In this Discussion
- beckysioux April 2008
- canoe7grape April 2008
- DJRose April 2008
- dollarflame6 April 2008
- mayonaise April 2008
- plane8order April 2008
- Rebekker April 2008
- target35ghost May 2008
- Tempe Arizona April 2008
UVA Springfest
I kinda thought we should abandon the Philly thread and put the story of our adventures in its own space. I've FINALLY got pictures up (I took the best ones from Alice's and my cameras) and Alice and I will get a narrative going once we discuss who wants to tell what parts of the story. But here are the pictures (also included are shots of us in Baltimore and DC).
http://www.rachel-and-adam.com/gallery/AliceinUS
http://www.rachel-and-adam.com/gallery/AliceinUS
Comments
I remember going to DC at the end of 8th grade for a few days once school got out. It was pretty cool
and this
and
are sigh-worthy
Did you get to go in the White House? I got to when I was 12, but I heard they don't let you anymore- is that true?
Thx for sharing your pics with us!
I still can't believe that he stopped to look at me for the photo. With that gorgeous little smile. Ahhhh that made my YEAR!
Sally, we didn't get to go into the White House, no. You can't even drive down Pennsylvania Street anymore (that's the right one, isn't it?). You can still go in, but you have to book 6 months in advance or something, coz they need to do background checks. Make sure you don't hate Bush or anything. I can't see many people passing that one....
I miss the East Coast and Rachel
And yep, we'll start our write up soon. And I think I'll blog my whole trip on myspace and facebook and give you guys the link to that too.
You know, I'm not sure how it didn't make it in. So yeah, umm, I was saving it for you because it really was YOUR moment, love.
Pennsylvania Avenue, but I'll give it to you.
Those pics are all kinds of amazing though, you're so right Sally.
Alright. Narrative.
Friday night we did not get to see the guys post-show. Their merch guy and tour manager did however both mention that the guys would be in Charlottesville, VA the next day. At first I was thinking we would skip it because we had other plans, and because they said it was a 5 hour drive. I've met the guys plenty of times and if I don't get to say hi everytime, then I don't get to say hi. But when I got up the next morning and I saw the disappointment in Alice's face still there from the previous night I said to myself "Well, let's at least investigate before we out and out dismiss this possibility." So I checked Mapquest and it informed me that Charlottesville was a mere 225 miles away from Wilmington. That's only 15 miles further than it is to go to my college town, and I've been there and back in one day for a special occasion before. Besides, Alice was here from ENGLAND. What would my Mom do? She'd take Alice to Charlottesville. I called my friend up in NY, cancelled our plans with her (amidst several apologies and making plans to see her next weekend) and told Alice we were going to Virginia. After all, this appeared to be a free show in the same vein as that brilliant George Washington U. show Amy and I attended last September where we had great luck, so I had a good feeling about it.
The two of us piled in the car with overnight bags (to stay at my parents' house in Baltimore) and drove down to Charlottesville. We hit quite a bit of traffic on I-66 out of DC, and that (as well as the traffic around UVA's campus) added about an hour onto the trip, but we made it there, no kidding, maybe 5 or 10 minutes before the show started. We went up through the crowd on Andy's side and were about 2 or 3 people back from the barrier.
The guys took the stage, and opened with Television Television. All I can say is "Now THIS is what I'm talking about." Really. We went from Friday night:
to Saturday afternoon:
See what I mean? It doesn't even compare.
After TV TV, they played Don't Ask Me (right, Alice? I don't have my setlist with me). It was during this song (I am pretty sure) that Andy looked into the crowd and we made eye contact. He smiled upon recognizing me but went right back to serious rocker face. Alice and I looked at each other, realized what had just happened, and screamed. Honestly I was so glad that I had brought her to this show, because there was definitely a good chance she'd get to say hi now. Not long afterwards I made eye contact with Damian as well, and he smiled at me too.
Begin momentary self-indulgence: Can I just say that Alice and I looked Damn Good? A sunshiney day is quite kind to redheads. Well, at least in re: their hair. I did get sunburned a bit this weekend but it's nothing I can't deal with. Nevertheless, I like to think we stood out of the crowd a bit because of our hair. And because we're awesome. OK, /self-indulgence.
