Fangs Up!

Summary of my Friday: a boy took off my clothes, and then I went out and got totally destroyed. XD

Let me explain.

Yesterday was Gordon gear day for Spirit Week. I went around my floor borrowing stuff from everyone who was around. Then I waddled over to Lane to meet up with Eli, who brought me more Gordon stuff. In the end I wore 4 pairs of sweatpants, 11 shirts, and 3 hoodies tied around my waist. Also, I stuck Gordon stickers on everything in my backpack. And I brought a handful of Gordon pencils that I bought at the bookstore that morning for 15 cents apiece. It came out to 66 points. Then I realized I couldn't move enough to get the shirts off and Eli had to take off the first 5 layers for me so I'd have enough mobility to get the rest. I delegated him to get the Red Sox tickets for me if I won and they presented them later that night, since I would be - that's right - IN NEW HAMPSHIRE SEEING COBRA FLIPPING STARSHIP.

Cara got stuck in traffic and we got a late start because of that, so Sarah made PB&J sammiches to take on the road with us. We didn't get lost even once until we came to the end of the Google Maps directions and still weren't at the place. Apparently they just wanted us to guess the last few miles of the journey. Not only was it farther than the directions said, but where the building should have been according to the street numbers, there were only houses. We started worrying that it would be someplace really random and sketch.... like a rundown old barn that someone decided to call a "ballroom" just for kicks. But we finally found the place AND got free parking really close by.

The openers were Sing it Loud, Hit the Lights, and Forever the Sickest Kids. And they were pretty good, I guess. No one whose CDs I'd spend money on, but fun to listen to. I have more to say about the crowd than the music.

The audience was ENTIRELY middle and high school kids. I felt so totally lame. I wish Cobra would play an 18+ show, but I'm not sure they could sell it out. High school kids are vicious! It was a battle just getting enough space for my lungs to expand and contract. It was so sweaty in there that all I wanted to do was run out of the venue, across the street and into the ocean. There was some jumping around, and that was fun. There were a couple of circle pits, too. I ended up on the floor twice, though.

It’s just, all those little kids HAD to be brought there by parents. If MY mom had brought me to that show when I was their age, she would've dragged me out of that pit the first time someone dropped an f-bomb. So like I probably wouldn't have even gotten to hear the first song or anything.

And there were these twelve year old groupies telling everyone they were 15 and they were staying there until 3AM, and these other twelve year old groupies who wrote their phone numbers all over one of their AA-cup bras and hung it on the handle of the tour bus after the show. Good grief. Do you kids even HAVE parents? But it was great because this random guy picked up the bra and called the girl pretending to be Gabe Saporta.

I must take a moment to gripe about crowd surfers again. When your arms are pinned to your side, there is absolutely nothing you can do to save your neck. At one point I came up from having someone on my head and I was kind of dizzy, and I didn't think much of it until afterwards, when I started to worry I had a concussion. Of course, by the time this occurred to me we were all the way back at the Denny's near my school. The problem is that all the symptoms of a concussion are also side effects of going to a rock show - headache, sore limbs, fatigue. But Sarah checked and my pupils were normal.

Cobra Starship finally came out. I’d been shouldering my way forward for a while, as naturally and inobtrusively as possible so people would think I just sort of got shoved in front of them by the crowd. Somebody brought Gabe Saporta a balloon for his birthday. Then we all sang to him. He was so cute, hugging his balloon and smiling while we sang. I had an amazing view of everything that happened because I was only six rows back. It was beautiful.

I was surprised that they played a lot of older songs that I didn’t know. I have to say, it’s weird experiencing “Snakes on a Plane” without William Beckett. It’s just not right. But it’s the guys’ personalities that made the show a show. They’re just a bunch of kids who really delight in being awkward, sort of like my friends – I think that’s why they’re so endearing. At one point, Gabe said he was going to give Ryland an ass-shaking lesson and told the crowd that the louder we cheered, the harder he’d shake it. It was hilarious. And really, really loud. Gabe did his share of pelvic thrusting, too.

But possibly the funniest moment of all was Ryland using the word “zygote” on stage to explain that in fact, the band Cobra Starship did not teach him to shake his ass – he learned that as a zygote, or an embryo. Oh, and Gabe announcing that Alex hit him in the penis with his bass, and Alex going “what? Didn’t catch that,” two times in a row so Gabe had to keep repeating himself. Ryland was like, “penis isn’t one of those words you don’t hear the first time. You really don’t need to repeat it THREE TIMES.”

When the show ended, we all screamed for an encore. For a second, Gabe came out like he was going to give one, but he disappeared pretty quickly – almost too fast for us to realize he didn’t have a shirt on. Yummy. =) Then Ryland came out and played “Pleasure Ryland” by himself. I sort of had a feeling they’d try and pull that one off live, just because it’s so random.

The other guys joined him after that for “Guilty Pleasure,” which I couldn’t BELIEVE they hadn’t played since it’s one of their most famous. Then Gabe pulled out this purple hoodie, wiped his face on it, gave it to Ryland to wipe HIS face on, and then threw it out to the crowd. Right to ME! I was the tallest. I touched it first. But I didn’t pull it in fast enough to stop other people from grabbing it, and there were like 8 of us on the floor all fighting for it. I refused to let go. It was rightfully mine!! But then security came and pulled us all off each other and took the hoodie away so nobody got to keep it. >:-(

I guess I got my fair share of love because when Gabe came out to the crowd, I touched his hand! Twice! Haha, I’m such a teenie. I wished he’d been a little more to the right so I could’ve held on to it. I could barely reach. I was surprised at how cold it was, since he’d been rocking out for a while by then.

But some girls after the show told us he was sick, so that would explain it. The three of us waited in the bus enclosure for like an hour, and Cobra never showed (possibly because they were sick). I don't know if they made it to the bus before we did, or if they hadn’t come outside yet, but either way, I was really mad that we’d waited in the cold for so long to no avail, especially since we didn’t have the right passes to even BE where we were. I guess the lesson learned is, it doesn’t matter which side of the fence you’re on if the band never comes out.

While we waited, shivering and clinging to each other for warmth, I made up a story about why the band hadn’t come out yet. It won’t be as funny now because you can’t see me acting it out.

So Cobra Starship was on their way out to the bus when all of a sudden the room went completely dark and filled up with Goombas! And they were jumping all over the heads of the Goombas to squish them, but then Bowser came and unleashed a whole bunch of chain chomps. Things were looking grim for Cobra Starship. But then Mandii, Cara and Sarah decided to go looking for the band, and when they realized what was happening, they whipped out their quadruple light sabers and killed Bowser. Then the band was like “wow! You guys are awesome! We totally love you! Let’s like, hang out and spoon and stuff.” (Which we mostly invented because we were all so cold that all we wanted to do was spoon.)

Then we discussed the practicality of a quadruple light saber. How exactly would one wield such a thing? We decided that in fact, one’s body would BE the quadruple light saber. Then you couldn’t cut off your own limbs. You couldn’t lose it or drop it. And it would have been SO useful in that crazy pit. XD

Sorry that was so long. I have to go figure out if I’m getting Sox tickets; I’m really worried they’ll try and reach me by e-mail and it’ll go to the wrong Amanda Thompson, and either she won’t forward it in time or she won’t forward it at all because she wants the tickets. I DID have to write my ID number on the sheet when they tallied my spirit points, so it should be fine. But I just really don’t want to get gypped again like I did with that hoodie. Meh.