PAPER ROUTE:


The amazing band from Tennessee. :D They were the very first opening band and they were pretty awesome. I definitely need to check them out. Which I will probably do later today.


This is Chad Howat. (Again- I'm still unsure about their names. That's what I concluded after looking at their myspace and wiki). He was on our side- duh. And he...was really awesome. I kid you not- during one song, he stared directly at us for about...20 seconds, I'd say. ALkdj, that stare was amazing. I wish I would have gotten a picture of it, but, of course, my camera was off during that time, and I was kind of hypnotized. XD


This is J.T. Daly. This one, I'm sure of- he introduced himself. ;P He is fucking awesome, as well. Sarah and I talked with him after the Phantom Planet set. We'll talk about that later. But he definitely knew how to rock the keyboard and his singing voice was pretty awesome. 

See the guy back there in the red shirt? I think his name is Andy Smith. He was one of the singers, too, and him and J.T. sounded awesome whenever they sang together. Not as well as Brendon and Ryan, of course, but I may be a bit biased. ;P


Hehe, this is J.T. and Chad. They liked to look at each other. A lot. They only looked for a split second, but they did it quite often. J.T. even winked at Chad once. :D Haha, we may or may not have slashed them right then and there. *coughs and turns away* Anyway.

Oh, the drummer back there is Gavin McDonald. Haven't introduced him yet. Paper Route will probably be the only ones I introduce because they're newer... At least to me. Am I really that behind? XD

Here's some random pictures of them performing...





BTW- this was before I discovered my camera's extra-zoom. That comes during the Phantom Planet set; just in time. ;P




*shoves that lighting thing out of the way* -_-




There's them singing together. They sounded fucking amazing.


He was so fun to watch. He had a great stage presence; I really hope they blow up. Like fame-wise XD They definitely deserve it.







OH! I don't know what song it was, but during one of their songs, Alex, Sam, and some of Paramore came out to play with them. :D Darren might have been there, too... And I don't know who all from Paramore came out; I was too busy watching Alex. XD


It's a bit blurry, but that's Alex walking off after their round with Paper Route. I like to think he was smiling at me, but it could have been any of us. There was a small group of Phantom Planet lovers by us, so we screamed at him. He smiled and it was so adorable. *glomps him* Oh, and ignore the random sound guy in the back.

We're going to skip over Phantom Planet's set for the time being, considering we're still in the Paper Route cut, and go to when we met a few people from Paper Route over by the merch stand. There was a small line, so we just got our pictures with them at first-


There's Sarah with them. Chad didn't come out. T_T


There's me with them. Ugh, that's the worst picture I've ever taken. But, really, what can you expect? We had been walking around the State Fair since 10. I'm gonna keep going now before I critic everything wrong with me in that picture. XD

After a bit, we went and got something to drink (this was in between the Phantom Planet and the Jack's Mannequin set) and we saw J.T. (reminder: he's the one in the plaid shirt that looks like it came from Brendon's closet) wandering around and talking to people, so we went up to him and started talking. We learned he was 27. XD I was really shocked; I swore he was about 22. 

Here's a few snippets of that conversation:

Me: So I heard you're from Tennessee?
J.T.: *looks up from signing my ticket* Oh, yeah. Nashville.
Me: I'm from Chattanooga.
J.T.: *beams* WASSAP?! *raises hand for high five* YEAH TENNESEE!
Me: :D *high fives back*

... *molests my own hand*

J.T.: So what do you guys do up here?
Sarah: ... Live.
Me: *laughs* Yeah, we live here.
J.T.: *laughs* Oh, no, I mean do you go to school, or...?

Sarah and I think we're way too literal. ^_^;;;

Anyway... He was drawing on people's arms, but I wanted him to draw on something where it wouldn't wash off, so I had him doodle on my ticket. :D


I told him to draw anything, and he drew a skull. XD Then he signed it. Then Andy signed it, too. I like that ticket a lot. XD And then they both signed Sarah's shirt. XD

All right, that's all for Paper Route. Holy shit, that was a lot. ^_^; All right... Next, is the band we have all been waiting for. Well, we meaning me and Sarah. It sucked waiting for them to come on...

PHANTOM PLANET:



First off, let me tell you this: they stole the show. I may be a bit biased, but they really did. I saw them in May with Panic on the HCT, and it seems like they've grown a lot since then. Don't get me wrong, they were good then, too, but... I don't know. I guess they seemed to have more of a stage presence this time around; especially Alex. Ugh. Alex. *huggles him again*

Speaking of the ever-awesome Alex Greenwald, allow me to spam you with many pictures of the man.








*bats hands out of the way* You're blocking Alex! D:

And then... I discovered the extra-zoom on my camera. :D And, no, we're not done with Alex yet. Why would you want to be?




This one's blurry, but I still really like it.


XD Oh god.


That is, by far, my favorite picture. I love it to pieces. :D

Okay, and while we're on the subject of Alex, he did a wonderful thing. He stood at front and center and stared at out the crowd for a moment before asking "If I were to jump in there right now, would you guys catch me?" 

