Warped Tour 2010

Katie July 12, 2010 0 Comments

Yesterday Vans Warped Tour was in Hartford, CT.  I was able to get free tickets as part of my “Ultimate Access Pass” and while normally this was not a show I would go to, my little brother wanted to go so I took him.  There were really only 2 bands I was interested in seeing – The Pretty Reckless which is fronted by Taylor Momsen, aka Little J from Gossip Girl.  The other band was Sum 41 who I have liked for several years now but generally stay away from their types of shows as it’s probably not the safest place for me to be.

I was reading up on Warped Tour online and knew that if you brought 3 food items you could get a wristband to get let in 15 minutes early.  So we got there at 10 (doors were at 11) picked up tickets from Will Call, dropped off our food and then waited in line.  Except we were let in one gate early, but not let in from the other until the main gates were open as well, which was pointless.  The first 200 people got free items if they went to the Vans tent with the secret word and one item was a ‘rock hand’ foam finger and it was ORANGE so of course I wanted it.  Unfortunately by the time we got to the table the fingers and lanyards were gone so we ended up with a key chain.

We wandered around a bit more and grabbed a program. Then I decided I needed to sit and eat something and so my brother wandered around a bit to find more info.  I really was not into the style of music that was going on at the stage near me, so we found the Glamour Kills and AP Advent stage.  Pretty Reckless would be on the AP stage at 5:15 and the stages were in the pavilion at the venue so I could sit back and observe everything else that was going on.  I ended up there all night while my brother went off to see and meet other bands and met up with me after the sets he wanted to see were done.

The bands I ended up seeing were:

Die Another Day
Anarbor
Sparks the Rescue
Rev Peytons Big Damn Band
I See Stars
The Casualties
Versa Emerge
Polar Bear Club
Enter Shikari
The Cab
Ace Enders / I Can Make A Mess
Never Shout Never
Artist Vs Poet
The Pretty Reckless
The Summer Set
Mike Posner
Sum 41

My only regret would be that I didn’t go meet The Pretty Reckless because I had heard that The Summer Set was good – but they didn’t really impress me.  I was, however, very impressed with the Cab, their set was probably my favorite of the day. (Coming in a close second was Sum 41 who I was pretty excited for all day because at first I thought we weren’t going to stay long enough to see them)

Jack Johnson 7/9/10 To The Sea Tour Hartford, CT

Katie July 10, 2010 0 Comments

Last night Jack Johnson opened his “To The Sea” Tour in Hartford, CT at the Comcast Theatre.  This was my first “Ultimate Access Pass” show.  We got to the venue around 5pm and watched the lines grow.  Since it was so hot out (92*, by my cars thermometer) we decided to wait until the doors had opened to go get in line.  It drizzled a bit while we waited but it wasn’t enough to cool anything down.  (The clouds looked much scarier than they turned out to be!)

When we got inside we were given a “passport”.  We had to get 3 of the 9 items on the back stamped and then would be entered to watch the show from the stage!  In order to get your passport stamped you had to visit the non profit tents.  We learned that for Jack’s tour they had set up areas where you could refill your bottles with water (filtered by Brita) for FREE!  We had left our water in the car and were kicking ourselves at this point because we could have stayed hydrated for free, the green way!  We also learned about a local organization, Solar Youth and our final stamp we got for donating $5 to BioDiesel for a raffle and a chance to win signed CDs.

We then made our way to the lawn, where we first rented chairs.  It was $10 per chair, but you got $5 back if you returned it with a ticket at the end of the night.  We were surprised to see a new handicapped section (I haven’t been on the lawn in 10 years) and made our way in there to claim a spot.  We couldn’t really see the stage without standing up, but at least we wouldn’t be knocked around if the lawn got out of hand.

