Recent Events and Closure

Hello! I am in a much better place today than I was the other day. I was feeling bad and upset about the events of Lancaster. However, some recent events have shown me (and Jenn) that this whole thing is so stupid! We are letting a stupid band run our thoughts 24 hours a day. It's over. We have both seen the light and we have both reached closure.

We started doing this whole thing because we were in love with the music. That developed a love for the band and a love for their concerts. However, over the years we grew to love their music less and less. But we kept going to the shows because they were fun. The most recent shows though, Since late 2010, haven't been fun. We haven't been going to them because we enjoyed them. It was more of a competition....  Just to see what we could make happen that night. We left more shows unhappy than happy. I honestly don't know why we did that to ourselves for as long as we did.

We go to Chevelle shows, and 10 years shows, and HURT shows, and Janus shows, and MCR shows for THE SHOW. I genuinely am so in love with every single part of their music and sound. Their words mean something to me. I'm not overwhelmed by meaningless messages. I got so sick of SP trying to give me a sad story message. It always had to be you're an outcast, things will get better, one day you won't be bullied......blah blah blah. I enjoy seeing bands when I connect with their music. I don't think I've ever left a Chevelle crying for any reason other than their words affected me in some way.

I'm just sad it took this long to have this realization. I shouldn't have ever made myself feel bad for something that I have felt for years. Next summer will be spent following those other bands I am actually in love with. Its going to be exciting and not a sick contest with no one other than myself.

Back to Real Life

Hey it's Amanda (the one who's done). So, summer is official a memory and life has started again. Jennifer left me and moved to Nashville for college and I started my second year of teaching. This year is by far a thousand times better than last year. I absolutely love my kids and they are all used to me now, so we get along a lot better! I am busy all of the time. I don't even have time to think. I only get to see the hubby one night a week between his work and classes, but I do try to ride a long with him every weekend. It's been weird not seeing Jenn everyday. We don't talk as often because we are both so busy but we try to talk whenever possible. I guess the good thing about that is that we don't have a chance to over analyze any stuff right now. That's basically all we do when we are together anyway.

This summer changed my life. I try not to be dramatic about it, but I honestly think about our little mini "tour" to the Northeast every day. We had so much fun going to Boston and NYC and discovering new places and things, but at the same time sad memories about the same trip just seem to overwhelm the good. I regret starting this blog every day. It seemed like such a good idea at the time but now I just want to take back the entire thing. I feel awful that I let my feelings become known to certain people. I thought it would feel so good to go out with a bang. To "win". For a brief second I really believed we did win.......now I'm not sure what I ever thought we were winning. I feel like I lost a lot. I made people feel bad. I hurt people's feelings. I made people question everything they believed about us. It just sucks! Maybe this doesn't even make sense, but I can't make sense of my own feelings. I got everything I wanted. I wanted them to know that I hated their new album. I wanted them to know that I was not coming to shows because I hated their attitudes sometimes. I wanted them to know that I do want all the attention. OK??? I do. That's all I needed them to know. I do want the fucking attention. There, I said it. It's out in the open.

I hate myself for letting them know all those things.

The only reason I wanted to go out with a bang so badly is because when I "left" Shinedown, they had no idea. I never knew if they wondered why I didn't come back, or if they ever thought about why I wasn't front row. They defined my life for so long and I went out so quietly. It just died one day and I never looked back. SP was so much more than Shinedown to me and I couldn't just let it die quietly. But it should have :(

To be completely blunt, I guess what got me so pissed about the attention thing is that I've put my entire life into following/supporting SP but most of the time I don't even know if they notice. And then, last summer Jenn and I spent some time following Chevelle and after only like 5 shows we were on their freaking tour bus hanging out like we were old friends. What the hell???

I guess I just thought we should be further with SP by now. That is such an awful thing to say, but I just wanted to move beyond fans and onto friends. I thought we could be friends with Emma. That's stupid to say now. Whatever. I'm done with my rant. I'm trying to move on. It's not as easy as I once thought it would be. But life is going on. The school year is going to get busy and soon it will be next summer. Maybe we will go have fun with Chevelle and start to forget this whole happened. Maybe it will continue to weigh on my heart and we will make the brave decision to try another SP show (probably from the back row this time). Only time will tell, but the only thing I can say is that I am truly sorry for everything and how this all turned out. It was only our faults and you never should have known what goes on in our heads. 