Damian was in Rare Form with the banter this time. He commented on how he wasn't used to playing to a crowd he could actually see, and how this felt like a sporting event because it was outside during the day. Then he had us do the wave, but the people sitting up on the hill didn't join in so he insisted that they do a wave of their own. For the cover song vote, he asked how many people were over 18, and how many people were going to vote for the first time. Some kid shouted out "Tell me who to vote for" and Damian said "I can't tell you who to vote for, I don't know where you stand on any of the policies man. I can tell you who I'm going to vote for, though we were in Alabama the other day and I made the mistake of, well, I'm an Obama guy and... (crowd erupts into cheers) Oh that's good. They don't have that kind of reaction when you say that in Alabama." When he had us vote between ELO and Violent Femmes, the Femmes won, but he turned to the kid who asked him who he should vote for and said "I feel like I should turn to you, like my own personal Katherine Harris." The kid chose the Femmes and Damian said "Good for you, you're going to go with the will of the people" or something like that.
OK, I'll stop there and let Alice take over for a bit.
First of all - so fucking true. And thank you so much, again, Rachel, for changing our plans for that show. You're incredible. In England, gas is too pricey and the whole island is so small that road trips aren't a very common thing, PLUS over here I'm never really with anyone who loves OK Go and Secret Dakota Ring and Two man Gentleman Band etc as much as me, so the drive to Charlottesville in itself was pretty fantastic.
OK, so the set so far had gone:
TV TV
Don't Ask Me
No Sign Of Life
The Fix Is In <----- wooo!! First time I got to see this!
Prove My Love
Get Over It
Rachel tried to get a picture of the GOI jump, but her camera was just a little too slow, and my camera conveniently stopped working for a moment. Typical. We'll get it one day.
Like Rachel said, Damian was on top form with his banter today. He mentioned Thomas Jefferson, who had founded the University of Virginia, and a member of the audience yelled "It's his birthday tomorrow!". Damian replied "Oh really? It's our merch guy's birthday today! Not that he, like, drafted the constitution.... *looks suddenly confused* or um... signed the Declaration of Independence...?". Poor Damian! Then we all sang happy birthday to the merch guy.
Then they did the acoustic set in the audience. Damian was saying that they felt like Simon and Garfunkel, adding "Not that we think we're as talented or ugly as Simon and Garfunkel", which meant that they needed to come into the crowd with us. I now cannot look at a Simon and Garfunkel CD (which Rach and I later found in Starbucks, lol) without laughing. Then they were discussing what a celebrity fight between Tim and Paul Simon would be like, with Damian claiming that Tim is too short to be in a good position to fight with anyone and Tim saying that Paul Simon wasn't celebrity enough...
After the acoustic set they came back and did You're So Damn Hot, during which Damian looked and smiled at me. Twice. One of those times, he smirked too. Oh the meltingness. And at one point Andy looked at us again, so I waved and he smiled back, and during OLISQ, at the point when Rachel normally shouts "Run's House", Damian looked at us. The tour manager also saw us and waved when he came out in front of the barrier, then he mouthed something to Andy. A moment later Andy said something to one of the roadies at the back of the stage, pointing at us, and then the tour manager came back out and handed me a roll of paper - it was two set lists for Rachel and me! There was a lot more screaming, which pretty much continued until the end of the show.
For the encore, Damian said that he felt bad for those who had lost the original vote for the cover song, so they played Don't Bring Me Down as well. What a sweetie!
Rach, your turn
Whose name was Ray. I'm starting... to worry... about Ray. Oh, wait, sorry, wrong band.
I believe the conversation went thusly.
Damian: Tim has a problem with the way Paul Simon looks.
Tim: I wanna hit him.
D: Whoa! I don't think you're in much of a position to hit anyone, Tim. Crowd Ooohs No, wait, that came out wrong. What I'm saying is that, well, you're kind of small, Tim.
T: Well so is Paul Simon, so...
D: So what, are we doing like Celebrity Deathmatch between you and Paul Simon?
T: That implies that Paul Simon's a celebrity.
It was pretty hilarious, actually.
So anyway, after the acoustic set some girls up at the barrier left. Alice noticed the open spots and pulled me into one alongside her. Now we're at the barrier. Yay!
At the end of the show, Andy once again looks me right in the face and throws me his guitar pick. Unfortunately, it landed in the grass on the other side of the barrier, and some douche ran around and grabbed it before I could get the guard's attention. Ahh well. But more on that later.