The first opening band was ALO, who went on at 8.  For some reason all of their songs reminded me of Hanson songs… But I really enjoyed their set. It was also around this time I noticed we were joined by an itsy bitsy spider and I was watching it build its web through the opening acts sets! You can find more about ALO at their website: http://alomusic.com/

G-Love was the second opener.  He said he was from Philly, but I felt like his songs had a real southern vibe to them.  He also plays a mean harmonica! He also mentioned that he doesn’t usually perform solo, but he started off solo.  Usually he is backed by his band.  If he was nervous at all it didn’t show and he played a strong set. You can check out G Love at his website, http://www.philadelphonic.com/

Jack Johnson and his band took the stage at about 10pm.  I knew it was going to be a late night when I saw the show didn’t start until 8 (I guess I am used to going to the shows with teeniebopper crowds who would end up awake far past their bed time if shows started at 8) but I never expected that Jack would have played nearly 2 hours!  He forgot the words a couple of times – the first time he said that he asked one of his band members what the next line was and they told him the wrong line.  The second time he started the song with the second verse.  I would have had no idea if he just kept going with it – but nearly everyone else in the crowd recognized songs by just the first couple of notes and probably could have helped him out if he asked with the lyrics!  Near the end of the show he apologized for having his eyes closed a lot while he was singing, but said it was to help him from forgetting any more words.  He sounded great though.

For a couple of songs he was joined by his friend Paula Fuga, from Hawaii.  The crowd behind us were raving about her voice after he had announced her as coming to the stage, and they were right, she has a phenomenal voice and I wish she would have sang more than just a couple of songs!

He was also joined by one of the members of ALO for a couple of songs and G Love came back out to play harmonica on a few songs as well.  I liked that all the acts on the tour got involved in the main event.  It really brought everything full circle.

The only negatives were that the fans in the pavilion were standing on their chairs (Or Jack just has quite a following of 10ft tall people) Security didn’t seem to do much, so even when those of us in the handicapped section stood up, we couldn’t really see over their heads.

The other downside was that the screens didn’t show anything from the stage until near the end of G Love’s set. Fortunately no one was standing on their chairs until Jack so if you wanted to take a peak you could, but it would have been nice to just relax and take it all in while watching the screens to see what was going on.

I think Lauren managed to get a couple of photos of the stage, so if anything is worth posting I will make a picture post a little bit later, but for now – setlist is under the cut!

You and Your Heart
If I Had Eyes
Taylor
Sitting, Waiting, Wishing
To The Sea
Go On
From The Clouds
Bubble Toes
Wasting Time
Banana Pancakes
Same Girl
My Little Girl
Country Road (w/ Paula Fuga)
Turn Your Love (w/ Paula Fuga and Dan Lebowitz)
Breakdown (w/ Dan Lebowitz)
Flake (w/ Dan Lebowitz)
Rodeo Clowns (w/ G. Love)
Red Wine, Mistakes, Mythology (w/ G.Love)
Staple It Together
Good People
At Or With Me

Encore:
Do You Remember
Home
Angel
Better Together

Adam Lambert MGM Grand @ Foxwoods June 24, 2010

Katie June 27, 2010 0 Comments

As I had previously mentioned, our seats for the show were great and I think it is the closest I have ever been at a show at this venue!

Allison was out first, and did a relatively short set. She did a great job in the short time she had though.  For “Don’t Waste The Pretty” she was joined by Orianthi on the guitar.

Next up was Orianthi’s full set, and while I don’t know that she is the best singer out there – her guitar skills more than made up for that.  I thoroughly enjoyed her set, although it did seem to be a couple of songs too long.  Apparently the women behind me felt the same, but rather than keep it to themselves to blog later (as I did) they had to yell and scream after her last song that they hoped she was done and getting off the stage.

It was the commentary of the women behind me that led to me busting out the heavy duty earplugs for a second night in a row.  And my mom even asked for some of the other disposable earplugs I had, but then told me that they didn’t work at all.  I wasn’t very surprised though, as I could loud and clearly understand he commentary throughout Adam’s entire set and I don’t even want to think about how loud these women were without earplugs.  I mean, is a running commentary really needed? The all amazing Adam Lambert is on stage – take it all in ladies!

At first, we weren’t going to stay for Adam’s set at all.  Then it was.. well maybe we’ll give him a chance of a couple of songs.. to.. well we’ll see how much of it we can take… but we ended up staying for the whole set.  (We were already there, why not)

I must say I really enjoyed it.  There was minimal screeching, which was good.  I hate that and I do think he has a great voice when he is just singing. (Which I had the pleasure of hearing at 6am at the Today Show soundcheck last year!)  The screams/screeches seemed to be fit into the songs in a place where they almost belonged and weren’t all over the place and annoying.  Of course until the end of the set, during the encore when he seemed to screech for a couple of minutes straight..