Amanda

Bidding Adieu

The Lancaster show was the third in our run of three on this little northeastern tour with SP. We were elated about the way the merch line had gone the night before because the band seemed happy to see us and chat with us. Those are the things that we love most about going to SP shows (besides their shows themselves). We had told each other we were going to be “on” all day in Lancaster and be really talkative to everyone because we wanted to make sure that we had a great time. We woke up late after sleeping in the car at 9am and we still had a 4.5 hour drive to Lancaster from whatever state we were in. This stressed us out already because we weren’t going to be getting to the venue until 2ish. We like to be there early to make sure we can get our spot in line and figure out the venue’s setup. Once we got there, we ran into Gerry and talked for awhile. It was really fun and comforting to talk to him. We finally opened up about all of the issues we’ve had with the world crew in the past and how the ambassador people are always rude to us because we aren’t active world crew members. Gerry told us he’d see us later and we took our spot in line. Later, we got hungry so we ran to the burrito place around the corner…about 5 minutes later Shim walked in. He came over and said hi and we were happy he acknowledged us. Then he went outside and we saw Emma. She waved at us and we said hi after she came into the burrito place too. As we got back into line, we were extremely happy that they seemed happy to see us. Besides running into about 17 different issues with getting in after doors opened, we got our place on the rail and waited for the show to start. The venue was packed with people and we knew the show was off to a great start. After the local band, 10 years came on and were better than ever. Jesse has such a presence. They ended their set by letting Jesse crowd surf on a pool raft. Before SP came onstage we were dying inside. We knew it was our last show of the run and possible our last show for a very long time (since we both have school and jobs we have to get back to). They came out and we were pumped. They were pumped. The energy was there and you could feel it. We both noticed how “on” Emma was. The whole band seemed to really be into this show. We caught Emma’s eye a few times throughout the show and got a few smiles. We saw Shim see us a few times but nothing major happened there. We were rocking out to every song we knew (except for the newer ones that aren’t fully our taste or the new ones we don’t know the words to). We still did all of the in between things Shim says in the songs that he only does live. We were having a blast. By the end of it (around All the Same) we both got a little sad because we realized it was over. After the set, we got a setlist from Kevin (because Johnny literally wouldn’t give us one) and walked over to the merch line. As we went through, we told them we had fun over the past few years in case we never saw them again. We said this because a) we wanted to let them know we weren’t in a position to devote our lives to seeing their shows anymore because of our jobs/school b) things have been a little different because we don’t know how to feel about the new album. Their reactions were so blah. They didn’t really seem to care. It was weird. Then we went over to Gerry and hugged him goodbye, meanwhile hearing Shim and Emma talking about us. They were pissed because we told them we weren’t coming back because it was complicated. As we walked out of the venue, A and I began to tear up. I told her we couldn’t leave it like that. I walked back upstairs and told Shim I needed to talk to him. I think he was surprised to see me. I’m not going to go into the detail of our conversation but I will say that it was more than I could have ever imagined. He told us something we were NOT expecting and it explained why he was pissed. I tried to explain why we felt the way we did now but it wasn’t coming out right. I was extremely flustered because I couldn’t find my words. I tried to be honest with him about how we felt but I don’t think it came out how I wanted it to. We essentially left bawling because we knew that things had just changed forever. I realize this sounds extremely dramatic and over the top and probably makes us sound a little (or a lot) crazy but this is just how we felt. So we woke up today to drive the 14.5 hours home and we were both speechless. We still are.

I (J) want to clarify a few things for Shim, who may (and I hope will be) reading this:

