My second Hanson-concert-experience! Well, the first thing I went to wasn't quite a concert... I mean, it was, but it wasn't a tour concert. THIS WAS MY FIRST TOUR CONCERT. There we go
I had tickets. But of course, I had bad tickets. Even though I'm a member of MOE, I couldn't do the "preffered seating" thing because I was on a trip to Massachussetts while that was available, and my mother actually went and waited in line for tickets for me while I was out of the state. Isn't that nice?
Anyway, my best friend and I were on our way to San Francisco! We had joked for a long time about bringing signs, and thought that since we were going to have bad seats, it would be even funnier to make signs for this concert! So that's just what we did. At least we were going to. I reached into a bag I had brought in the car of things that we'd need and... I couldn't find the pen I'd been meaning to bring. "Uh oh." I said.
"What?" replied Ruthie."
"We need to stop and get some markers. We wanted to make signs, right?"
So... we went into an office supply store and bought four of those "good smelling markers". I forget what they're called... we had four colors. Red, blue, green, and... yellow, I think.
On the way there, I made a sign reading "Taylor Takes Me To Swoonsville!".
"Swoonsville"... that was this dumb expression I'd made up like a week before that my best friend thought was funny. It was the stupidest sign ever.
It came time to make Ruthie's... She stuck with something simple. "I Like Ike!". It was beautiful.
We had a leftover Zac sticker, because we had not made a sign for the youngest Hanson. I decided that this would be the best place for him:
On the way into San Francisco, I played DJ- we listened to Hanson. I tried to play things that they wouldn't be playing at the concert. We saw a group of girls in a car with the back reading "Honk if you like Hanson"... so we honked... and waved frantically as Ruthie lifted up her "I Like Ike" sign to the window, covering their view of us, making them think we were crazy.
Once we were in San Francisco and we had found the Warfield, we saw a bunch of girls. We went in line... and waited. The Warfield isn't exactly in the best part of San Francisco, so we waited alongside many nudie bars, porn shops, etc. Ruthie wanted me to stand in front of some of them for pictures, but I didn't exactly have the desire to stand happily in front of strippers bars at that moment in time.
My mom stole my camera and took a picture of me in front of some random bus.
I didn't expect too much security trying to get into the Warfield. So, I had decided to being a camera along with us so we could take pictures of us with our signs once we were inside and I would then scan them for the website. But no! I saw people being "searched" in front of me... the security rudely gropeing around inside purses... so I had to do something with my camera! I "slyly" handed it to Ruthie. Although I had really tried SO HARD to be sneaky and clever, I really hadn't done it very well at all and the woman totally had seen it and Ruthie just handed my camera over. They continued to rummage through my bag and took out my... markers?!?
I was so upset. They took my three markers and my camera and made me go down to this area downstairs where they had taken so many cameras. I was really upset. They kept saying things to me like "Don't get mad at me... it's Hanson's rule!".
By the way, you could have disposable cameras without a flash. Yeah... so.... yeah. I'm stupid and didn't take the time to find anything like that out. But then again, I wasn't going to be front row snapping pictures, or anything like that. My reason for bringing a camera was to take pictures of Ruthie really far away holding a sign, and exactly how far away we were from the stage.
A woman who worked at the Warfield asked me what I was doing when I was in that downstairs area standing in line, "They stole my camera!" I whined in a somewhat angry tone. It made her laugh. At least in my upset state I made someone laugh.
It was funny... in retrospect. Only in retrospect, though.
I still haven't come to any other conclusion as to why they took my markers other than they thought that I would "go on a spree of drawing multicolor handlebar moustaches on the crowd when they weren't looking". Or maybe they thought I'd deface Warfield property. Whatever.
We went up to our faraway seats. Only we had trouble finding them... it was dark. And confusing... and you couldn't read the stupid numbers. Neve, the openeing act, started to play.
Ruthie and I took this opportunity to leave our seats and get some merchandise!
We waited in line. The line was pretty long. Actually, it was really long. By the time we got up there, Neve was just about done. Dude, those morons were saying things to the crowd, trying to get them to mosh! That's SO dangerous at a concert like that, ugh... poor girls.
we went back to our seats... well, somewhere reltively near to where our seats should have been. I was worried that someone would come and yell at us... but they didn't.
