Phoenix 7/10

[lilappleshaker024]

Here is my review:
So my day started out at 7:30 am. Woke up and got ready for the drive up to Phoenix. After picking up my cousin we made our way north for the much hotter city, although we didn’t feel it too much thanks to an overcast sky. I was going to meet Savanna as soon as I got into town, so I waited for her call with the venue info. I arrived at my hotel and relaxed a bit in the air conditioned room. I decided to look out the window and see what kind of view we had. I parted the curtains and what do I see in the back hotel parking lot? A tour bus!! That’s right a freaking tour bus. I thought it had to be them or someone with them, since it was only one. I mean who else would have tour bus at a hotel 5 minutes from the venue? Savanna called around 11:30am and she was the only one there! She informed me we could not line up officially until 3 pm, so she was going to hang out around there and I agreed to meet her around 2 pm. After an hour or so I went to pick up Savanna so she could chill in the hotel until 3 so she wouldn’t pass out before the show since the heat was starting to get more brutal. On our way back my dad cleverly suggested we drive to the back parking lot and see the tour bus, lo and behold it had Tennessee plates! Once inside the hotel we wandered around to do some investigating. We passed the exercise room, no Nate we went out to the pool, no boys Then we decided to ask the front desk. I asked if she happened to know who’s tour bus was out back, she said she didn’t know but it wasn’t Kings of Leon and someone asked her already. However, she had this grin on her face, so we suspected she was lying, haha! We walked back up to the room and my key wasn’t working, luckily my mom was in there and opened the door. She said she was just looking out the window and the shades on the bus, previously closed, were now up. So we ran to the window and the bus was gone!
Around 3 we called the venue to see if people were lining up yet, and the lady said there were like 5 people there so we left for the venue. The parking lot wasn’t open until 5:30, but luckily Savanna made friends with the security guards there and we were let in to be dropped off. Once at the gate area we saw no one lined up! After some debating over whether to stay or come back later, we decided to stay. With lawn chairs, our ipods and an ice chest full of water and fruit we began our wait. It didn’t take long before others started showing up and waited near us. I guess it was implied were the beginning of the line. We met some amazing gals from the official site, Tina and Janelle, total sweeties! As more people showed up and made their way to the actual gate to line up, we decided to move out little party over there, after all we were there first, and would not be having some others cut us in line, haha! This is when the heat really kicked up, I swear every pore on my body was sweating! Gates were set to open at 6:30 or so I thought, my parents were to come back and pick up the chairs and ice chest, so I began calling them. They said they were on their way, I was ok until I found out gates were opening at 6! Calling back frantically to tell them to hurry, no answer! After numerous gates people telling me I couldn’t take my ice chest I decided to leave it and the chairs out by the curb, then at 5:55 my mom shows up, talk about waiting until the last minute, I almost had a panic attack! Ah 6 o’ clock rolls up and the gates open, I hand the ticket people my credit card to swipe, new paperless thing , and my card is NOT registering, the machine is down or something! My heart sank into my stomach! Then they brought another machine and my little ticket printed out, phew! Made my way to the pit where I saw Savanna, Tina, and Janelle at the barrier smack dab in the middle with a spot saved for me, thanks gals! As we waited for the Features to come on we decided to take turns getting our big Styrofoam cups filled with water and make friends with the security guard, Shawn.
As we wait we see Nacho, so of course we yell “NACHO!” he waves and smiles. He was rocking a ponytail-bun hairstyle that was reminded me of caleb circa 2004. So this show had some really random things happen. First, some girl got kicked out for underage drinking, then I see my hairdresser in the pit, Savanna saw some boys she went to high school with working as stage hands, Janelle got dehydrated or something and had to leave before the boys come on , let’s see what else. . .some girl tried to push her way up front and ended up being escorted out by one of the boys security detail( one the big bald dudes) after he leaped over the barrier to do so, then playfully accused, by the same big bald dude, of throwing a pink thong which had landed in front of us.
Ok now the show. The features we awesome! Sadly the only song we really knew was “Lions” but we bopped around to the others. The drummer was entertaining and I bit of a cutie, in my opinion wealso saw Nate sidestage. Then Built to Spill, wow I’ve never seen a band look so unhappy to be somewhere. They were older and never looked out to the crowd or played with enthusiasm, their songs were slow and kind of depressing Jared was sidestage for this one.
Finally the boys! They opened with Crawl and had all these visual effects, fire and smoke. I don’t remember the setlist well, all I know is they didn’t play Arizona! I was so sad, but they played Trani which I’d never seen live before so that made up for the lack of Arizona Caleb talked a little bit about how this was one of their favorite places in the world and they’d be back once the album comes out. The heat must have really gotten to him because he only did one shot and drank water the rest of the time. In between songs he ran off stage, most likely to puke. Poor baby must’ve have been so hot up there with the hot temp plus the bright light shining on him, his cheeks were all flushed regardless of how he felt, he still put on a damn good show and rocked out as much as he could, I give him major props for that! I thought perhaps they cut out some songs because Caleb couldn’t rock out much more, since they didn’t play Radioactive either. I tried taking pics, but eventually gave up because I was too busy dancing and singing my little heart out! Highlights of the show: Caleb looked hot, no pun intended. Jared was looking pretty good too :X says my mother and my cousin, oh and my mom likes nate’s arms, haha! She said if I could be sandwiched between those two, my mother the perv that’s where I get it from I LOVE Mary live, I was trying to decipher the lyrics, um what else. . .oh I got a pick thanks to security guard shawn, and he also refilled our cups with water throughout the show, which was awesome! Finally I got a great new wolf shirt. Wow this is long, I probably left out some stuff but I’m sleepy now. Still on a concert high, but I’ll be crashing soon I need another fix! For the setlist info check out closertokol.com and I’ll post the pics I took soon

