GAMECHANGERS - Chicago, Illinois - March 24, 2011 - Congress Theater.
Got there at like 6:30, and there was a massive line spanning about 2 blocks down from the venue, luckily I was in in like 15 minutes as it was moving very fast, regardless of how long it was. When I got to the door, the nigger ticket dude pissed me the fuck off. He had nothing on indicating he worked there, and he very violently grabbed my hand with both hands and started crushing my ticket, and I said what the fuck are you doing? Get the fuck off me. I thought he was a bum trying to steal my ticket or some shit. So he's like fine go the fuck outside then. He proceeded to do this to the next dude. So we're both standing there like what the fuck... And I watched him and he was taking everyone's tickets, so I realized he was the ticket dude. So I went back in, and he got in my face "YEA YOU FEEL FUCKING STUPID NOW DON'T YOU?" I was just like whatever let me in, And he pushed me and said "Get your dumbass in there you stupid fucking white boy.". Stupid filthy ass nigger pissed me off. Whatever though.
Got in, and looked at merch immediately, and I'll say, BMTH can't make shirts for shit. All of their shirts were garbage. ADTR had a sick one that had the Pac-Man ghosts beating the fuck out of Pac-Man, and it said "Keep Running Your Mouth." on the back. Wanted to get it, but stuck with my PTV shirt, and got me a PTV Scenie band for $5 lolz.
This exact one, except it's black, not green, still has the yellow writing. Says "FORGET REGRET PTV" Which are lyrics from The Balcony Scene.
I wanna say, this was the most violent and fucking insane crowd I've ever seen, got crushed even more than I did at American Carnage for Megadeth, and it was 10x harder to stay on my feet, but I've come to absolutely love that struggle. No one ever stopped fucking moving the entire night. Got my ribs crushed, got kicked in the jaw extremely hard by a crowd surfer, got my neck smashed downwards by a crowd surfer landing like ass first on my head, but I don't regret it a single fucking bit. As insane as it was, it was extremely fun, and a very friendly crowd. This is gonna get me bashed, but Core/Scenie crowds are so much more fun than any Metal crowd I've ever experienced, and it shows time and time again. This was also a sold out show and everyone was packed in. The balcony was even filled in back to back.
Anyways, onto the night of my fucking life.
We Came As Romans: Whatever. To Plant A Seed was sick, but they're whatever, I also didn't like that their clean Vocalist uses effects live. <_> Got the crowd pumped though. Good thing they were only the opener and were done with their set relatively quickly. 6/10
Pierce The Veil: Perfect. Just like they were the first time. But better this time around. I was pretty far back at the start of the set, but fought my way up to like 3 people behind the rail, where I stayed the entire night. They started their set with their Black And Yellow cover, and everyone went fucking apeshit, including myself. Everyone was jumping and screaming the song, perfect intro to their set. For a band that has very minimal screaming, these motherfuckers get an insane crowd reaction. Everyone screaming every song, insane pits, getting crushed the entire time, everything. They once again played Like A G6, and it was one of the highlights of the night. It was fun as Hell at a 500 people club back in January. It was 10x more fun with like 3,000 people back to back on the floor fucking jumping in unison with strobe lights and shit. They also made a girl jizz her pants. Before they played Yeah Boy And Doll Face, they were like "Well, this is the first time we've ever done this, but which one of you females wants to come up on stage?" so they all screamed this deafening high pitched shriek and every single one of them went batshit insane. So he picked this black girl, and she was like shaking, and Vic was like "Sit in that chair. I'm gonna sing you a song." So they started playing Yeah Boy And Doll Face, he got on his knee, grabbed her hand, looked her directly in the eyes, and sang to her, and she was like having fucking convulsions or some shit and holding her chest with tears in her eyes. <_> Although, I can't blame her, 'cause I'd flip shit if Lights did that for me, but it was still lulzy. Also, Jeremy McKinnon came out and screamed his part in the chorus of Caraphernelia at the end of the song and everyone went crazy. Too sick. Anyways, I already blew my voice out and wore myself the fuck out with their set, but I knew it was only the beginning to a perfect night. 11/10
BRING ME THE FUCKING HORIZON: Holy shit. They made their mindblowing set from October look like a mediocre band of 12 year olds playing their first show. I wanna say, I was extremely worn out from PTV's set, and didn't get into it as much as I wish I could have, but this also due to how much I was being crushed and how much the entire crowd was pushing forward the whole set. There was one point that Oli said "FUCKING JUMP!" And I tried to and couldn't get my feet off the ground. That's how tightly we were packed in. Due to how much I was being crushed, I was literally not able to breathe at one point, and I was trying to catch my breath for a good portion of their set, which held me back from screaming a part of some of the songs, no matter how much I wanted to. But regardless, I was screaming every word to the best of my ability. Especially during Alligator Blood, the part where he screams "SO PUT A GUN TO MY HEAD....AND PAINT THE WALLS.....WITH MY FUCKING BRAIN. *Gunshot*." was too fucking heavy live, and the breakdown following after literally made the fucking floor shake, that Bass drop was fucking INSANE. Perfect way to pull off a Bass drop live. Oli was a fucking machine. He was absolutely fucking controlling the crowd and making it his bitch. He wasn't even that aggressive on stage back in October. I think every band knew how fucking huge this tour was. Even PTV was so much more aggressive and demanding on stage compared to their set in January. His Vocals were spot on and sounded even better live than they do on album, and he's gong back to using gutturals a lot more, which I loved, his gutturals sound fucking amazing now, Powerful as Hell. For their fifth song, I knew