We were not doing any of this or saying anything to be malicious. For starters, why would we ever think that you even knew who we were enough to find the blog? It never crossed either of our minds that it would come into your sights. It was more of a memoir for ourselves to look back on. There has never been any indication on your end that you would put our face with a twitter name or that you would know our names in general.  I guess it’s insane for us to want attention at shows and small glances and the little things you fuck with us about. But those are what make us feel like you care that we are even there or that we have driven countless miles, spent tons of money, etc. The shows where we have had “weird vibes” as I put it last night are the ones where feel like you guys don’t care that we’re there. And maybe that’s crazy, but it’s my honest feeling. Also, I would NEVER want you to think we are trying to discredit your efforts or work. We have been supporting you guys since before DUAL came out and we would love to do it forever. With that said, we know that you guys put your hearts into this new album and you work harder than most bands ever do with touring and shows. That’s why we still spend all of the time/money we do to go to shows. However, if I’m being honest, No we don’t really dig the new stuff as much as the old stuff. I asked you about the album point blank last night and I trust what you told me. We know that you guys are beginning to cross-over and it’s kind of difficult to come to grips with. We didn’t decide to stop coming to shows because you were an ass or because you don’t rock out as much, it’s because we have to stop putting ourselves through this stress we can’t explain. We don’t even understand it. I’m sorry.

Emma and Mark: I hope you guys can understand how we are feeling. It’s hard to say it without it coming out sounding awful.

I think we both deep down want this all to fade away and us be able to go to shows and it not be weird from now on. I don’t honestly know if that could ever happen but SP will always have a large part of our hearts either way. We’ve had amazing times following this band and some of our favorite memories have come from our “tours”. This is probably the most honest we’ve been on this blog and it is fucking scary. I’m sure it is going to rub several people the wrong way but I guess it’s all out there now and we can go on from here.

J&A

The Curse of The Second Show

**This was written directly after this show. It is just being posted today because we were unable to have internet access on the road.**

So last night was our second show of this mini tour in Providence, R.I. It rained all day so we sat in the car until almost door time. For some reason the day had a weird vibe to start off but we were determined not to make it a typical second day show. Let me explain: Usually we do our tours in shows of 3 before making a trip back home to shower and repack and such. The first show is always great and the third show is always great but for some reason something always goes wrong with the second show. Either someone is pissed or there are technical difficulties. Something. We really didn’t want that again and we tried really really hard not to make it bad, but we truly think the second show has to be cursed.

For this blog J and I are each going to give our perspective on the show separately without reading the other person’s thoughts. This is because we are ultimately confused about this entire situation in general beyond any confusion we have had in the past.

Amanda’s Perspective:

I knew deep down inside from the very beginning of the day that no matter how hard we tried to break the second show curse that it wasn’t going to be any different. The line was annoying, the venue was set up weird and they were unprepared, and no one was there. It just kind of had an overall weird vibe. The local opening band was okay. 10 Years was great as usual but there was something about their set that I just couldn’t get into. Then SP came on. I tried to rock out but there wasn’t much contact between me and the band and I don’t really get the new music. It just made it hard for me to even try. We had a few small contacts with Shim which was okay, but we had just wanted more. I know that sounds so snotty of us, but certain things just happen at every show that did not happen at this show. We ended up basically standing still the whole show depressed. We couldn’t help it. On our way out we made a last ditch effort to be positive and decided to go through the merch line. That’s when everything changed and this whole thing got confusing and weird. They talked to us forever, asked us why we never do anything, laughed and joked around. It was crazy. It made me so excited and rejuvenated because it was like old times. They noticed things during the show that we would never imagine they would notice. It made us feel special.

When we left the show we couldn’t even talk about it because it was so confusing. I honestly don’t know why we keep doing this to ourselves. It’s like a never ending cycle of ups and downs. The ups are so high though but the downs are so low. There is never a happy medium. We can’t just purely enjoy the show anymore and I hate that. We honestly aren’t there to have fun. It’s all strategy and planning and if things aren’t just completely perfect and we don’t get the attention we want then the show is a bust. But then everything works out and we get attention and it’s like “OMG!!! Let’s do it again!!!” and then we completely disappoint ourselves. But it’s become this way because of us, not them. They have no idea about the attention we crave. But why would we tell them when that sounds crazy and selfish? I don’t know why we keep doing it or how long I want to keep doing it. Part of me is completely depressed that we aren’t going to the show tomorrow, but the other part of me is ready to just leave it behind. It’s too hard to leave behind something we have become so familiar with. Its seriously like going to SP shows is the only thing we know. And even though we aren’t best friends with the band it’s like we know them and there is a weird relationship going on between us and them.  I don’t know where the right place for this to end is.

