When They Said Concert, They Really Meant.... (1/3)

This Thursday Stephen (Not The Gay One) and I were going to an Underoath/Saosin/The Devil Wears Prada concert. So, I drive up to Stephen's house, and we get all of our stuff ready, come back like 8 times because i forgot stuff, and finally we were on our way. The drive started out lame, but as we got closer to ATL it started to pick up. We started with seeing Saturn's with no rims (*coughs Jeff), then it progressed to tricked out H2's with like 30 somethings. So it takes us like 2 hours to get there because they are doing construction and trying to raise the road like 3 feet. We finally get off at our exit, take a few sketch street turns and eventually see our target... The Masquerade. We take an early turn where we park the Xfactor and head on our way. Stephen tells me that this is a large line for a concert because he was here before for a concert and it wasnt nearly this big. This worried me a little. We then make our way down the street crossing about 200 people, ranging from everything from the typical emo: the band shirt, girl jeans, piercings, fringe, Converse, to the California Surfer: HoCo flip flops (not a smart idea for a concert of this venue), Abercrombie shirt, cargo shorts, messed up hair... you get the picture, there were alot of different kinds of people... this one, Stephen pointed out to me was a really mixed bag... Fall Out Boy hat, jeans, converse... but his eyes... (http://farm1.static.flickr.com/111/292553831_d46301bfbe.jpg?v=0) yeah... creepy... People watching at places like these is really fun, and occasionally you get something interesting... like the guitarist from underoath walking with his parents to the back of the building that no one caught but me (i was kind of surprised at this) Anyways, the doors finally opened, and we got herded in through these freaking huge bouncers that dominated your hand with a giant splat of black ink. We were then "herded" into the bottom area known endearingly as "Hell". I stayed close to the door, so when they decided to let us up into "Heaven" the place where our concert was, me and Stephen would be the first ones up there... And of course, being at the entrance of a room, you hear some pretty interesting things... one that i found quite ironic: Boy "Hey, I like Hell, I've never been here before." Girl "Yeah, its neat, but its really hot in here"... hah Fail! So they finaly let us up to Heaven where me and stephen sprint to the front. We make it to about 5 feet from the stage, or 3 people and a bar in between us and the stage. At first, it seemed kinda fun, and then i was like uh oh.. haha big people all around, I'm about to get dominated... But then a black guy came out and started doing a sound check, and of course no one recognized him as being POS, because hip hop at a HXC concert was completely absurd. He then continued in playing (or should i say rapping) his songs, which everyone was extremely hostile and it made me laugh. Then The Devil Wears Prada came on and completely melted the stage with pulse pounding harmonics and slammin' guitar licks powered by deep hitting vocals. This was the point that after the first 20 min i looked down at my hands and noticed that they were already raisiny from the sweat of the concert, along with my completely soaked shirt, pants, socks, undies, and shoes... all wet, or should i say all sweat.. But i couldnt care less, the show rocked my face and my two favorites still werent on yet. Once the Devil Wears Prada completly brought down the house, Saosin came out. Now im not sure why every one was hating on the "Girly Voiced Abercrombie Models" but i really liked them. Stephen had muscled his way to the front b/c this was his favorite band of the concert. So, being the tired little chap he was, he was like "Hey, U want the front" and i was like "Ah Hell yeah!" and then proceeded in making myself familar with my "closest" friends for the next 40 or so minutes. They seemed nice, sharing water (at this point i really didnt mind contracting aids as long as i could get some liquids) and such... Anyways, Underoath rocked my face and i caught the drummer (Aaron Gillespie) 's drumstick, and it is sitting on my shelf now in a place of honor! haha Then we stopped off at a waffle house on the way back where Stephen completely dominated like 5 eggs, waffles and I think milk... while i shivered in my soaking tshirt drinking water. (I know pathetic right?) We finally got back, took a shower and ended our (well, my) first concert experience extravaganza!....

And when me and Stephen said we were going to a concert, we really shouldve called it "Me and Stephen are going to an enclosed fireworks show of epilleptic proportions where your extended family 8 times removed beat each other up blindfolded"