Everyone exploded. XD

So, he got off the stage and hopped up onto the banister like so-


And he sang a few notes before diving into the crowd. I tried to get a picture of him diving into it, but it failed epically and this is what I got-


I think that was right before he jumped. I had mistimed my camera's delay. *sigh heavily* Oh well. It was so amazing :D

Oh, and it turns out that the banister was broken. Jack's Mannequin playfully blamed it on us, but... Haha. Alex Greenwald, you ass.

All right, let's broaden the focus and focus on Phantom Planet in general. Darren was on our side.



But,



he



never



looked



in our direction. -_- So I eventually gave up on trying to get a decent picture of him. XD

You know how, at one point during their set, bands always make the audience scream for the other bands that performed or the bands that are about to perform? Yeah, here's Alex's little speech on that:

Alex: So, let's give it up for the band that played before us- Paper Route!
Audience: *screams*
Alex: *waits a moment before going on* Are you guys excited for Jack's Mannequin?
Audience: *more screaming*
Alex: *laughs* And, are you guys excited for... *looks at Darren with a grin* I've forgotten their name-
Audience: PARAMORE!
Alex: Oh, right! Are you guys excited for PARAMORE?!
Audience: *loudest scream yet*
Alex: *laughs again* Would you guys scream that loud if I said the name of my band?
Audience: *screams*
Alex: All right, PHANTOM PLANET!
Audience: *loudest scream ever*

Oh, dear Alex, Phantom Planet were the original reason Sarah and I even came to this concert :D <3 That was so cute.

Okay, SAM! Sam was on the opposite side of the stage, but after I discovered my ULTRA-ZOOM, I was able to get a few pics of him.





I couldn't really get any pictures of Jeff. T_T Some lighting thing was in the way, and Darren was more or less standing in front of him for our angle...

And just like Phantom Planet did for Paper Route, a few members of Paper Route came out during the set to play :D


It's a bit blurry, but there's J.T. in the background, just after being awesome on the keyboard. I'm more or less in love with Sam's smile in this picture =]


That was when Alex was crowd surfing. XD Darren, Chad and Gavin, I believe. And you can see J.T. rocking out on the keyboard back there.



And their final song was, of course, California. But during the last few chorus', Alex came up with this awesome idea:

Alex: For these last repeats, should we swap 'California' for 'Minnesota'? Yeah? All right! Sing it with me- Minnesota, here we come...

So, that was pretty awesome, not gonna lie. And he looked like he was having a great time while doing it (I bet that one of the Alex pictures up above is during that song). 

Oh, btw, in case I have not made it known- I love Alex's live voice. It's so...amazing. It's not Brendon's voice (again, I'm so biased), but it's fucking awesome. If you have not heard Phantom Planet live, you need to go to one of their shows because they seriously pwn.

Aaaand... Here's a few pictures of them just performing...








I like Sam's look. XD








It's way blurry, but that picture is awesome to me. XD Alex really liked to jump off from that platform. :D 

The only downfall to Phantom Planet's set: THEY DIDN'T PLAY 'GERONIMO' D: That's my favorite song by them, so I was sad... T_T

Well, that's all for the actual set that I have for you... They pwned my heart in that performance. If Panic didn't already have a firm grasp, they would have taken it permanently. I think I'm gonna go buy a Phantom Planet poster after this post. 

What I bought from the merch stand:


The sweatshirt of ultimate pwn. Sarah bought one, too. In case you didn't catch on, the picture on the right is the back view of the shirt. And I'm sorry that I have to be in the picture, too; there is no way in hell I'm taking this off until I have to. XD

Well, that's all for Phantom Planet. J.T. from Paper Route also said that they want to do a tour with just Phantom Planet. They should. That concert would be amazing.

<3

ONWARD TO...

JACK'S MANNEQUIN:



As I said earlier, we sneaked out of the crowd after Phantom Planet and went to go hang with Paper Route by the merch stand. So, as you can see, our spots in the crowd were sacrificed. But that's okay. 

These guys played more songs that Sarah and I knew than we thought they would. Sarah knew more than I did, but still. XD It was a pleasant surprise.

Jack's Mannequin were pretty awesome, too. There's not too much to say about these guys...

Except for this-


This guy: Andrew McMahon. 


In case you didn't know... He is a piano god. He is so fucking awesome at the piano. He seriously rocks out on it; he can't sit still, as you can see from these photos. He was so amazing to watch, too. And his voice is basically awesome as well. But his performance with that keyboard stole a little piece of my heart (shit, I'm running out of heart to share D:)






I couldn't stop taking pictures of him. XD Everytime I took one, I told myself it'd be the last one. But it never was. ^_^;;

And just incase you don't believe me about the rocking-out on the piano thing... Go look them up. Seriously. I actually have a vid uploaded to photobucket, but it's being a douche and letting me embed it in the right place. -_- I'll try to work on that later, but for now, you just have to take my word for it.