Jennifer’s Perspective:

Honestly, I don’t know how I feel. I’m thoroughly confused. And the more I think about all of this, the worse it gets. Thinking through it just ends up giving me more thoughts than I started with. Yesterday in Providence, the day started weird. I could feel it in the air…and even now I can’t really pinpoint what was weird about it all. The vibe was just off. A & I could tell by the way the venue was set up and the way the crowd was acting that the show was not going to be as good as the show in Poughkeepsie. There were way less people, at least that’s how it felt. Not to mention, we hadn’t seen anyone in the band/crew all day which we normally look forward to. The show started with a weird dance/rock local band that seemed to have a lot of friends at the show. By the time 10 years started their set, the feeling was off. The band was still having fun onstage but the crowd just was not reacting the way the crowd in Poughkeepsie had. It seemed like Jesse (the lead singer) was almost amused with this because he kept making jokes about the crowd. By the time SP started, the place was beyond weird. They came out to Die to Save You and the energy level was just not there for us. There was a little interaction with us but not enough for us to be happy (that is fucking ridiculous to say, I know). Until halfway through the show, none of this changed. The band was crowd-pleasing but the show didn’t feel like it had in Poughkeepsie been two nights before. During Connect, A bent down below the stage to tie her shoe. After this song, we decided to give no fucks and just try to have as good of a time as we did in Poughkeepsie. It didn’t work. It felt forced and awkward on our part. So we just let the rest of the show play out. Overall, I had caught Shim and Emma’s eyes a couple of times but there didn’t really seem to be any feeling behind it. As the set ended, we called Johnny’s name to nab the setlist. At least one thing had gone in our favor at this point…Then we decided (somewhat on a whim) that we would attempt to go through merch…that is if we could get in to the signing without a special pass. We waited in the line and got up to Gerry and chatted a little. Then Shim jokingly asked if I had ever seen SP before and then said “thank you for coming.” Then he told us we needed to start getting to the shows a day early so that we weren’t tired during the set. He told us we yawned throughout the set and Mark smiled and said “come on shim, they’re tired. They want to go home!” Then before we left the line, Mark tried to say we weren’t into it because he had seen A sit down during Connect. We told him she was tying her shoe. Everyone laughed at this as they all realized that she hadn’t just sat down in the middle of their set out of boredom. As we made our way back to the car after bantering a little more with them we were both beyond confused. The show had been bleh. Then we get to the merch line and they recalled every emotion they thought we had throughout the show like they had seen us the whole time. The chat with them in merch is exactly what we wanted from them!! Those moments are the ones that keep us going. I just don’t fucking get it. During the show I had been thinking how much it sucked that we were back in this place with them where the show was weird and they didn’t care we were there. Then the merch line happened…..so…….. 

KV13 and Boston

So let me start off by saying that 3 years ago an event came about that inspired us to put something on our bucket list. This was called KV13 and we had to make it happen by the time 2013 was over. The years went by without us really trying, but then when this summer started we both realized we were running out of time and there was no way we weren’t going to do it. Basically this whole concert tour was planned around KV13. We didn’t just pick these concert dates randomly.

This leads to us having a day off yesterday between shows and heading to Boston. We drove about 3 hours there and it was almost surreal that we were actually doing KV13 after talking about it for so many years. I am proud of us for accomplishing it. As for what KV13 is…..I can’t tell you. Sorry J This one will stay a secret between us for years to come.

We had a very productive day going around to the different areas of Boston and discovering new things. We also went to Harvard, bought hoodies, and perfected our Boston accents. We cracked ourselves up making videos in our accents. Our favorite words are Pah-king, Hah-vard, and fobnobber. We will probably be speaking in these accents for a long time. If anything, we’ll piss our families off. We decided that Boston is our favorite city we’ve visited so far.

After Boston we headed to NYC for the night. The traffic through Connecticut is horrible. It took us forever. We eventually made it and were able to hit up our favorite food spot, Shake Shack. We decided before we left that Shake Shack was going to be the one meal that we purchased the entire trip. It was well worth it!! We spent some time in Times Square just people watching. We pissed a guy off who was dressed in a costume. He thought we took a picture with him but it was really just a vine. He hassled us for money. We won. Sucks for him. We took the subway to the West Village and saw a movie set. We weren’t able to figure out what movie it was though, then we headed back to the car. We had a parking ticket. It said we were parked within 2 feet of a fire hydrant. I think you can tell from the picture that we are far from 2 feet away from the hydrant. The ticket was for $115. That’s not going to happen. We will be disputing it online. After having all that fun, we headed to Holmdel, NJ to stay with one of J’s college friends. It was nice to have a cozy bed and hot shower!