The show was very theatrical, which was to be expected.  He had 4 dancers and occasionally he danced with them and the boy has moves.  This show combined with Bieber’s dancing the night before made me realize just how much I missed boybands and their shows. (NSYNC reunion now please?)

Adam’s set was just over an hour – with the whole show running about 3 hours with all the set changes.

Another item worth noting – a woman a couple of rows in front of us had a baby doll she was holding in the air for all the sets.  I noticed it during Allison’s set and it gave me a laugh.  When the lights came on we realized it had on a little leather vest and then at one point she turned it around and it had on eye makeup! We decided it was a baby Adam and her waving it around during the show was almost as entertaining as the show on the stage in front of us.

Overall, it was a great show and I would recommend it – though it seems like the majority of his tour is sold out so you might have to resort to entering contests to get in!

Adam Lambert M&G

Katie June 26, 2010 0 Comments

When I picked up my tickets and M&G; passes we were instructed to meet at 6:45, but there was no real destination listed.  At 6:30 we headed over near the box office, because the woman who had called to tell me I had won told me to meet Maze, one of the morning show DJs, near the box office at 6:45, so we were looking for him.  We ended up finding another 2 people with passes on so we stayed with them, and then saw a few other people with passes as well and finally Paul came out to get all all together. (Maze never did show up and Paul told me that he was there earlier interviewing Adam)

About 7pm, when the M&G; was scheduled to start, we were taken through a door for authorized personal only and taken to a side door of the theatre.  Paul instructed us to wait there and that “Adam would be with us shortly”

While Paul left us to go make sure he had all the people with passes, venue security told us we had to wait inside the theatre on a ramp and we would be instructed when to come back to the area that we were in.

Another group of people with passes went through the theatre and right past us, back to where we were told we couldn’t wait.  We never saw them come back out and had no idea what was going on.  Paul mentioned that Allison would be on first at 8, and as 7:30 got closer we were beginning to worry that we would miss her set because we would be with Adam.  Finally around 7:45 we were brought back to where we were told we couldn’t wait, and 2 by 2 we went into the room to greet Adam.

It was quick!  He asked me my name, I told him it was Katie, he said Hi Katie! and my mom introduced herself as “Katie’s mom” so he said “Hi Katie’s Mom!” and laughed.  Adam’s brother Neil took our photo – but said the first one came out blurry so he wanted to try another one so we got back in position and then Adam signed my picture retrieval card (If I had known we’d get autos too I’d have picked up a hard copy of his cd, but oh well) and he signed my mom’s ticket. As we were leaving he said that he better see us dancing and to have fun at the show LOL

Then we waited for the group to finish so we could get our tickets scanned and go back in the theater, but then we were told not to bother and just to find our seats.  My mom was showing all the ushers her ticket and they were all getting excited that it was signed! LOL I even offered to swap places with one of the ushers while she took my pass to go meet him real quick! 😉

Our seats were in the second row of the Parterre – they were really good seats!

Justin Bieber – XL Center – June 23, 2010

Katie June 25, 2010 0 Comments

I wasn’t sure what to expect with Justin’s show, aside from a bunch of screaming young girls.  I got to the XL Center around 2 to meet up with my friend Amber and to see if we could figure out how to get to meet Justin (no luck there)

Doors opened at 5:30, but we hung around a bit for the crowds to go in and also to wait for Christine and her niece to show up.  When I went through the line to get my bag checked, the guy said GloSticks weren’t allowed, so he made me leave Amber’s on the table.  Except that 2 seconds previously he had let Christine through with the glosticks I had given her, and I had more on the bottom of my bag (and when are they ever not allowed?) It was odd.  He also was like “I don’t think they are allowing them…” He pretty much just made it up.  But Amber was able to go around the other side and steal them back so we got them in.

I had won 2 sets of tickets and they weren’t next to each other, they were in 2 different sections.  We went to our seats and waved at each other.  After the first couple opening acts we had Christine and Tricia come down near us, because no one was there, and they were able to sit there the whole show!

The first opening act was  The Stunners (http://www.thestunnersmusic.com/)  They were a group of 5 girls and for one of the songs one played a guitar while the other played a violin which was interesting.  They weren’t on stage for very long.