i knew i'd forgotten something, the fireworks/mini explosions at the end of the encore! they got some fancy visuals now, haha

[NikLovesLeb]

Thanks Marie!
Awesome review.
Your poor friend dehydrating before the show. That's awful!

Your ma is funny.

Karma!

[Savanna]

Great review Marie!! I miss the show already!!

My laptop isn't getting internet so sorry my review is taking so long to get put up...I'll try again tonight!

[Savanna]

OK here's my review, finally! Sorry it's so long, this is the version I keep for myself and was too lazy to edit! You might want to skim!


Before

I got to the venue way too early and the whole thing was a disaster so I’ll skip that part.

I met up with Marie at around noon and we went to hang out at her hotel for a couple hours before we were gonna line up (the venue told us we could start at 3 o’clock). There was a tour bus around the back of the hotel that had a Tennessee license plate so Marie and I decided to do a little snooping. We didn’t find anything except there was a room that the maid was cleaning which had a couple wine bottles sitting inside…so we speculated the rest of the day, wondering if maybe that could’ve been them. I mean who orders bottles of wine at a hotel in the middle of the day?! Anyways…we’re still not sure if they stayed there…

So we headed back to the venue at around 3. We were the first people there so we set up our little chairs and our iPod speakers and read some magazines underneath a tree, because let me tell you…it was HOT. Like…I’m pretty sure Arizona is hell on earth. I was as red as a tomato. It was not pretty. I should be used to it by now but this day was pretty bad…I think it got up to 110 degrees F. So we sat there for a bit and two other girls showed up…they met through the official forum we got to talking with them. They were really nice and we ended up sticking together throughout the rest of the night.

So I think at around 5 we moved all our stuff over to the gate to the venue, which was in the sun (and which is why we avoided it for as long as possible). This is when the sun really started to get to me. So we waited there (I swear I was near death) until they opened the gates at 6 o’clock. The girl who was swiping my credit card was THE SLOWEST PERSON ON EARTH. I was about to lose it because I could see everyone booking it to the pit. Once that was done I ran for dear life…well I ended up right in my usual spot, a bit to the left of Caleb, right in front of Nathan. I now realize it was worth it, but running while I was on the brink of heatstroke was not the best idea. I started feeling dizzy and sick so I had Marie watch my spot and I walked up to the concession stands, which was about a million stairs away. And those stairs were what finally did it. Once I got to the top my vision was completely blurred by a ton of black spots…I was literally seconds away from passing out…somehow I managed to avoid it by pouring ice water all over my body and sitting down under the misters. But man, that really wasn’t a good experience…I was really getting ready to just leave, it was that bad.

Anyways I went back down to the pit and I swear that that ice water saved my life because I started feeling a lot better and was able to get excited again for the show. So from there it was just a lot of waiting, as usual. I got all giddy when I saw Nacho come out because it’s been so long! We screamed his name and waved (duh). One of the weirder moments of the night was when I saw 2 guys I went to high school with working as roadies on the stage. Yeah. Weird. There were tons of people showing up before the show to volunteer though so I think that was why.

During

So eventually The Features came on. They were really really good, as everyone has said. The drummer was hilarious and awesome. I enjoyed them a lot even though the only song I know so far is Lions. During the performance we noticed Nathan watching from the side of the stage but he saw us all pointing and taking pictures so he moved a bit to the side, where he was hidden.