Today we drove to Providence, Rhode Island for the next show. We learned on our way out of New Jersey that it is illegal to pump your own gas. That is just so weird to us! We splurged on coffee because we were worn out but we still feel so tired!! The whole trip was rainy and gross. It doesn’t really feel like summer around here. But we made it safely. We are just waiting anxiously outside the venue for the show tonight!!

A&J

Day Two

We woke up early this morning and started our familiar routine of getting ready in a Wal-Mart bathroom. It was kind of fun to get back to it, but at the same time we were so tired and anxious. The weather wasn’t the greatest—Very foggy as we drove through the Pennsylvania mountains. We eventually made it to Poughkeepsie, though. About a half an hour out we both got that familiar feeling in our chests—complete nervousness. We didn’t know what to expect with this show. We haven’t seen SP in so long. Thankfully, when we arrived no one else was in line, so that eased some tension immediately. We got in line around 1:30, which is late for us but it only meant the wait was shorter. After only a few minutes the lead singer of SP walked off the bus looking especially tired and grouchy. He stood there and smoked a cigarette for a bit before kind of stumbling over to us to say hi. It was very awkward, as we didn’t know how to act and he had obviously just stumbled out of bed. He said it had been awhile, it was good to see us, and walked off. We were happy that he remembered who we were and where we were from and how long it had been since we had seen them last, but at the same time there was a forced niceness that turned both of us off a little. It wasn’t that bad, but it was just different. That was that for most of the day.

Around 4pm I took off to find a bathroom. I ended up buying a sprite in this weird Chinese restaurant just so I could use the bathroom.  As I was peeing I got a phone call from J telling me to get back to the venue immediately with no explanation. I probably looked like an idiot trying to cross the street with my sprite in one hand and trying to make sure I got my shorts back up and my shirt down with the other hand. When I got back the line was gone and Jen was waiting for me at the door to the venue. The radio station had a meet and greet after sound check and invited us in. It was extremely awkward. We are in this position where we have seen them so many times that it is hard to be too “fan-girl” but it looks bitchy when we are nonchalant about the whole thing. I mean, most of the people in there were freaking out because they were so excited about meeting them, but J and I were just there like it’s another regular day. I know that sounds kind of mean but that is kind of how it is right now. The band was having technical difficulties and you could tell the lead singer was just bursting at the seams with anger. But J and I knew that he couldn’t let it out in front of the radio station winners. It was funny because we could read his face so well but no one else seemed to catch on.  

The rest of the day was uneventful. We finally got into the venue at 7pm. We got front row center. There was a local opening band and then Ten Years, who we’ve seen a lot. They were really great, but we were so nervous for SP that we didn’t enjoy it as much as we normally would have. We didn’t know what to expect with SP’s new music so we couldn’t anticipate anything. It was scary. They came on and it was a typical SP show. High Energy, moshing…whatnot. We decided to just go with the flow and let loose. We had the most fun we’ve probably ever had at an SP show because we decided to just not give a shit for once. Honestly, we just didn’t worry about looking too cool. We were sweaty and stupid and just playing around. Towards the end of the show Shim started to play around with us A LOT on stage. It was almost embarrassing because people were noticing.  It was so weird. I don’t know if he genuinely thought we were funny or amusing because we usually don’t act like that or if he was like mocking us. He usually does some little things to bother us because we don’t smile enough, but it was like our unusual playfulness made him all weird. We didn’t know how to respond. But It made the whole show enjoyable. We rated it an 8/10 overall experience.

We didn’t stay for the meet and greet after the show (a pact we made a long time ago) and we don’t regret a thing. As for our feelings towards the band………We aren’t quite sure. We definitely weren’t anticipating feeling so excited about them again and eager to see them again soon, but at the same time it’s not as intense. Things are still different. Mainly, the music and the vibe is different. They have changed as people and it shows during their live show. They are more into fashion and looking good. They don’t rock out as hard or sweat as much. That makes it hard to get into it as much as we had before. However, we are planning on sticking with their concerts whenever we can. We aren’t going to fall in love with their new album or make a point to change our schedules around to make it to every concert possible, but as of right now, we will plan on seeing them again in the future when we can. If not, we aren’t going to die over it. We still have two shows though and things might change even more. But right now we are just a little more confused than when we started this trip.