Right after, Jessica Jarrell (http://www.islanddefjam.com/artist/home.aspx?artistID=7343)  She has a really good voice and did a short set.

After Jessica was off the stage they set everything up for Sean Kingston (www.seankingston.com).  His band intro-ing him seemed to take FOR-EV-ER.  At first, I was unsure of the pairing of Sean Kingston and Justin Bieber, but the crowd seemed very into Sean’s set and he definitely got everyone pumped and ready for Justin!

Then it was time for the moment we were all waiting for – Justin Bieber!  I had forgotten that young girls like to scream whenever anything is happening on stage – guys walking by setting up equipment, etc. So there were a couple of times I was caught off guard without the earplugs in – but let me just tell you the new plugs I bought are AMAZING.  I never really tried them out for a complete show until Bieber but they are the best $11 or whatever I have EVER spent.  They really do turn down the volume.  I could hear all the perfomances great, nothing seemed muffled, and the screams were at a bearable volume level. 

The show started with Justin appearing in a globe and he sang Love Me.  I actually knew the words to most of this one since it samples the Cardigans song ‘Lovefool’.  Justin was dressed in white and purple – and of course had on a Yankees hat. :/ A purple Yankees hat at that.

He sang a few more songs and then this giant heart appeared on stage.  He sat inside it, got strapped in, and went out over the crowd, spinning, so everyone could get a good look at him.  I thought this was a great touch to get closer to the people in the back (even though he only went about halfway across the floor)

After solidly doing about 7 songs in a row, it was time for the videos to come on so he could do wardrobe changes.  They seemed to come a bit too often from this point onward.

One of the videos was about his backup singers, Legaci, who he found on YouTube. (Of course a bit of a Pay It Forward as Justin himself was also discovered on YouTube) They did a medley of bits of Usher’s OMG, Train’s Hey Soul Sister, Jay Sean’s Down, Justin Timberlake’s My Love, Bruno Mars and BOB’s Beautiful Girls and Travie McCoy’s Billionaire (aka mostly songs popular on the radio right now with the exception of Timberlake)  I  was really impressed with them.

After the medley, another item moved to the front of the stage, that looked like a cage.  It was the basket of a Hot Airballoon and Justin once again went out into the crowd this time bobbing up and down while he sang his song “Up”

Another break where the DJ tried to keep us entertained as we were nearing the end of the show.

Justin did a few more songs – including Eenie Meenie with Sean Kingston. (Sean had done some of the song during his set as well) and a medley of Want to be starting something and Walk this way, which showcased Justin and his backup dancers skills.

Then a sign went up on the screens saying thank you and goodnight.  But the house lights weren’t on and he hadn’t done Baby yet so we knew we still had at least another song coming.

Justin came out and thanked the fans and did With You by Chris Brown acapella.  Then he sang Baby and the place went crazy.  Usher even showed up for about 10 seconds, waving his arms.  He gave Justin a hug and then he ran off stage.  It would have been nice if he stayed out there a little longer and maybe even sang with Justin – but it was a nice surprise (even though Amber had said she thought she saw him arriving earlier in the day so we knew he would be coming out at some point lol)

Overall the show was very entertaining, lots of dancing, a little lip synching… The worst part was trying to get out of the parking garage!  For some reason they did pay as you leave – which made no sense to me.  (Last time i went to this venue I had parked in a different garage)  People arrive staggered so it makes more sense to have them pay the $10 when they get there, and then afterwards just have all the gates open so people can freely leave.  But, after about 25 minutes everything cleared out and I was able to make my way home!

Justin Bieber My World Tour Setlist

Katie June 24, 2010 0 Comments

Love Me
Bigger
Smile
Runaway Luv
Never Let You Go
Favorite Girl
One Less Lonely Girl
–video–
Somebody to Love
–video–
Overboard – w/ Jessica Jarrell
Never Say Never
–video–
Backup singers (Legaci) medley:
OMG/Hey Soul Sister/Down/My Love/Beautiful Girls/Billionaire
Up
–DJ–
That Should Be Me
Want To Be Starting Something / Walk This Way
Eenie Meenie w/ Sean Kingston
Down To Earth
–thank you and goodnight–
With You (acapella)
Baby