Here's a few more pictures of them...


I tried to get some pics of the other band members so I wouldn't feel so bad. XD






I mentioned I loved the zoom on my camera, right?


That's probably my favorite Jack's Mannequin pic. For obvious reasons.






The lighting for their show was pretty. Terrible for pictures, but pretty :D


I know you can barely see it, but he's stomping on his piano here. I saw them with Sarah and our friend Sam about two years ago in the Nothing Rhymes With Circus tour with Panic, and for their final song, he jumped up on the piano and started stomping on it. It was so amazing for some reason XD And really hot. I was hoping he would do it this time around, and he definitely did not disappoint.

So that's basically all for Jack's Mannequin... They, just like the two bands before them, were awesome. I'm more or less in love with Andrew's piano skills, though. He is so fun to watch. :D

All right... Here's the one everyone was waiting for:

PARAMORE:



They... I think they stole the show. Again, I think that Phantom Planet was my favorite, but the crowd was so into Paramore. And I don't blame them; Paramore were amazing live. I've always wanted to hear Hayley's voice live, and it definitely did not disappoint. They owned the stage and everyone in the crowd who was just standing around before was bouncing around like crazy. 

One thing I like about Hayley's voice, too, is that it's really powerful. You can often hear a lot of the emotion in her voice. And, if you know me, you know that's a huge thing for me. XD

Anyway. Here's a few pics to start out with.



It was a really sexy opening. I can't remember which order it went in, but either Josh or Jeremy started out with the lighting only on them (just like the picture above. I think that's Josh. Think. Please don't hurt me if I'm wrong).  And then the other one would start playing and the lighting would expose them, too, and then Zac started playing and the light showed him, too, until they all just exploded and Hayley came out.... It was really awesome :D






The lights were cool. If you couldn't tell. XD

Hayley was fun to listen to when she talked. She was so modest and awesome. We had these giant on both sides of the stage that showed a clear picture of the performers for the people in the back, and Hayley happened to notice them:

Hayley: I can't help but notice that...giant me over there. And it's kind of creepy- kind of like Godzilla. *puts hands up and makes Godzilla noises before laughing*

XD I cracked up because that was definitely something I could see either me or one of my friends doing. XDD Later on, too, she said something like how she hated watching those screens, so she'd just look down whenever she talked. Idk, it was funny. XD

Anyway...












There's a few Hayley pics for you... Some aren't of the best quality, but, considering where we were, I'd say they're pretty good.

But I kept watching this guy:


Jeremy, right? (I AM SO SORRY IF I JUST GOT THAT WRONG- I AM NOT CONFIDENT IN MY PARAMORE SKILLS D: DON'T KILL ME!) Anyway. He was awesome. And really sexy. XD He really got into his music when he played, too, and he I tried to get an amazing picture of him when he was really into it. One of two things happen whenever I tried this: 1) he'd move or 2) the kid in front of me would suddenly get taller and his hair would block Jeremy's lower half. -_- So I hardly got any good pictures of him T_T

Oh! They played 'Fences'! :D That is no doubt my favorite Paramore song, and I didn't think they'd play it, but they did! I was so happy :D Hayley made us snap through it XD

They also performed 'Hallelujiah', but before they did so, Hayley sang the first verse of 'Hallelujiah' by Rufus Wainwright. It was so awesome because I love that song. Sarah and I more or less freaked out before singing along. 


That's my favorite Paramore picture XD


I don't know if you can see him, but that's Jeremy (assuming that I got his name right above ^_^;) He literally had the spotlight for a few moments during a song, but I didn't get it in time. T_T Again, he was my favorite to watch.


Did I mention that I really liked those lights? XD








I forgot who that was. I really like that pic, though ^_^;


He was on the opposite side of the stage. It took me forever to get a decent picture of him XD







Hn, I think that's it for Paramore... Oh! They had fireworks after their show :D





All right, that's it... Again, I'm sorry to those of you who were expecting better Paramore or Jack's Mannequin pics. But, again, Phantom Planet was the main act in our book. ;P And, at the risk of being mobbed, I would definitely say that Paramore was better live. I don't know why. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love their CDs. It's just that they had something when they performed that made them so much better... 

Moral of the story: The night of 8-26-2008 held one of the best concerts I've ever been to. To be exact...it's probably the 3rd best. (Beneath Nothing Rhymes With Circus and HCT, but, honestly, nothing except another Panic concert can beat those). 


CONGRATS IF YOU READ ALL OF THIS! IT TOOK ME 2.5 HOURS TO POST! Excuse the grammar and spelling errors: there is no way in hell I'm going back to edit this. XD 

To those of you who read 'These Words...', the chapter will be out later today. I was supposed to be filling out a college application instead of this, but... I couldn't wait. ^_^; So, now I must go fill out that application. And then I'll come back and post the chapter.

LOVES TO YOU ALL! <3333