Not on the Guest List

Bumbershoot Day 1

In the weeks leading up to the fest we tried as hard as we could to get my mom in for free - even applying for credentials for her under Not on the Guest List.  The request was unsurprisingly denied, especially given that I submitted it past the deadline...  After waiting in line behind Smoosh for my ticket we discovered that I'd received two tickets for all three days!  Score!  We promptly sold her ticket she'd bought for Saturday and booked it in.  We got to Bumbershoot on Saturday as the Shins were taking the stage.  We ran over to Menomena for a brief candid photo shoot, who even with phone calls to Justin and Brent, were nowhere to be found, so we high-tailed it over to mainstage to catch what was remaining of the Shins' set as I was supposed to shoot their last few songs side of the stage as arranged prior.  Only no media escort could be found and they finished early, so that didn't happen.  They did their Pink Floyd cover again - like they did at the Crystal Ballroom in February!
I have wanted to take candid photos of the Shins forever!  Specifically eating strawberry poptarts as an ode to my favorite movie Can't Hardly Wait (Preston: "...the very same breakfast pastry I was consuming at that very moment.  What was I to do?  How was I to proceed?")  And I finally did!

Uber blurry Marty (it was my first shot with my new polaroid and I'm used to my old one's focus abilities):

So yeah - it actually worked to my benefit I didn't get to shoot side of the stage and their exit to their dressing room as now I was able to shoot them chillaxing and beyond.

I am socially incompetent.  Dave went to shake my hand and I screamed: "I love your wife!"  Because I do, but I didn't need to literally scream it at him and a "hi" would've been sufficient.  I spent their entire show at the Crystal talking to her - they live in Capitol Hill kinda by my mom in Seattle and previously lived in San Francisco, so we had chatted at length about that.
Jesse who self-admittedly mumbles and Marty were on the couch and GREAT company!  We went on and on and on exclaiming the virtues of Alberta.  I love when bands are unguarded, which based on the emails I traded with their publicist about their management days before, I wasn't assuming they'd be, but they were.  In two minutes they had each told me unprompted, their addresses and where I can find them when not at home -- NE Portland-ers - think Alberta and think chicken wings, and no - Popeyes is on MLK.
We hung out for a bit with me snapping away then they got in a golf cart to go sign some autographs. 

I thought we'd be disbanding, but their fangirl worthy tour manager Dave expected me to jump on and come along for the ride, so I did.  They taped a segment for Fye TV.  If you're familiar with the Shins' brand of humor, you can only imagine the fun they had with playing off of "fye."

I met my mom over at Bert Jansch's acoustic show in the Music Lounge where I gave him a copy of Jonathan Byerley's CD that I had ordered multiple copies of a couple days before through CD Baby.  My mom thinks they sound similar, so I used the opportunity to pass it along and to take a photo to pass along to Jonathan, which I finally got around to doing a day ago. 

I'm kind of in love with Jonathan Byerley's music.  I want to marry it.

And speaking of "Marry Me," I cut some clothing silhouettes out of colored paper and booked it over to shoot some candids of St. Vincent.  I had a very specific vision for the photos, so much so that I brought along clothing pins and a clothing line.

As we - my mom, her, and me - hung everything up we talked about Grizzly Bear's Ed Droste, Sasquatch, the fact that she really has eight other siblings which she attributed to her parents being uber Catholic, and Glasgow, where she'd be playing next.  I kept skipping from topic to topic and back again.  She is entirely too cute!  I just love how fragile and delicate she looks.

'Paris Is Burning' St. Vincent MP3

Now it was time for Menomena to hit the stage.  They had a choir!  With brown burlap-esque robes!

Their publicist Ever told me the next day when I asked where the choir came from that is was comprised of Portland-ers.  I had thought some looked familiar!  Alicia J. Rose was one of them, and he started telling me about her before I cut him off with: "The booker for Doug Fir!  And she did their publicity shots!  And she plays accordion too!"  He seemed somewhere between amused and maybe scared that I enthusiastically knew all this info at the drop of a hat.

Later we caught an acoustic Gogol Bordello performance at the Music Lounge.  I wondered how the set would be seeing as it'd be taking place in a seated theatre.  How would they dance on drums on top of the audience?  They didn't, but that didn't take anything away from their set.  They are like authentic! 

I mean I knew they were of foreign origin, collected into a troupe in the US, but I thought all their soviet gypsy ties had faded away, alive on in their music and image.  Not so.  When speaking to each other, they don't speak English which I was happy to overhear them doing while waiting for them to start, I sat on my knees in front of the stage adjusting my camera.

