Okay, so here it is: Meesh’s Really (Really, Really) Long Reviews, Volume 18. I know not many people have gotten to see them play a headlining show in awhile, so I wrote this up with a HUGE amount of detail to try to give you the whole feeling of being there, and I even included some actual pieces of conversation, which I usually tend to avoid. It may be more detail than anyone cares about, but hey, I always do that, so why change now?
Before I do get into it, my pictures are here (album at the bottom):
www.picturetrail.com/youandmeeshVideo of Empty Space:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYHou03vSUsVideo of AIEGFO rock outro:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3VTDcB6XGMAlso, my mom’s pictures are great and if you looked at them, they may better illustrate some of the things I’ll talk about, so make sure to check hers out!
But now, without further ado, here’s the full story of the Louisville show, July 12th, at 4th Street Live.
As always, I had stayed up too late the night before (because I was watching Lifehouse on Carson) and therefore woke up later than I meant to on Thursday. I rushed around like crazy and apparently my mom did not have faith that I could get ready quickly, so she dawdled around and I ended up being ready before she was (hah!). We left home and drove down to get Ama (she lives about an hour south of me) but first we stopped at Barnes and Noble so I could pick up a birthday present for Jason. I got him a card, a journal, and a nice bookmark that had a quote on it that I really liked: “Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.”- Ralph Waldo Emerson). Once we were done with that, we picked up Ama and headed south to Louisville. We didn’t hit any delays, but once we got into Louisville, the directions we’d printed told us to turn left on a street that is one-way to the right, so that didn’t work out too well. Thankfully, Ama had looked at some maps online and had a general idea of where we should go, so we drove around til we found the parking garage for the area. So we parked and sorted out what we would need, and headed out.
We went out of the parking garage and into the center of the 4th Street Live area. The central part where the stage was located was covered by a fancy glass roof, and it was open at either end. Basically, they would playing in what looked like a really fancy alley. It looked like this:
There were mostly restaurants in the area, such as Hard Rock Café, TGI Fridays, and some bowling alley/restaurant place. There was a barricade in place by the stage, but there was no one by it, and no one in the area seemed like they were waiting for the show. The band and crew weren’t even there yet, the stage just had a drum platform and a few local stage crew guys sitting around. We decided it would be safe to walk around for a bit, so we went down to the end of the street where there was a Borders bookstore. We went up to the second floor to use the bathrooms then came downstairs and headed back outside. As we were leaving the building, we realized that Jason and Rick were walking our direction on the opposite side of the street. They didn’t see us, and despite the discussion we’d just had about not wanting to bother them in public during the day, I really wanted to give Jason his present, so we decided to go over and talk to them. We walked up and they saw us and we exchanged the usual “Heeyyyy!!” and hugs (well, hugs with Jason... Rick doesn’t always hug much). I said to J that I was glad we ran into them, since I had his birthday present, and he was all, “Awww, you didn’t have to get me anything!” True, but he loves presents, so why not? I laughed and was like, yeah well, all we had for you in St. Louis the day before your birthday was a crappy sign written on a paper towel! Then we started talking about the St. Louis show and how insane the crowd had been, they couldn’t even see the whole crowd from the stage and were amazed to find out later how many people were up the hill beyond the arch. Then we started talking about the current venue... they said they felt like they’d played there before, and asked us if they had, but we were like “Nope... you haven’t.” Haha, I love that they ask us things like that, and I love even more that we actually know the answer. They asked who else was coming and we said that Maureen the story-writer was going to be there, but we didn’t really know of anyone else. At this point, I’m digging through the bag that I had Jason’s birthday present in, among other things, and pulled out a stack of promo cards for We The Living (that band that me and Ama have been trying to promote...
www.myspace.com/wetheliving). I was trying to hand them to my mom to get them out of the way, but Jason was like, “Ooh, what’s that?” So we handed one of the cards to him and said that they were a band we loved, and he asked what kind of music they played, so we told him about them. Conveniently enough, I had a copy of the WTL album in my purse, so I gave it to him as well. Then I finally unearthed his journal in the bag, so I pulled it out and he was like, oh wow, is that for me? (No Jase, you can hold it for awhile but then you have to give it back...) He seemed to be really happy with the gift, and that was good enough for me. If it ends up in a trash can, I’ll never know, haha. I ended up giving him the plastic bag I was carrying it in originally, since he now had a stack of stuff and no place to put it. We then said goodbye to them, and unfortunately they started walking back the way we needed to walk, so we lingered around and let them walk away so we didn’t look like stalkers. The bus had now come around the corner, and we spent several minutes watching them try to back the bus and trailer down the narrow street and failing repeatedly. When they finally got it, we walked back to the stage and after loitering at the perimeter for awhile, we decided to just plunk our stuff down in the center in front of the barricade and camp out the rest of the day. We usually tend to be more towards Ben’s side, but the stage was small so we decided on center for once. The show was free if you got there before 6:30 (then it was 5 bucks after that) so we didn’t have to worry about tickets or anything, it was nice.