After the show, Alice and I went over to Mike Kent to say hi, and we talked to him about OK Go being The Chosen Band (because it POURED as soon as their set was over in Philly). Then we ran over to see Ray the Merch Guy and wish him a happy birthday. He recognized us from the night before too. Hee hee.
So, because the tour manager recognized us, he let us wait by the bus to say hi to the boys for a minute. We were quite grateful. Damian came off the bus first and Alice said something like "Sorry for being a pain, but I've come all the way from London" to which he said "no, we love it." And then he put out his right hand for a shake and said Hi I'm Damian, and Alice introduced herself. Then he put his hand out for me, said Hi I'm Damian, at which point I squeaked out a "hi" and he said "Oh yeah, Hi" in a way that said "oh yeah, it's you." ::blushes with embarrassment:: Then Damian said "wait, so did you two meet because of OK Go-ness?" So we told him yes, and how we'd met and Damian was so happy that he squinched up his face in a smile, jumped, and punched the air. He said "yes, we made friends!" and I told him "you made LOTS of friends!" so he said "Well, yeah, it makes me happy." Which made me happy.
We talked to Dan for a minute - I told him that Alice is the smartest girl in all of England and that she'll be going to Cambridge in the fall. She was embarrased, but later on she thanked me. So Dan asked her about where she was from, and how the trip came about (I'll let her tell all of this) when Andy comes over to where we're standing, fussing with his iPhone. Then he says "I've got bad news for you" to me, and flashes me the Yankees/Red Sox Score from that afternoon (they lost, BTW). So I said, "Did you just look that up to rub that in my face?" and he said "No, I looked it up for me, but since I know where your allegiances are...". I smiled and said "Well that's okay. You can win sometimes, and we'll win sometimes. It all evens out." (btw, if I hadn't been spending all my time on OK Go, I would've freaking known that the Yanks had beaten the Sox the night before by a MUCH bigger margin than the Sox did on Saturday, and could've commented thusly. But oh well.) Andy said "That's quite a calm outlook to have on this, most people wouldn't react that way" and I said "Well, I'm an even-keeled sort of person." That statement is in itself hilarious because of the way I screamed over him looking at me from the stage, but whatevs. Honestly, though, the Yanks are going to play the Sox a total of 18 times in the regular season, and it's only APRIL. Do I need to flip out about it this early? Ahh well, this is the outlook of a team with 26 World Series Championships, I suppose. Win some, lose some. (Yeah, that's for you, Andy, if you ever read this
Feel free to fill in any blanks, Alie.
Even though I got a call and heard about the love that is OK Go, I still like to read about it. I'm so glad that you gals got the second chance and were able to see them one-on-one, especially for Alice.
And now I plot a way to get Andy to recognize me that isn't illegal or stalker like. Think the robot shirt will work?
Damian: Tim has a problem with the way Paul Simon looks.
Tim: I wanna hit him.
D: Whoa! I don't think you're in much of a position to hit anyone, Tim. Crowd Ooohs No, wait, that came out wrong. What I'm saying is that, well, you're kind of small, Tim.
T: Well so is Paul Simon, so...
D: So what, are we doing like Celebrity Deathmatch between you and Paul Simon?
T: That implies that Paul Simon's a celebrity.
I knew it went something like that, but I think my mind freaked out the thought of 'Tim' and 'Deathmatch' together and just blanked it so that I wouldn't have nightmares. *sigh*
Damian's excitement was so cute, by the way. I mean he totally lit up at the thought of us coming together through OK Go - I can't even get across in writing just how excited he was. Myabe I'll film myself doing an impression of it... Anyway Rachel said "thank you for giving me my little sister" and I agreed "Yeah, we're sisters. We even look alike!" at which Damian stood back for a sec, looked us both up and down (I'm immediately striking the sucking-in-stomach-slightly-pouting-lips-myspace-pose at this point, just so that he gets the right impression of me. i.e. the "ohhh she's hot we need to take her on tour with us" impression. Hope it worked.
When he came over, incidentally, and came straight up to me with his hand out and a smile on his face looking right into my eyes saying "Hi, I'm Damian", my thought process was something along the lines of "Fucking hell.... mmm yeah I know who you are, darling!... ahhh his hair's really nice actually... just wow. It's Damian.... shit, fuck, TALK, WOMAN!!". I got a little gooey. *sigh*. But it all worked out OK. I got back on track
I also showed Damian and Dan a picture of the OK Go logo-shaped birthday cake that my mom made me, and I took my birthday OK Go joker-card bag that Mayo made me - they were soooo impressed by both. Damian commented on how great it was that you could tell which cartoon was which on the bag! YAY MAYO!!!