Gogol's Eugene:

If I ever get married - you know - to Jonathan Byerley's music and all, I want Gogol Bordello to play the reception!

Gogol Bordello myspazz

I don't and have never listened to Denver's Devotchka, but they're number 1 in Jonathan Byerley's Top 8 and they share a manager, so I arranged to do candid photos with them in the hopes that we'd be able to gush about an assumed mutual love of him.  It was kind of uncomfortable taking photos of them, which I very very rarely encounter.  And our brief sentences about Jonathan Byerley didn't yield the results I wanted, such as the lead passing along a message: "There's a girl in Seattle who actually lives in Portland who is OBSESSED with you," ie judging by his demeanor he didn't seem like he'd be down for that so I kept myself in check.

Devotchka live:

"Let's get these teen hearts beating faster, faster..."

When people asked who I was most excited to see, I replied Panic! at the Disco.  When people heard this, they assumed I was joking.  Ummm... if you see me on the street on any given day, I often am wearing a Fall Out Boy T-shirt.  I'm kind of in love with Fueled by Ramen.  It was my third time seeing the Las Vegas quartet.  My boyfriend Ryan Rossy Dust didn't wear any makeup, but was rocking a headband like he did a few days prior at Pete Wentz's bar when he turned 21.  There were no dancing girls.  And seriously - I LOVE them - I sing along with their songs at full volume, but their new songs did not solicit the same excitement from me.  Is Brendan Urie writing the lyrics?  I REFUSE to believe they're Ryan's!  I went on about this on Monday to Barsuk's Ever.  Where was the trademark wit?  The ahead of their time hit-the-nail-on-the-head observations?
"Your eyes are as wide as the moon when it's nine in the afternoon."
Come now... really?
And the sound of them too - they were less cabaret - more barely-practiced-in-a-garage type sounding.  They sounded like the songs you'd assume a band would release on their debut and the songs from their first album sounded like the songs they'd progress to on their second disc.  Panic! notoriously suffer from bad sound live, but this was inexcusable.
My head hurts in fear for them.

Oh and I saw quite a few other bands I haven't bothered to mention in this post, but here's a pic of Gym Class Heroes who I last saw open for Fall Out Boy in January 2006 in Glasgow:

Ryan Ross is my boyfriend

Brendon is clearly obsessed with me
(note sarcastic tone)

On my way to the Exhibition center there was a train wide sing along-reminiscent of a train ride in Vancouver B.C. in 2003
The Hush Sound really nothing special, P!atD didn't seem to think so either as they didn't mention them once.
I arrive for the photo pit for Dresden Dolls and am told that I am not allowed to photograph in the pit-that I had to clear it with the venue's stage manager pre-hand (this is in addition to having a pass through P!atD's publicist.) Then I'm told I can go backstage, but that's all. But that's all! WTF!?! So feeling weird and like I'm not truly supposed to be there as I didn't clear it with a tour manager first (which I typically like to do) I went side of the stage for their set. Typically you get photo passes in an attempt to convert them to after-show or what not and then they're telling me that's the only access I can have. It's kinda like when I saw Patrick Wolf in Holland last year and Sons and Daughters had given me an artist wrist band and you can absolutely not watch Patrick from side of the stage-you have to be in front, clawing your way through the legions of believers. Security would absolutely not let me into the regular concert/tent area, saying I was supposed to be back there why would I want to be up front?

A few songs into the Dresden Dolls set, Brendon came out to cover Britney Spears with the Dolls to the tune of 'Baby One More Time'. It was great! The Dolls' drummer got so into it at certain points- standing up and dramatically acting out each lyric as Brendon would shout them. Amanda and Brendon traded off on the verses-him singing the majority of the song.

It's a good thing that the Dresden Dolls are doing an additional theatrical tour in addition to this, playing smaller venues after their set as the audience didn't even seem to recognize 'Coin Operated Boy'.

For Panic! at the Disco, I had to get their tour manager to actually ask security on my behalf if I could photograph the first three songs front of the stage. First I made the unwise decision to shoot with my 50mm lens, when I clearly in terms of aperature and agility should have shot with my 35-80mm. Then I made the possibly (seemingly?) unwise decision to go watch the rest of their set from the crowd and not side of the stage. I had only brought one memory card cos I wasn't expecting it to be eventful in the fact of back access, so I didn't actually have anymore frames to shoot, and my logic was I'd be seeing them shortly at a festival where side of the stage is easy until I realized-hey-I'm not living in Europe or the UK this summer, so uhh. . . they better be playing next year's summer Euro fests when I'll be (fingers crossed I make the entry clearance-it's $10K ie loan time) living in Germany.

