My review! It's kinda long cuz I typed it for my diary so the whole day is on there, and there are 35 pics, so, enjoy!!
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It's Sunday night, September 27th...on the eve of my first Kings of Leon concert! I am excited beyond belief, and I think I may have even given myself a cold from worrying so much about it! I was so afraid I would get sick for this concert, and I want it go to perfect. I have been looking forward to this for 9 months ever since last December when I finally discovered this amazing band. I am so thankful that I have 6 other people to go with, Meg, her friend Kelly, Sarah, Savanna, and hopefully Katie and her brother. I am so thankful that I will finally get to see my favorite band live! It's still mind blowing that in 24 hours I will be within maybe 10 feet of Matthew Followill!!
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Monday Sept. 28
I was surprised I got any sleep, but I slept good! Still felt a little ishy but good enough. I took off about 3 for the mall, cranking KOL the whole way and hoping nobody saw the huge smile on my face! Me and Sarah met at the mall and got on the light rail. On the way there I texted Meg and she was already there and said there were 11 people in line. This was about 4:15. Savanna was there too, she had been there since 1! When we got there, we found them sitting in line and sat down. After a bit the guy came over and told us to move to the other side and form two lines. We then got up to like 6th from the front! After what seemed like an eternity, it was time to take our potty break! Me, Meg and Sarah walked through the skyway and into this creepy hallway to go pee! When we got back, we found out that Katie was in line too, not too far behind us! We found each other and her brother was with her and then he brought some more people in behind us. Meg's friend Kelly joined us too. Finally it was time to go in!!!
The other girls got up there first cuz my wristband guy was taking forever getting mine on! I speedwalked up to the stage (I would have ran if it was allowed!), seeing that there was still plenty of space for me! We got in front of Matt and over to the left a little more. Matt was basically right in line with me! Katie and her brother were behind us, and Meg was on the other side of Sarah. Savanna got in before us so she was directly in front of Caleb. On the other side of me was this blonde lady/girl who was talking to us in line. She didn't know much about the band but she was friendly anyway.
White Lies was good, musically, but I don't like the singers voice. They weren't bad to look at! But it was still almost unbearable watching them because I just wanted it to be KOL! I can't believe how excited I was, I literally felt like if I got any more excited I might have a heart attack! Thank God they only played about 35 minutes. Me and Sarah were both saying the same thing how we were glad it was their last song cuz we were so impatient for KOL! At least during their set, Nacho was over on the side doing stuff so we could see him, and then it really hit me that I was about to see KOL finally!!!
The in between time went surprisingly fast, probably because Nacho was there to look at and people were calling to him and he waved a few times! He's a pretty famous guy too! By 9:15 the lights went down and Mozart's Requiem started! The crowd went nuts when the guys came out but I could barely utter a sound. I saw Jared first then Caleb then Matt, and I didn't take my eyes off him for at least 2 minutes so I didn't see Nathan until halfway through "Crawl"! Matt walked across the stage in his red plaid shirt and tight black pants, and my mouth was hanging wide open and I couldn't even bring myself to scream. I just kept saying"Oh my God" as I watched him walk across the stage! I think for half the song I was barely singing, just standing there in awe of how beautiful Matt was and how I was finally seeing KOL. I looked at every guy thinking 'Omg there's Caleb! Omg there's Jared! Omg there's Nathan!' then back to Matt again! Here's the setlist, in general order:
Crawl
Taper Jean Girl
The Bucket
Four Kicks
Charmer
On Call
Fans
Use Somebody
Notion
I Want You
Sex on Fire
Molly's Chambers
Slow Night, So Long
King of the Rodeo
Manhattan
Cold Desert
Revelry
Be Somebody
Encore: (one of those from up there might be in between these two, i can't remember)
Knocked Up
Black Thumbnail
I was SO bummed they didn't do Closer!!! That's my favorite song, and they've done it at every show, except mine!!! AGGHH!! That is my only complaint about the whole night. Here's some of the highlights that I remember:
Matt's shirt was unbuttoned about 3 buttons, and right away when they first came out, so much chest was showing, I was freaking out!! I thought 'Good Lord the Mattnip is so close to being revealed!' but, no Mattnip. Caleb had a black leather jacket on over his shirt and me and Sarah kept wondering why he kept it on! He was sweating from the very start! Jared took his jacket off about halfway through. Nathan of course had a tank top on, and even though I couldn't see him very good, I always had a good view of those arms! (well, his right one, anyway!)
