'cause i love all the poison away with the boys in the band...

2007-02-26T22:29:04Z

time for my super-long, ridiculously-detailed mcr road trip entry.

wednesday night adrianna and i left about 10:30ish. we stopped at target to buy an itrip and some choxie (which we only paid 22 cents for!), then we went on our way. i guess the trip to new hampshire was fairly uneventful, except for google maps being a douche and giving me the wrong directions. we got to the venue about an hour later than we had planned, but that was okay.

adrianna decided to sleep in the car for a while, so i went and waited in line. michelle, catherine and megan showed up around 10, and we went to see if our meet&greet passes were in. the lady in will call said they wouldn't be available until an hour or so before doors opened. we were going to go get starbucks, but then catherine's mom called and said that she had just been on the elevator with someone from mcr in the hotel, so we went across the street to the radisson to see what was going down.

it ended up just being some techie, but we moved their stuff to their hotel room and figured out that mcr was staying on the twelfth floor. they had rented out all of the hotel's penthouse suites. hahahaha what rockstars.

dan and kevin showed up after a while, and waiting in line was also fairly uneventful, except for when michelle, megan and i went back to will call to ask if we would be able to leave presents for the band in the will call booth. the lady said no, but whatever. there were some justin timberlake flyers sitting on the counter, so we asked if we could put some mcr flyers there, too. the lady got confused and asked if we wanted to hang them around the arena, and we immediately said yes. we explained that we were part of the mcrmy, and that's where the posters were from. so she asked her boss about it, and kept asking if we were working for the band or if we had a contract with them, and we said no. so her boss said that it was against venue policy unless the person who gave us the flyers said it was okay. haha so close.

the line started to get crazy around five-ish. they told us that cameras weren't going to be allowed into the venue, but there was no way we could run them back to our cars or anything. plus we had to go back to will call for our passes. we went there around six, and the passes still hadn't been brought down. eventually we were so stressed that michelle, megan and i decided it would be worth it to risk losing the passes in favor of being on the barricade. catherine called us literally the second we got back to our spots in line and told us the passes came in, so we were scrambling like crazy to get the passes and get back in line. once inside, security stole my camera and had us sit down in the floor area until the show started. probably the worst security experience of my life.

rise against was pretty good, but i didn't know any of their music except for like two songs. some guy from mtv was videotaping us, and i ended up making the cut for like 2.5 seconds.

as for mcr, this was probably the most amazing show i've ever been to. before i'd always said that green day back in '05 was the best concert i'd ever been to, but this honestly trumped it times a million. i was completely blown away. gerard spit water on my face again, just like he did back in '04, and that made me so happy. this was also the first show i've walked away from completely soaked with sweat in probably... a year and a half. with the exception of summer shows, because those are just ridiculously humid.

dan held up a sign during the show that said "PLAY SKYLINES" and gerard read it, but didn't say anything. he told dan later that they had practiced it with the intention to play it on the tour, but something happened and they ended up not being able to. dan gave me the sign to bring to uniondale.

i tried to talk security into giving me my camera back after the show, but they refused to, which pissed me off. we went to the meet&greet then and it ended up being more like a signing, but i was perfectly fine with that. i got my screenplay out and ready, and decided to have them sign my copy of dracula because it was the only thing i had, hahaha.

frank was first:

me - don't think this is cliche or anything, but it's all i have for you to sign.
frank - oh, no, dude, this book is awesome. how far are you?
me - like 30 pages. i've had it for three months, too.
frank - yeah, the beginning is really slow.
me - all they're talking about is fucking real estate, and i'm just like, "i don't care!"
frank - *laughs* yeah, and it's all done in notes, so. but like, my favorite monster of all time is frankenstein, and that book is like reading calculus, i hate it. *pauses* oh, sorry, i'm frank by the way.
me - oh, i'm jensen. *shakes his head*
frank - *signs book* yeah, it's good once you get into it. so keep reading.
me - it's making myself read that's the hard part.
frank - true, but trust me, it's worth it.

then came ray:

ray - hey, i'm ray. nice to meet you.
me - you, too.
ray - *as he's signing* so did you like the show?
me - yeah, i'm actually following you guys for the first three shows.
ray - really? right on, that's awesome!

mikey and bob were next, but neither of them said much of anything. then came gerard:

gerard - hi, i'm gerard. *shakes hand*
me - jensen.
gerard - *sees the book* oh, right on. *starts signing*
me - i actually have something for you.
gerard - really? that's awesome.
me - *hands him the screenplay*
gerard - *reads the first line of the note* oh, this is sweet. we'll have to read it on the bus. thank you.