As for the thing about how my trip came about - I told all of the guys this, and they thought it was fantastic. I said that I hadn't been to a show in a while, and I saw that Rachel was coming to one and that it was during my spring break so, as a joke, I asked my mom if I could come over for the show - and she told me to look into flights. Tim laughed "Wow, it's great that she doesn't have a sense of humour and took you seriously!!" hehe.
That actually had me in hysterics, a little, Rach! After the screaming and squealing and how we were both a little unnaturally high pitched and shaky in front of Damian. LOL. Ahhh you're brilliant
I went and got Tim to sign the button of him that I made over a year ago, reminding him of the show before, and then he clocked that I was from London and asked my about my trip and how I'd got myself over to the states... I told him that my little sister was a huge fan and that she said hi, and that we've been learning to play OK Go songs on guitar. His face LIT UP and he asked me which ones, so we had a quick chat and we both seemed to get a little squealy ("Ahh, that's so cute!! She's only 10?? You're learning Return? Awesome!") then Rach came over and we had our pic taken. They were sort of being herded away when Tim went "Aww, bye!!" and LAUNCHED himself at me, squeazing me so tight that only my grin was visible amongst all the Tim-ness. I loved that hug. I didn't want to let go. So Rachel and I have decided that I am in fact the Lady to Tim's Lord Boss of Hogg. Ooooh yeaaaaahhhh....
Damian was having his picture taken as we had to leave, so we called goodbye (obviously, I'm probably just wishing, but I reckon his smile grew a tiny bit, even though he couldn't look away from the camera
And so ended the greatest OK Go show of my life. Ever. I'm still on a high from it. I've been playing songs on my guitar with Andy's pick!!! Ahhh that makes me happy. We had a few hours of driving, talking on the phone to boardies, listening to OK Go songs and podcasts, and squealing our little hearts out.... FUCKING. AWESOME.
*Squee! Had the same experience at the show I snuck into a year ago. Love is: outdoor ok go shows and Damian blantantly posing at a camera midsong
AWWWWW, Rachel, you're such a wonderful sister.
LOL! Tim stories are always hillarious. I love the way you girls are switching back and forth describing the event. It's so fun to read
Gah, jumping fist pounding Damian is too cute!!
Oh, and Allie, your Tim story...I pass out now.
it's true you guys... i could barely understand alice or rach b/c they were both breathing so hard, and giggling and screaming. it was so cute and awesome and wonderful
Yeah, the looks on Dan's and Andy's faces at that moment said it all to me, personally, esp. Dan. It was like "Even-keeled. Uh-huh. SURE."
No, I've GOT the wonderful sister. I just try to be worthy of her.
I love you both so much!!
And Damian for liking that bag
Hahaha, you told Tim that I love him?? Aaaaaah, thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(now, they really ought to know me by now, with you telling them about me in Germany, Becky asking them to come to Germany... eeeeeeeek)
Oh, and Allie, your Tim story...I pass out now.
It is too cute! I wish we'd got that on film. I might have to practice the jump-scrunch-punch in the mirror....
And I love Tim. He knows I'm his Lady, he just doesn't KNOW that he knows yet.
it's true you guys... i could barely understand alice or rach b/c they were both breathing so hard, and giggling and screaming. it was so cute and awesome and wonderful
Hahahah sorry, Katie!! All of you who I spoke to on the phone must think that I'm ridiculously high-pitched and breathless and squealy the whole time. I'm honestly not. You just got me at my happiest, lol!
No, I've GOT the wonderful sister. I just try to be worthy of her.
LOL YUP!!! They sorta glanced at one another with a look of "riiiiiiight...."
I have the greatest sister in the world.
I have the greatest sister in the world.
:Blushes with embarrassment: Ah well. Whatevs. Not much I can do about it now, huh?
It's a LURVE-Fest! YAY SISTERS!
I'm so jealous how amazingly hardcore you guys are. hardcore? is that the right word? hmm ah well. They boys recognize you all the time!!!! gaaaah i can't wait to reach that height of fandom.
Glad the drive was all worth it and that you guys are reunited!!!!
and the Damian-punching-the-air-excited thing?!??!