Matt was chewing gum or something for a while, and I only saw him smoke one or two cigarettes. He didn't smile a lot either, he looked kinda bored during parts, he put his hands in his pockets a few times. I saw his dimples, his rosy cheeks, he is just the most adorable thing I have ever seen playing a guitar. He looked down a lot, and now that his hair is getting longer, it looked so cute cuz his bangs were in his eyes almost the whole time! He pushed his hair back a lot though, and occasionally looked up. When the fan blew into his hair, it was like heaven and I couldn't even sing while watching him! He likes to do this sexy dance where he rocks back and forth slightly, oh God if only we could have filmed video I would have had one of that dance! He rocked out big time during Slow Night, So Long, (as did Caleb), it was awesome!! I think he might be getting a cold now cuz I swear I saw him sneeze during one song!
Caleb was in a great mood, he commented that everyone was standing up and thanked us, and we all looked around and yes everyone in the building was standing up! I was so proud of Minnesota! He apologized for having a cold and he blew his nose a few times but we thought his voice sounded great. He had Nacho bring him a few drinks, and at one point he said tonight we had a special reason to celebrate, because they had their first #1 single! (Use Somebody, i'm guessing) Caleb smiled a lot and did his little wiggly dance he does! He said next year they'll be back and they'll sell out the rest of the place, although they were pretty damn close, it looked like!! He also said last night's football game was awesome LOL (Guess Nathan didn't watch it, cuz we know he was in a wedding back in TN) Caleb also thanked everyone for coming and said they had the best fans in the world! Right before the last song was over, he kicked his microphone stand over, not in an angry way but like a rock n roll way, and the crowd loved it!!
Jared was so far from us we could barely get any good pictures of him, and he didn't come over towards us hardly at all. At one point he looked like he was dancing a little and smiling at Matt!
Nathan was Nathan...just sat there and played. It's a shame I could hardly see him. At the end he stood up and held his arms up so I was able to get more pics of him.
We were too close to the stage to see the screens good (they were pretty damn close to being right above our heads) but during Fans they showed the crowd, and during Use Somebody they showed the nighttime view of New York City, and all the cool lights and close ups of the band.
The best parts, musically, for me, were;
Matt's guitar solo during Cold Desert...the bright light was shining behind him and I could see his body against the light and that guitar solo at the end is just AMAZING to hear live!
All the hard fast songs (Four Kicks, Black Thumbnail, SNSL) I rocked out during those, and the blonde next to me was looking at me, probably because my hair was flying in her face! Oh well, I wasn't about to stand still during those songs!!
Matt's "On Call" solo is still one of my favorites of his, and live it is even better!! If it weren't for that solo, I wouldn't even like the song that much!
Jared's bass sounded really extra good in I Want You and that isn't even one of my favorite songs but his bass made it sounds cool live!
After the show everyone went their seperate ways, me and Sarah hung out by the buses for about 20 minutes but no one came out and there were a ton of people there, and we started talking about bringing her film in to Walgreens for the hour photo thing and then we were gonna eat at Perkins then pick up the pictures, but when we went to get on the light rail, it didnt come for like 50 minutes!! We sat there and froze and decided not to go do the pictures tonight. At least while we were sitting there we were right next to a bar and they had remix versions of Sex on Fire and Use Somebody playing!! Right away when we got in my car we listened to Trani and Closer, the two songs we both really wanted to hear!
In summary, I can't believe I have finally seen KOL, it took so long to get here and it was over so fast. So many times during the show I just looked around and wished I could capture this moment forever. I'm still upset they didn't do Closer, but i'm not going to keep dwelling on that. They were awesome and it's going to be a long year (or two?) until I can see them again!