October 30, 2006 - "the night we met 30 seconds to mars"

Erin O'Connor, Renee Levesque, and I had tickets to the MTV $2 tour (Sunday, October 29, 2006), headlined by 30 Seconds To Mars. We left cape around noon on sunday to get down there early so we could have lunch at Dave & Buster's in the Providence Place Mall first.

Wait, let me preface this story by saying that for the sake of Halloween, and just to be a little crazy, I dressed up like an anti-hippie. I realized, as I was trying to dress up as a hippie for Halloween, and was having little trouble - that I really do dress like a hippie on a daily basis, and therefore am stereo-typed as one. Everyone that knows me knows that I am a poser-hippie if anything. I just dig the clothes and the hemp style, and have for quite some time. But last night, I took off all the hemp. Yeah, I said it. And you know what else? I wore black pants, with a black skirt over it (it was windy, and I don't JUST wear pants under any circumstance), an Old Navy shirt, a black zip up hoodie, make-up, hair up, and chunky Steve Madden shoes, with SOCKS. Yeah, I know. So, I may not have looked that weird, but you definetely would never have guessed that I dress as a hippie on a normal day.

Futhermore...

Dave & Buster's was a cluster fuck to get into. The restaurant itself was not too bad of a clusterfuck, but the fucking mall was. I made it through though. haha. I had never been there, but Erin and Renee had. We started off with some exotic drinks. Well, at least I did. I got this little beverage they call a Snow Cone. Holy shit. Potent, colorful, and delightful all at the same time. Anywhoo... that went down rather quickly. Then I decided to go for 2 TnTeas with Bacardi Limon instead of Superior, cus that's just how I do.

Fast forward...

We ate, we drank, we were merry. The check, for just the 3 of us turned out to be $177, which blew my motherfucking mind. I don't see myself ever journeying back there without a bunch of cash to burn. We did each get a $10 game card that none of us used because we all felt it was more important to smoke a cigarette. Which was definetely true after 3 strong beverages.

We left there and headed down in search of Lupo's. We always have a bit of trouble getting right from one destination to another - but we always pull through in a relatively timely fashion. We parked across the street from Lupo's as we always do, and went for a round of Long Island Iced Teas with Bacardi Limon at that Irish bar across from the parking lot. Once we sucked those down, we headed into Lupo's.

We walked in, gave the dude our tickets, and went for our 21+ bracelets, which I still love to receive, especially at an all ages show. haha. I get my bracelet, and I hear this dude standing at a table behind me yelling "meet the band! meet 30 second to mars!" I don't acknowledge him at first, because I simply can't believe my ears. So instead of turning to him, I turn to Renee and say, "I'm sorry, did you hear that?" then I turn back around to the guy and say, "what does that entail exactly?" He then proceeds to tell us that all we have to do is buy a copy of A Beautiful Lie (by 30STM, obviously) for $10, and in turn, we get a wristband that allows us to stay after the show, and get something signed by the band. No sooner had we heard that, $10 bills came flying out of all our pockets and into that dude's hand. Some chic put the wristband on us, and I started losing my damn mind. I was literally shaking while trying to text everyone I knew that would care even a little bit. The only issue at this point was that the concert wasn't over for another good... 4.5 hours. Ugh.

We hung around and drank some beers, smoked some butts, chatted up some awesome gay kid. We walked around listening to Men, Women & Children... then got up closer to hear Cobra Starship sing Snakes on a Plane (which I luckily got an audio clip from). After Cobra Starship, we started to lose interest again since a band none of us had heard of before came on. Pink Spiders. They weren't bad, we just weren't excited since we knew bigger things were to come.

As we walked back into the main room from the bathroom, I swear to god I recognized the guy all the way across the room. But no, it couldn't be. He's in a popular band - a band that is playing here tonight, he wouldn't be just hanging around by the bar. I tried to convince myself I was being crazy, so it took me a minute, and a few steps, to ask Renee if she thought it was him. Him, being the guitarist from 30 Seconds to Mars. We both went back and forth, "it is him," "no, it's not, is it?" "it might be," "no, it can't be," "dude i really think it is..." Which soon after turned into "go over there and just ask him..." "no way dude, you do it. "why not? just go over and be casual." "no, you go, come on, you do it." "fine, but you've got to come with me..." Or at least something to that affect. Renee gets the balls to saunter over (surprise surprise, since you know I am a wuss). She asked him if he was in the band, and at first he was all like "me, no..." clearly joking around. Then Renee proceeds to tell him that he "looks like the guy that gave himself a beej in the video." He asks what a beej is, she tells him, he laughs, then admits to who he is, while giving her a little shoulder grab. Lucky bitch was touched by him. Anyway, I explained that I knew it wasn't HIM who gives himself a beej in the video, and that it was a dude in a bear costume. Few other words were exchanged before some others started noticing him as well. We bowed out gracefully.