and then i left because i was on the verge of flipping out and didn't want to scare him, haha. we all had to go back in for a group picture, and they gathered us up from shortest to tallest. i sat on the floor in the front, and bob came over and sat right in front of me. so i got up on my knees and was literally straddling him from behind, haha. then frank came over and sat next to bob, so i leaned over and put my arm around him. they took two pictures, and then on the third frank turned and burped right in bob's face. dan was like, "beautiful!" and i started laughing. it ended up being the picture they chose to put on this radio website that ran the meet&greet, and frank's face is all blurred, hahaha.

on the way out, i looked and saw that they had moved the table from the signing, but all of the guys' trash was still sitting on the floor. bob had a bottle of heineken that he left there, and there were like three cigarette butts from where gerard had been sitting. so i grabbed a cigarette and i grabbed the bottle of heineken, put it in my bag, and hurried out. when i went to take it out outside the venue, it had spilled in my bag, so everything that was in there still smells like heineken. but that's okay. there was some left in the bottle, so we all drank a bit. i put gerard's cigarette butt in my mouth just to be cheeky, and it tasted disgusting, hahaha. i should have known better.

we went to where the buses were just to see if anyone would come out, but decided to leave since we already got to go to the meet&greet. i went back to my car and we started on our way to long island, but i got a little lost leaving manchester. we ended up at the venue again, and saw that frank was outside. so me and adrianna jumped out of the car and ran over. adrianna talked to frank a bit, and as we were leaving she goes:

adrianna - frank! it's jensen! *points to me*
me - adrianna, he doesn't know who 'jensen' is.
worm - yes, he does! you're from the meet&greet!
me - .... o.0!?

wtf, worm. anyway, as frank was walking away, i told him to look for me in the front row in uniondale, and he said he would. so we finally went on our way.

there was no time to stop at traci's house, so i decided to just drive straight to uniondale. i kept dozing off at the wheel and almost hit like twelve cars and the guardrail at one point, but we were fine. i got really fucking lost, though, and ended up in the bronx. i had to drive through queens to get back to where i needed to be. scary shit.

at a tollbooth on the major deegan, my mom's ezpass came up invalid and got taken away. sucks. but we FINALLY got to the nassau coliseum around 11. way later than we were supposed to, but whatever. we went over to the hotel next door to get changed and brush our teeth, and there were cigarettes and heineken bottles all over the place. i started yelling about how gerard and bob needed to watch where they threw their trash, and then i saw a box of puffins (the cereal) and picked it up and shouted, "GERARD, SERIOUSLY, YOU CAN'T JUST LEAVE YOUR PUFFINS WHEREVER THE HELL YOU FEEL LIKE!!" some construction workers nearby thought i was nuts, but adrianna laughed. it became an ongoing joke for the rest of the trip.

so we made ourselves presentable in the hotel, then left to find food. we got lost for another two hours on the way back, though. ughh i fucking hate long island. when we did get back to the venue, i found my friend michelle from the rhode island show, and we hung out while adrianna slept. we stalked out the buses for a few, then got some starbucks. then we stalked out the buses some more, haha. finally we went back to the line, and then adrianna locked my keys in my car. i tried calling everyone (the police, triple a, everyone) and nobody would help me. finally i broke down into tears and the lady at triple a gave me the number of some guy who would come open the car for $60. i agreed just because i was so fed up with the situation, and then i went to line up.

we ended up getting in way late, but michelle and i got barricade anyway. this show was freaking insane. i don't know what was in the water, but gerard was going crazy. i don't even know how to explain it. he recognized me from the meet&greet the night before, and sang at least one line of every song in my direction. i couldn't even believe it. when i held up the "PLAY SKYLINES" sign for dan, gerard looked at it and cocked his head to the side, then gave me a weird look and kept singing. cr33p.

after the show we stalked out the buses again. i figured frank would come out at least, just because he always does. security lined up all the kids who were waiting on the sidewalk and brought someone out. michelle, her sister danielle and i got out of the car and went over, because we figured meeting frank was better than not meeting anyone. we got at the end of the line, and i was the last person. then we realized the person who had come out was not frank, it was gerard. he got the person next to me and started to walk away, but then looked back and realized i was standing there. he came over and pulled me into a hug, and while he was hugging me he said, "dude, i'm working on the 'skylines' thing, i really am." and i laughed and said okay. i asked if he still had the script i gave him, and he said, "yeah, of course, it's on the bus right now." so i told him i'd see him in hartford and he said goodbye and walked off.

we said our goodbyes to michelle and danielle, and headed off for my sister's.

we got to my sister's dorm around 5:30am. i told her i wanted to just go to the venue and i'd come back for adrianna later that morning, but she wouldn't let me. she told me to get at least an hour of sleep first, so i slept until around 7 and then left. i got kind of lost once in hartford, but my dad called and helped me find my way.