The whole reason I had wanted to keep my markers was because Ruthie and I hadn't made our other sides to our signs yet. I wasn't sure if security would like, look at what our signs said, so we were going to play it safe and do it in the theatre in case we were offensive.
"Dude, it sucks they took your markers." Ruthie said.
"I know... hey, wait. They took three markers!" I exclaimed.
"Yeah, you had four markers..."
I looked in my bad and... viola! A blue pen was in there! Ruthie and I excitedly scribbled other sides on our posterboards.
"Hanson Can't See My Sign!" I wrote... as Ruthie made the greatest sign ever made, "I Like ASS!" with little hearts on the sides. It was wonderful.
We anticipated the start of the concert. We waited.... AND THEN THERE THEY WERE!!!!
They started off with "Look At You"! I love that song, and I always have... even when all you other stupid people didn't like it. And if you still don't, whatever. I love how it sounds secretly dirty and perverted. Actually, not-so-secretly- "Kick off your shoes, get on the floor, this is what we came here for. You've got to break it down, you've got to get it out, just get on the floor...."
You may (or may not) be wondering just what Ruthie and I had in our crazy little minds as we made signs, right? Well, being near the back of the theatre, there was no way that Hanson would see what the heck our signs said (and, DUH, we knew that) soooo, we wanted to seem like two crazy people in the back that had brought signs! So, whenever the lights would shine up on us (which was very rarely, might I add) we'd put our signs up! We did it two or three times for extrememly short periods of time, and even that little bit made the people in back of us yell "Put your signs down!". They didn't seem to like our joke... which only made it much funnier to the two of us.
Hanson then went into a set somewhat similar to the best night of my life so far, The Fillmore. "You Never Know", "Where's The Love", "Runaway Run"... I went teenybopperly-crazy the last time I saw them do that in concert, grabbing Ruthie and shaking her. I scared her so much. So, as a joke, I did it agian. "Sure About It". It wasn't acoustic this time.
Then into different stuff they hadn't done at the Fillmore- "I Don't Know" (I LOVE THAT SONG! Unreleased stuff that I have on tape that I shouldn't... shhhh. I was able to like, sing along, or something. I can't remember if I was or not, but if I had wanted to, I could have. I have since gotten Napster and now it's clearer than that demo tape I illegally purchased...), "Can't Stop" (I was so excited when I heard this starting.... ahhh), "Thinking of you" (SOOOOO CUTE), "Piece Of My Heart" (I LOVE when Hanson covers this... geez, I love everything they do, don't I? Almost everything... I was upset when that wasn't in the Fillmore special, although Taylor had totally messed up the words during the first take).
Then into the acoustic stuff! "Wish That I Was There", "A Song To Sing", "Stories" (Awww!!!), "Love Song".
And then, back to regular old non-acoustic Hanson. "Man From Milkwakee", "Minute Without You", "Dying To Be Alive" (YEEEEEAH), "If Only", "This Time Around"... I was screaming stupid things duirng the concert, and I accidnetially screamed "Marry me!" really loudly during a quiet part..., "Hand In Hand", "Speechless" (this seemed like it was like 20 minutes long *rolls eyes* they had to talk about the band, and just blab on and on and on :), "Smile" (Now THAT I was really suprised to hear, too.... I LOVE that song SO MUCH),
It was somewhere in the concert... near here, maybe... then the first ever Hanson attacker got on stage! Poor Taylor. The girl just jumped up and got right on him. he didn't look too happy at all. Please, I beg you, NEVER DO THAT AGAIN!
"MMMBop", "In The City".
The Encores! They ran offstage, then right back on. They didn't do that stupid "pause way too long between them" thing. "Summertime Blues", "I Want You To Want Me".
After the concert, I met up with my mom who had ditched Ruthie and I after seeing how far up our seats were. She had suddenly developed a fear of heights, out of nowhere. But while Ruthie and I yelled things from the almost-back row of the balcony, my mom had went and gotten my camera for me and attempted to take pictures of Hanson. She somehow had gotten into the General Admission Area that Ruthie and I couldn't get into, and help up the camera a few times, hoping to aim at Hanson, often aiming at the cieling instead.
Well, it was a nice thought.
When we got back to Ruthie's after the concert, we took pictures of our signs in her house, since it seemed to be the only place we were allowed to do it.
<-- Ruthie