A&J

Day One

We made it through our first day safe and sound. We traveled about 13 hours into the mountains of Pennsylvania before finally calling it a night. When we first left we weren't quite sure how things were going to go because we are sporting a new ride. We had to leave our trusty black Scion behind this trip because he’s getting high in miles, but we have a brand new little “zook” to get us around now! He’s actually turned out to be pretty cool. Sleeping was comfortable. Temperatures were cool, thank goodness! However, the humidity and altitude made breathing a little hard.

 Even though we have a new tour vehicle, our trusty lucky stickers came with us on the trip! 

We got stuck in traffic around Indianapolis and sat a stand still for a good hour. We made the best of it though. I bet J a chicken sandwich to get out of car in the middle of the interstate and run around the car. I don’t think anyone else was as amused as we were.  We also stopped at McDonalds in Ohio and splurged on a large fry simply for the Monopoly pieces. We are convinced if we get pieces from different states we have a higher chance of winning the million!!!

We have four hours to go before we reach our final destination for today: Poughkeepsie, NY. We will see SP tonight, which hasn't quite set in yet. Its been almost a year since our last show with them and we've both kind of forgotten what it’s like. But we are going in with a different attitude this time. We know that they have changed and we have changed. It’s not going to be the same experience we have gotten used to over the past 6 years.  After the concert we are going to head to Boston to cross a major event off our bucket list!!! Until then, keep us in your thoughts as we continue trucking!

A&J

Packing

And it begins.....

Tonight was spent running around hastily packing up a storm. I think we are way more prepared this trip than we ever have been. Thank you experience! We have travel size toiletries, blankets, pillows, towels, baby wipes, dry shampoo, and a cooler full of food. We are determined to make this trip as economical as possible. I'm sure we will get on the road though and think "Damn! We should have packed _______!"

Even though we are only going to 3 SP shows, this trip is a little more involved than any we have done before. We are going to new states, new towns, new venues. And we are travelling more than 3,000 miles  round trip.....by ourselves. It always makes us a little nervous sleeping in the car and being out so late in unknown places, but it is also exhilarating and what keeps us doing it! I don't think it has set in that we are seeing SP either. It has been almost a year and I'm not going to lie, the last experience wasn't the best. 

So, keeps us in mind as we hit the road tomorrow and journey off to the Northeast. We are hoping to travel most of the way to New York tomorrow, but we will see how it goes. 

Time to takeoff: > 12 hours

A&J 

And It Begins...

Hello! Welcome to our blog!

I know, who the fuck are we? We aren't important. We aren't special, but we do have a story. And this is where that story will be shared...in detail.

We are Jennifer and Amanda. Sisters from Missouri who travel the country going to rock concerts. We do it dirty (sleeping in the car, sponge bathing in Wal-Mart bathrooms, sweating uncontrollably in a stale, dark club every night...) but its fun and hopefully funny.

This all started through a mutual love for a band called Sick Puppies. One concert wasn't enough, so over the past 4 years we have spent the summers, and sometimes winters and falls.....hell, and springs, crossing the country to see them as many times possible. Other bands have been thrown into the mix over the years (HURT, Chevelle, etc) but mostly, our big road trips are reserved for good ole' SP.

This blog is just now being started because we have come to the realization that we have all of these funny stories and memories, but they are fading as time goes by and new memories glaze over the old. This is a place for us to document everything...good and bad. funny or sad.

We are headed out on a road trip next week to hit up some new places in the Northeast. We will be seeing SP 3 times over a course of 6 days. We will also be marking a huge accomplishment off of our bucket list but I can't talk it about it right now. The thing that is going to be so different about this road trip is that we are no longer naive and jaded about the industry we have gotten ourselves so wrapped up in. When this beautiful experience first began it was all nervous giggles and butterflies when the lead singer of the band looked our direction. Today, it is far from that. You could almost say that our feelings are more negative than positive these days. And this road trip is our test. Will we ever see SP again?

We'll let you know.

Countdown to take off: 3 days.


-A & J