dan and his friend josh arrived at the venue about the same time i did, and almost immediately after that a security lady came over and made us move all of our cars to a separate lot. she said that since we were the first people to get there, we would be able to line up first when the lot actually opened around five. so we moved to a parking lot next door and set up camp for the day. michelle, megan and catherine arrived not long after that, and i left to get adrianna around 10. my sister swiped us in to eat breakfast in the dining hall, which was awesome. then we went back to the venue.

dan was making two more signs for the show. one of them said "FRANK'S PIZZA MONSTER" with a picture of a drawing frank had made for dan on thursday. it was a pizza monster that shoots lightning bolts, since frank is lactose intolerant. the other one said "I CAN WAIT FOR SKYLINES GERARD - DAN" in case gerard said something for the skylines poster this time. we wrote things in the dirt on my car and blasted music to pass the time. adrianna ended up finding a guy who was selling pit tickets for like 30 bucks, so she bought one from him.

i decided to give one of the choxie bars to gerard during the show, and i wrote, "TO GERARD <3 FROM THE SKYLINE KIDS" on the back of it. it was key lime pie flavored. mmmm.

the line ended up starting early, and we definitely weren't let in first, which sucked. but our group somehow managed to get to the front of the line anyway. it was freezing, but they let us in a half an hour early because of it. our group was second to be let into the arena, and we were front and center. so stoked.

the band wasn't as energetic for this show, but i'm not sure why. conserving their energy maybe? either way, we had fun. during either "teenagers" or "disenchanted," gerard saw me in the crowd, pointed and waved. that made me happy. i tried to hand off the choxie bar to him, but some security guy came up and took it from me and put it on an amp. i gave him a weird look, so he came over and was like, "i work for the band, i'll make sure they get it. you can't throw things onstage because of the pyro." so i let it go. i called him over a few minutes later, during the intermission, and said, "can i try to hand it to him, and if he doesn't take it, i'll give it to you at the end of the show?" and the guy goes, "he's not allowed to take things from the audience." i argued that he had tried to in uniondale, and the guy starts arguing with me about it. he started joking around and laughing, accusing me of not being a real fan (even though he was being sarcastic) and i got really pissed off. he came over to give me water as a peace offering during the second set, and so i let him pour the water in my mouth, and then i spit it all back in his face. for half a second, i thought he would get pissed off and kick me out, but then he laughed and said, "i like that you had the balls to do that." he came over a few minutes later and dumped a whole bottle of water in my face. jerk.

dan and i held up the pizza monster sign during the first set, and frank saw it and laughed. michelle got a picture of it, and it's adorable. then we held up the skylines sign during "famous last words" and gerard just gave us a "WTF!?" look and a thumbs up. frank saw the sign and just kind of shrugged with that kind of, "i dunno if we'll play it... but we're actually going to." look. so we all got really stoked that there was a good chance they'd play it. we kept the sign up through the second set, until it started getting to the end. so dan held up his other sign for the band to see. gerard kept hawking loogies into the crowd, and at one point some of his spit landed on my glove. i tried to wipe it off, but it ended up being phlegm from his throat and wouldn't go away. it kind of crusted to my glove. pretty nasty.

after the show, i tried to get a drumstick, as it was the one thing i wanted from the trip, but i failed. adrianna got a pick and i was pissed. we decided to try to get into the meet&greet since we still had our passes on us from thursday. the passe for that day were a completely different color, but we tried anyway. the first guy let us through, so we sat down in the seats and tried to look inconspicuous. unfortunately, the security guard i'd tussled with was there with another lady to run the whole thing, and he came over to ask us where we got the passes. we told him someone outside gave them to us, and finally he said that if we told him the truth, he'd let us meet the band. so we told him that they were from thursday, and he said that we wouldn't be let in since they were the wrong color, but he'd make sure to get us in with him. turns out his name is mehdi and he runs security for mcr. we talked for a while before the meet&greet, and he gave me some water. i really want to find him to keep in touch, but so far i've been unsuccessful. if anyone knows how i can find him, please tell me! i miss him.

we get into the meet&greet, and i decided to let the boys sign my gameboy color (lime green, hellz yeah) because it was literally all i had on me that was signable. so bob signed it, and then i got to ray:

ray - whoa, this is awesome! it's mad old, and i've never seen lime green before. hey, mikey way! *holds it up for mikey to see*
mikey - oh my god! that's old school! where did you get that, a museum?

then he grumbled to himself about how he wants a gameboy color. i thought about giving it to him, but then i realized i wouldn't be able to play tetris anymore, and decided against it hahaha. michelle said something to ray about the torosaurus she and catherine had given him in manchester, and he said he loved dinosaurs.

