hear it? For the encore, all of Phantom Planet joined Hanson again for Lost Without Each Other and it looked like they were having a lot of fun.
After the show we opted to not wait by the buses as we decided we needed to be up at 5am to get me to the airport in time for my flight. While waiting in the hotel lobby for our DoorDash to come (another app with time estimates that were mostly lies) Phantom Planet ended up checking in so that was pretty cool.