Creepily after that I kept my eye out so I could just go back over and ask him if it would be okay that I exploited him with photography just this once. Alas, I did spot him again much to our surprise... but his girlfriend was all up in his shit. Oh well, better luck next time. We're gonna meet him later, again, anyway.

Head Automatica was about to come on. We got up pretty close to the right of the stage so we could get our rock on. Which we did, undoubtedly. We heard Graduation Day and Beating Heart Baby, but then we all had to go to the bathroom. After that, we decided to smoke a cig while we waited for them to finish up, and 30 Seconds to gear up.

When Head Automatica was off, we got closer than we were to the right side of the stage. All of a sudden, after waiting like - 15 minutes, someone came out to rile us up... but at the same time to introduce Street Drum Core. I watched a little bit of them before I realized that I somehow had to get to the bathroom and back to that exact spot quickly, or else I was literally going to have to go in the middle of 30STM's set. And that couldn't happen, duh. So Erin accompanied me to the bathroom, and luckily got us right back to the close up spot we were in, just as the band came on.

Insert hysteria here.

Renee was pleading with me to try and push up farther with her, but I was content. When the crowd started getting rowdy we got much closer to the center. They opened with A Beautiful Lie (the title track from their cd) just as I had imagined. I do believe Mr. Jared Leto had a hard-on for our side of the stage since he seemed to spend a lot of time with us (look how fucking close we were!)

Insert "thanks Renee, I know we would not have gotten that close if it wasn't for you" here.

So a fucking shitload of rocking out occured on both Jared and our behalf. Then it happened. Jared, Matt, and Tomo all threw their guitar picks in our direction. It fell on the floor, and it was wicked dark, but since I am so resourceful, I used the flash on my LG to find it. Fuck yeah I did! So technically, I don't know who's pick it was, but I believe in my heart that it was Jared's, and that's good enough for me.

The end of the show had arrived, much to our dismay. But lucky for us, we had those magical bracelets that entitled us to stay behind.

We decided to let the crowd do it's thing, while we smoked a cigarette. On the way back in, the guy let us keep our smoking passes for scrapbook purposes.

We finally ended up back in the main room with a bunch of people patiently waiting to meet these beautiful creatures. While in line, Renee and I get handed posters and cd's for the Pink Spiders. Turns out, we were standing next to 2 of the dudes from the band, who were nice enough to autograph our posters. Erin asked one of the guys to please write on her hand "S my D you nasty B," but instead he wrote "suk dik mom," in sharpie pen on her hand, which she was later unhappy about. haha.

One of the Lupo's people stood on a table and made some order out of the chaotic scene. Somehow we managed to move right along, very quickly. It was a good thing, because we weren't standing around forever, but a bad thing, because it just happened much too fast.

So I got my cd out. Shannon is now in view. Holy shit. His eyes are so penetrating, much like his brother's. I walk over, all timid and weird and shit, behind Renee, but in front of Erin. I have so much anxiety I could literally die. They barely look up because they are signing so fast. I thanked Shannon, then Matt, then said a few words about the bear suit again to Tomo... then there was Jared. My world slowed down. I knew I had to say something to him. I couldn't just thank him and walk away like I had with the others. So I just had to say, "you are amazing." He looked up at me with those fucking beautifully alluring eyes and simply said, "thank you, have a good night guys." I walked out of there stunned and speechless, with a cd that was signed from one of the most amazing bands ever. Wow.

Oh, sidenote. Erin asked Jared if HE would sign her cd "S my D you nasty B," as well. He declined, saying he'd get in trouble. But not only did he sign the inside of her cd jacket as he had done for us, he also separately signed her cd, and wrote "Hi." at the bottom of it. Oddly enough, his "hi" looked just like "Hj," which Erin is pretty psyched about. I got to say, I am definetely jealous - 2 signatures?! come on.

We smoked 2 bowls immediately when we got on the highway. I definetely needed to be sedated. I thought I was gonna explode. I still can't stop thinking about it or talking about it or daydreaming about it. The single most amazing music-related experience I have ever had in all my life. I would honestly have to meet Offspring, Blink 182, or silverchair to top that one.

I had a dream last night, despite Keegan's best efforts to get me to NOT dream about Jared, that we were hanging out regularly. He was so amazing. I got him to smoke weed out of a metal pipe. Don't ask me why I had a metal pipe, maybe it was his? I also talked him into flying over to Amsterdam for a couple days when we will be there, claiming that I knew he could afford the trip. haha. I HATE waking up from dreams like those.

So that's it. I apologize for the length of this entry, but you see, if I don't document the entire experience, I really and truly feel that I will forget it all. Well, not ALL of it, but parts I don't wanna forget. Special thanks to Renee and Erin for making my night one of the best ever. Lots of love my friends.

Please now take the time to go back and click on the links you have missed, or forget the whole thing and click on this link to bring you to the whole photo album from last night. Once Renee gets her film developed we will have some more mindblowing pictures to show you all. Thank you, and good night.