me - have you ever seen 'land before time'?
ray - you know, it's weird, because i saw those movies for the first time like... three years ago. you'd think i would've seen them when i was younger, but nah.
me - it sucks, though, the first three were so good, but now they're like not even numbering them anymore because there's so many.
ray - i hear it's the same plot over and over again.
me - probably. they're just not good anymore.
ray - yeah, it definitely sucks.

then frank signed my gameboy. i got to mikey, and he took the gameboy from me and was all, "this is awesome. right on." and smiled at me. i was just proud of myself for getting words out of him, hahaha. finally i got to gerard and i handed him the gameboy, and he goes, "whoa! badass!" and signs it. i asked for a hug, and he was all, "dude, of course!" and gives me a big hug. then he thanked me for coming to the three shows. as i was walking off to the side to wait for the picture, worm stopped me.

worm - hey jensen! i heard you spit on someone.
me - ... how do you know my name?
worm - you've been the past two shows.
me - three shows.
worm - well i only saw you at two. but i heard you spit on mehdi.
me - he was making fun of me. i was just retaliating.
worm - that's not cool, though. i'm not down with that.
me - he dumped water all over me afterward.
worm - i don't care, you don't spit on people.
me - well, sorry. i guess it's a habit i'll have to break.
worm - yeah you will. *pauses* that is pretty ballsy, though, so i'll give you that.

so i guess worm hates me, hahaha. i walked back over to everyone, and megan comes up to me and goes, "michelle told bob you wanted a drumstick but didn't get one, and he's having someone bring some down for us." i couldn't believe it. so bob walks over and hands me a drumstick and everyone else, too. apparently michelle had been like, "my friend jensen has followed you to the past three shows, and all she wanted was a drumstick." and bob was like, "what? she didn't get one?!" and so he grabbed a radio from a techie next to him and said, "bob to the onion tower. i need seven drumsticks that i used tonight, now." seriously, that is the nicest thing ever.

i saw mehdi standing by the wall, so i went over to yell at him for getting me in trouble with worm. and he was just like, "oh, whatever. and hey, gerard thought it was pretty funny." so now i'm known as jensen, the girl who spit on mehdi. and the skyline kid. and the screenplay girl. awesome.

before taking the group picture, i was standing with everybody across from the signing table. gerard was sitting in his chair, not doing anything because nobody was to him yet, and all of a sudden he looks straight at me, and just stares. i didn't know what to do, so i just stared back. after a moment it got kind of awkward, so i smiled a little bit, and he went to shift in his chair and almost fell out of it. i started laughing hysterically, and michelle asked what happened. when i told her she was just like, "don't worry, gerard, none of us saw that!" but he didn't hear her. lmao so effing funny.

so we took the picture, and i'm like behind gerard, grasping onto the shoulder of his leather jacket. as i was leaving, i saw bob and i went up to him and said, "thank you so much for the drumstick, honestly, you don't know what it means to me." and he said it was no problem. we hugged, and then i started to head out with everyone. i saw bschech, who i had been trying to say hello to all week, and finally said hi to him, haha. during the first show he had been sweeping up confetti and i went, "brian, no, leave the confetti!" and he looked at me and said, "i can't, it's slippery!" i love bschech, even if he is kind of an ass. he's like 4 feet tall, though, i just wanna carry him around in my pocket or something. mehdi said goodbye, too, and we pounded it. he told me he'd see me at the next show, so now i really have to get to another stop on the tour.

anyway. so on our way out of the venue, some guy came up and handed us two full pizzas and walked away. sweet deal. in the parking lot, i kicked a mcdonald's bag that was full of glass bottles, and they all shattered and went everywhere. then i locked my keys in my car again, but luckily dan had triple a. we waited for the guys to come out for like three hours, before finally giving up. my car got unlocked, and adrianna and i followed dan back to his house to sleep.

we slept there until like noon the next day, and his mom gave us bagels for breakfast. dan printed out mapquest directions home for us, and played some mcr songs on his guitar for us, too. then we left. i miss all those kids so much. :( i didn't want to come home, to be honest. and i still wish i was in massachusetts with them. ugh, i love them all.

the drive home was uneventful, except for this really weird bus where these five guys were like... raping someone in the back. haha, they weren't really, but they were doing something and we couldn't figure out what. we got home around 8, and then i went to OM to tell everyone my stories. i finally went home, and fell asleep. my voice today is completely gone, and i'm sore as a bitch, but honestly, it was so worth it.

if you just read all of that, then you deserve a prize.

i'll post a link to michelle's pictures, since i have none of my own.
michelle's picturezzz.

the first few are from the meet&greet in manchester, and there are some in there from the mtv thing we were on.

seriously. best week ever.

These are my days, this is how they stay...

gtfo n00b!

'cause i love all the poison away with the boys in the band...