The progression of Ryan Ross' make up is spectacular! I do wonder if his band mates are at all scurred. It started off whistful, then looked a bit dramatic and sloppy as he started banging on more eye shadow and sloppily outlining his creations in black eyeliner as seen on earlier tour stops. Now it is near beyond full scale-with multi-colors, scaling his forehead and cheeks-white intercutting parts ala Ziggy Stardust, and amongst some additional swirls, he's even added jewels.

The polaroid intermission was a bit anti-climatic because while I'm sure Brendon Urie has more than just the same two and a half secrets they've been telling at every stop, I didn't expect that to change because hey-this is a show-it really isn't spontaneous. But could they speak any louder during Ryan's!?! I only heard something about kickboxing. Those were the only "secrets" I cared about. Plus the throwing out of the polaroids-Britney Spears has done a similar thing and (okay maybe it was an Nsync show-it was 8th grade; memory is fuzzy) they actually went into the crowd, but I guess the lack of seating and the fact that it was just a pit (with parents on the bleachers) would hamper any attempt of that, still. . .
One middle-aged mom in front of me accompanying her two pre-teen daughters cheered over-enthusiastically when they predictably announced Brendon's virginity, and much more so than her daughters who didn't appear to understand.
In leading up to 'Lying is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have without...' they played the same interlude as what appears on their site

If Franz Ferdinand have taught us anything-do not do new arrangements!!! That is all I will say about 'Lying is the most fun'
Ryan presented some awesome banjo action towards the end.
By the end the only conclusion I drew was the concert was not quite as life affirming as a Fall Out Boy show.
I ended up backstage again, catching the last song and getting a set list while girls from all angles relayed messages for me to pass on to Ryan and then deciding upon whether to harass the band for my polaroid project I decided to instead go meet up with Grant. Plus, I didn't want a repeat similar to the event with Asian Tom Cruise at FOB in April.

I was looking SO FORWARD to the Seattle show because I would be able to take better live shots now knowing the exact intervals of lighting and what not (like I did from two back to back Arctic Monkeys concerts earlier this year) and was going to be in Seattle on the night of their show, but the date was canceled, and briefly I was happy as I was already supposed to go to the Capitol Hill Block Party and I was just so upset that I would be missing P!atD, and then I wasn't because of the circumstances. He was originally the reason I took interest in P!atD, after reading in Rolling Stone about the alcoholism and his and Ryan's relationship.
May there be another Panic! at the Disco pre-teen adventure!

Care to watch the Britney cover on an earlier tour stop?

Dreaming of P!atD is the most fun you can have without P!atD

Tens days and counting! This video has fully redeemed Panic! at the Disco.

Last night was bit prophetic. After watching it I made a joke (to myself) that now knowing their Portland concert date was only ten days away, I'd probably start dreaming about them and then I did. We were on a cruise ship ala Rosie's gay family cruise and it was for the release of their album with all their fans on board and them doing constant entertainment, because despite having enough fans to fill a cruise ship, none of them had actually ever heard P!atD, just heard of them and immediately became fans off the back of Pete Wentz's plugs (I know I first heard of the band last September when Pete's first/second Killers comments came out) And I was hired on as an assistant in production, though even without remembering the specifics I'm pretty sure I must have just shown up and told them that and got my way on the boat that way.
Then, amid the seas and the screams for Brendon Urie, the drummer decided to kick out the bassist. All drama ensued. Can you imagine doing that at sea? (I type and ask in a tone as if it really happened.) All this anger, sadness, betrayal, isolation, and back and forth quoting to MTV with all the other emotions you can imagine that come about with a split all having to be contained on one ship with no hope of getting off until it docks, which isn't scheduled for another three days?
Then me and my fake job got drafted in to attempt to mediate and the only other stuff I can remember is me running around frantically on deck with a clipboard hoping the bassist won't jump.

I probably dreamt this due to the role of water in the video that is almost too beautiful. At first it was just a little to weird, trying too hard to show that they aren't all just show girls, but upon seeing the ending shot everything came together; not the plot, as it was easy to deduce, but exactly what they were trying to achieve. Not trying too hard at all.
Can you imagine being that brilliant to come up with that treatment?
My excitement for Panic! at the Disco's Portland date had slightly cooled for two reasons-them axing Brent who is better looking than their drummer. If they were going to get rid of someone get rid of him because he makes me uncomfortable. And second, they upgraded the venue from the so cool it rubs off on even them and their garter-banded-forearms-that-are-already-cool-enough Crystal Ballroom to the soulless Exhibition Center. The traveling Smithsonian exhibit was held there when I was in elementary school.