Built To Spill was…a little random. I know they were pretty established in the ‘90’s but I had never heard of them prior to this tour so I didn’t know what to expect. They really didn’t look too happy to be there and a lot of there songs were really slow, but they weren’t too bad I guess. Now during their performance we saw Jared watching from the same place that Nate had been, but once again he saw us pointing and moved. He was rocking out though

So let’s move on. Kings of Leon. Right before they came out we noticed a small fire stage right, next to the amps. I thought that it was an accidental fire but no one seemed to be freaking out so it was weird. But after reading Limon’s review I realized that it was part of their stage show. So…now I think it’s cool. Haha. Mozart starts, my heart beats faster, I get a rush of adrenaline. I felt like I hadn’t seen them in forever so it was a really great moment. They filed out stage left, Nathan first, lookin’ amazing as usual in a black tank top, hair down. Caleb was wearing a button-up with a top under and I think Jared was in a black t-shirt. Okay let me just say now that Jared is one sexy man. I know, I know, everyone was already aware but I have never been much of a fan until now. His arms…ah man…he is looking GOOD. That plus his little dance moves…I mean he still doesn’t go nuts like he used to but he seems to be more into it, probably because the tour just started.

The boys were in top form the entire show. I really commend them (especially Caleb) for giving such a great performance in that kind of heat. Caleb was definitely feeling it though because he kept looking down and taking a minute, like he was feeling dizzy. At point he said, “I’m trying to be entertaining up here but I’m about to pass out” and later on he actually had to be escorted backstage for a moment. Nacho came out on the stage later to ask he if he was okay…and probably the most shocking part was that he only had one shot! All of us in the front kept yelling at him to drink more water…Marie and I may or may not have told him to take his shirt off…

Even through all that, Caleb was great. He was in such a great mood and kept telling the crowd how awesome we were and that they have the best fans in the world (him saying that never ever gets old). He thanked us for braving the heat to come and see them, and he mentioned again that Phoenix is one his favorite places in the world. How he could still think that after the heat nearly killed him is beyond me! This all made me very happy though because I don’t remember him really loving the crowd the last time they were here (May 09). I really believed he felt what he was saying though, I could just tell. He also said something about us looking good and seeing lots of pretty girls (I know he’s said this before but still)!

At one point some crazy drunk girl had pushed her way to the front…all of a sudden I noticed a lot of commotion directly behind me, lots of yelling and pushing. One of the security guards leaned over the barrier, right between Marie and myself, so we were getting completely squished by this dude. This girl just wouldn’t stop so the security guard was there trying to get her out for a while…the boys noticed what was going on and Caleb made a face like WTF?. Jared was kind of laughing and I looked up and Nate was smiling and kind of shrugged. Caleb looked kind of pissed off when it happening.

Another thing I noticed was that during SOF these two girls next to me, who had been rocking out the entire time, crossed their arms and literally glared at the band for the whole song. I know a lot of people do this but I really don’t understand it. The boys also noticed this and Jared kind of laughed I think…but Caleb looked mad. I made sure to rock it even harder to make up for those two.

So I have to say, I am loving the things KOL have added to their stage show. I feel like it’s all very ‘them’ and not too flashy (which is what I’ve always worried about). The fire is awesome, the new lights they have behind them are SO COOL. But definitely the best part is the fireworks. When they started it was the biggest surprise, and was an absolute PERFECT way to end the show. It was just such a cool sight, the fireworks going off as they all rocked out so hard. And it was cool because all this was still fresh to them since the San Diego show was the first one they’d added it to.
So basically it was an AWESOME show. I had such a good time, danced and screamed and clapped as hard as I could, soaked it all in. I went through a lot that day but once KOL came on I totally forgot about it all. They just have that effect on you. I realized that I actually appreciated the 9-month break I had since seeing them last because that moment when they walked out on stage brought me back to my very first show and how I felt when I saw them for the first time.

After

Marie and I stayed at the barrier for a couple minutes to see if we could get anything; I didn’t but she got a pick. They made us leave the area almost right away. We went to the merch stand to get some shirts; I got one that is designed like the Bonnaroo poster, it’s so cool. Marie got a fitted one that has a wolf on it, which I think I may get at the next show. I was excited to see all the new T-shirts and they are all really really cool! So after that we headed back to her hotel, where my mom picked me up. My entire body was sore and I was sweaty and tired but I didn’t even care…the KOL high lasted all the way until I got home and passed out.

Setlist
Crawl
Taper
My Party
Be Somebody
Immortals
Molly’s
Fans
Milk
Closer
Mary
4 Kix
Bucket
Notion
On Call
Sex
South
Trani

Encore
Knocked Up
Use Somebody
SNSL

[sarah///]

SNSL!?!?!

Looking at the setlists I think they'd benefit from alternating between Bucket and KOTR and SNSL and BT, just giving it a bit of a mix up... I guess once they're touring their new album it'll change a lot but they're gonna get bored playing the same songs in same order :/