At this point, the crew was starting to unpack the trailer. We then realized that we were going to get to see them set up the entire stage, which excited me. It was actually really fascinating to see the entire set-up process, since I’d never seen it before. The crew and the local stage hands wheeled all the cases up on stage, and man do they have a lot of them, the stage was practically filled. All the cases had “LIFEHOUSE” stenciled on them somewhere, and some of the cases had their names on them as well. Like this:
One of Rick’s cases said “Ricky Woolstenhulme Jr.” on it, which I thought was funny. It’s cool though, I think that once they empty Rick’s big drum cases, they use them to hold the guitar racks and set up the crew areas and such. Also, you know how in the ATT video, they show “The Brizone” taped off on the drum carpet for where Bryce jumps up? Well, on the left side of the rug there is a section taped off that says “Wade’s World” for where Jason can stand. We thought it was hilarious. The crew guys (Winnie, Ian, and two sound guys who I think may be Mitch and Greg but I’m not sure) kept unpacking things and wheeling cases away once they were done, and over time the stage started clearing and it began to look like the familiar old stage set-up. It was just cool to see them pull out all the pedals and string cables and wires all over to hook things up. It takes a lot of work, and they seem to have a pretty precise way of getting things done. Once they had things set up and all the junk cleared away, they spent a long time testing out instruments and getting the sound levels right. Because of the glass roof, things were echoing really oddly, so it took them awhile to get the drums right. We were starting to get hungry, so my mom sent me over to TGI Fridays to get a take-out menu. I brought it back and we decided what to order, then she went to get it while we held her spot. Two girls from St. Louis had shown up and sat to our right, and a group of four young boys (I swear, none of them could have been over 13, and two of them looked about 10 years old) claimed a spot to our left. Mom brings back the food and we’re sitting on the ground eating, but we keep hearing what sounds like really scratchy radio coming from the stage, followed by laughing. I lean back and look up and Winnie is cracking up, so I look at him in a rather confused way and he goes, “That’s coming from the amp, look!” So I get up, and as it turns out, the cord that connected the amp to (something?) was acting as a radio antenna whenever they lifted it up in the air. So they kept lifting it up until they got a really good signal to play radio through the amp. After awhile (like when Damien came on stage to see what was going on) they finally put the cord where it was supposed to be and turned something down so it would stop transmitting, haha. When they were done fiddling around on stage, they went to eat outside over at Hard Rock Café. That wouldn’t matter at all except for what happened about 20 minutes later, but I’ll get to that. Sometime in here, we also saw a few people wheeling by a cart with a bunch of stuff that we think was the band’s “rider,” or all the crap that they get to request to have backstage. All we saw was a bunch of ice, towels, a case of Corona and some other beer, a case of Fresca (yum), and a bunch of bags, but one of the bags had milk and Honey Nut Cheerios sticking out of it. The cereal and milk made me laugh. I was bored at this point, so I went walking around to take some pictures of the area and the stage. You could walk around the whole stage, since the back part was basically just fenced in. I took some pictures of the back area to kinda show “behind the scenes,” and I thought it was cool to see, so maybe you guys will too.
Bryce's basses from behind
Ian's area
Everything behind the stage
I went back to our spot, and a little bit later, Jason and Rick appeared from somewhere and went to sit with the crew over at Hard Rock, and the boys to our left FREAKED out about seeing them. They got really weird and stalkerish and were creeping over to take pictures of them sitting there. Rick noticed them and kept looking up at them with a “...wtf?” look on his face. One of the boys walked around and pretended to take pictures of other things, but then would turn his camera and take a picture of the guys instead. We were so embarrassed by these kids that we turned the other way and deliberately refused to even look in that direction. When the guys did leave the restaurant, the little boys followed them and I think they took a picture with Jase and Rick, but then I saw Winnie kind of shoo them away and I laughed. I swear, they were acting like 16-year-old JIHer girls, it was the weirdest thing. I’d never seen anything like it.
I think I'll make a new post now...
. I'd also like to know if anybody has an HD copy of Lifehouse at Pinkpop 2003. BY far their best concert ever
Apr 21, 2018 16:35:38 GMT -5
. I'd also like to know if anybody has an HD copy of Lifehouse at Pinkpop 2003. BY far their best concert ever
Apr 21, 2018 16:35:38 GMT -5
