No tampons, lol, but I wrote up the gigs I went to and took some pics at one of the gigs.
ANAHEIMTH in Anaheim were so good. Every time Tom starts that extended guitar intro before they all kick into "Ready, Set, Go" I just get chills, and the whole band was on that night.
Bill's voice sounded great, and he's singing Rescue Me like he did pre-surgery, all breathy and light. Maybe not the best for his voice, but it's so syrupy and lovely and just adsfdfdsfsd. <3
Gustav smiled a ton, all through the show. And his hair's grown out! The combination of these two things makes him look so much better; but it was really good seeing him looking like he was having fun.
Even though I was on Georg's side, he was standing far back on the stage, so I couldn't really see him. Tow is ridiculously beautiful these days...even if he does insist on wearing that 'HATER' cap, he looks like a china doll. So, so pretty! <3
I didn't bring my camera, but there were a TON of people with cameras there.
The band played for an hour straight, then did two short encores. Lots of people singing along in German, and of course there were the omnipresent French fans who'd flown over for the gig. One of them, a boy, was wearing a TH shirt AND a TH belt. haha. The TH belt was pretty rad, though...I would have worn it.
A big thumbs down to TH/management/whoever for charging $30 for t-shirts and $60 for hoodies, though...first of all, their t-shirts' colour schemes look like the bootleg shirts you can buy for $5 after a gig before the dodgy man selling them gets arrested and secondly, they are NOT big enough in this country to try to charge that much for merch. Maybe this is just my indie rock ethics, but I really think it's indecent to charge that much for what the product is.
LAS VEGASThen, the 22nd I went to Vegas on Greyhound (like the National Express) from San Diego...and back late the same night.
It was pretty crazy, but fun.
I saw the band before the show in the lobby of Mandalay Bay, in the afternoon, but I didn't go talk to them because there weren't any other fans around and they were just having a normal conversation for once, and I didn't want to bother them. (Also Bill had his full stage makeup on already, and I hadn't done mine yet, so I REALLY didn't think a picture next to him sounded like such a good idea! LOL )
They really stuck out, though--Bill was wearing that silver jacket of his (in the Vegas heat, my god) with the porcupine hair and going on really loudly in German about how something was 'so geil' blah blah blah. haha.
I think the setlist was the same as the night before, like usual, but they came on around 8:30 (earlier) this time.
There was a good sized crowd there, but I was standing about four feet off the floor, so I could see really well. Unfortunately, my digital camera stopped working the day before, so my pictures were taken with my mom's Stone Age digital camera and are blurry...sorry!
It was such a good show. I was surprised to see how many guys were at the gig...somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of the people there were guys, which for TH is huge. And they were into it, too, it wasn't just girls who'd dragged their boyfriends along.
Bill was....I don't know, trying to mess with Tom or something because he was all up in his personal space the whole show. :lol: During, I think 'Ready, Set, Go' he came over to Tom and leaned on him and then started cracking up and had to rest his forehead on Tom's shoulder because he was laughing/grinning so broadly.
Or during 'Raise Your Hands Together' he had his arm on Tom's shoulders and Tom wouldn't make eye contact with him, so he was like hanging from Tom's shoulders, leaning around so that he could stare up at Tom. It was really funny. <3
They sounded really good. There weren't any of the little slipups from the Anaheim gig, and they all seemed really into the performance.
Bill was kind of Engrish-y when he was talking to the audience....I still have no idea what the band did the night before in Vegas. He told us, but it was just like
'this city is so cool. last night we mrhshf mrhefhc mershr' No idea!
Lol
It was pretty crazy, but fun.