they were rotating between The Sadness Will Never End, Crucify Me, and Football Season Is Over. But I got an even better treat. They played motherfucking Blessed With A Curse. The second I heard the opening notes I fucking lost it. Screamed every last word at the top of my lungs. That song is just so powerful live. The group chants were insane. They proceeded to play Anthem, which was just as mental live as I thought it would be. Right before the breakdown, the band stopped playing, and Oli said "This show has the biggest fucking attendance of the tour thus far, so I wanna see a motherfucking wall of death to match that. Wall to fucking wall, give it everything you fucking got, I'm not gonna start playing again until I see you motherfuckers go wall to wall." Now, for anyone who's been to Congress Theater, you know it's a fucking big venue, each side was at least 100-150 feet apart, literally back against each wall, each side had hundreds of fucking people. Matt, Lee, Jona, and Oli all got on top of the backdrop, jumped off simultaneously, and started playing the breakdown, and OH MY FUCKING GOD, I have never seen something so mindblowing live before. The Bass drop was deafening, the floor shook, and when that wall of death collided....words can't fucking describe it. They closed with Chelsea Smile, and before the closing breakdown, They stalled the Music and played the triplet riff repeatedly, and Oli said "I want you all to get the fuck down to the floor, every single one of you, and on my count, I want to see every single one of you on that floor jump the fuck up and go fucking crazy." so we all got as low as we could, and on 3, we all jumped, and it was fucking insane. Literally the entire crowd, back to back jumped at the exact same time. Once again, impossible to describe how fucking amazing that felt. I will never forget this set as long as I fucking live. Too amazing for words. 11/10
A Day To Remember: .........Wow. All I can say. These guys know how to put on a fucking show. Not just Musically, but with presentation, crowd interaction, stage set-up, everything. It was perfect. They had the best stage set up I've ever seen. It was like a recreation of the album cover of What Separates Me From You, except it didn't have the guy stuck in the hourglass, or the people on the street, but it had the street and the houses, which they had effects on throughout the set, and they had real street lights set up on the stage, with this huge platform in the back of the stage that everyone kept going up on, which looked sick. Anyways, while they were setting up, I was really feeling it from PTV and BMTH, I was light headed, hungry, my mouth was dry and gross, even though that was temporarily fixed when security was spraying water all over us and into our mouths, but my stomach hurt, feet hurt, throat hurt from screaming, I was wondering how the fuck I was gonna make it through a 19 song set, with the crowd undoubtedly going even crazier than they did for BMTH, PTV, and WCAR combined. Which surprisingly wasn't true. The crowd was tired as Hell too, and was pretty mild, even though they were still crazy, but it didn't get too intense, except for the extremely heavy songs like 2nd Sucks, Mr. Highway's Thinking About The End, Sticks And Bricks, and You Be Tails, I'll Be Sonic, in which case shit got just as insane as BMTH and I got crushed even worse. But the minute the curtain dropped, they shot confetti everywhere from 8 cannons, 4 on each side of the stage, with smoke shooting everywhere from the floor of the stage, literally fucking exploding into Sticks And Bricks with no introduction. All my complaining and pain went out the fucking window and I lost it. I screamed every fucking word and went insane. That breakdown is ridiculous live, and when he screams "MY HEART IS FILLED WITH HATE." there's not one person who didn't scream it with him, and they actually drowned him out. This continued throughout their entire set, with the crowd singing every word. It was mindblowing, that's the first time I've actually seen the crowd drown out the band. When they played All Signs Point To Lauderdale, there was not one person not singing that chorus. Anyone on here that's heard it knows how addicting and catchy that chorus is. Also, at the start of All Signs Point To Lauderdale, they threw a shit ton of toilet paper rolls in the crowd, which were flying around throughout the rest of the night, and there was toilet paper hanging from the bar right below the ceiling where the stage/effects lights are. At the end of the song, someone threw one of the rolls at the stage, and Jeremy pulled a "Nice throw faggot!" like Randy Blythe and caught it one handed. This was followed by lulzy stage commentary. During the next song, their old Guitarist, Tom fucking Denney, came out dressed like Homer Simpson and he was shooting free T-Shirts at the crowd. Love that dude ahahaha. At the beginning of Homesick, Jeremy got in a gigantic plastic ball, and ran on the crowd like a boss, although he fell a few times....all while still singing every line perfectly... #WINNING. At one point, he was directly above me, and his foot was in my hand, and he looked directly at me, and we were screaming the chorus at eachother... Absolutely unreal and just completely indescribable. I got fucking goosebumps. Anyways, a little later in their set, I forget before exactly what song he said it, but he told us that this was the biggest show they've ever played on a headlining tour on U.S. Soil... Fucking amazing. And I got to be a part of it. Also, before A Shot In The Dark, he said: "Well, this is the biggest show we've played in the U.S., so it's only fitting that I see the biggest fucking circle I've ever seen. Make me proud, and make this entire floor a pit.". And that's exactly what fucking happened. Holy shit. Literally the biggest pit I've ever seen. From the back of the floor all the way up to about 4 people behind the rail, as well as wall to wall width wise, it was a fucking circle pit. Absolutely fucking blew my mind. He said "I can't fucking believe it...you did it. That was literally the biggest pit I've ever seen. Thank you so much. This is why I do this, this is why I'm up on stage for you guys. Wow." That's what his tweet was about that I showed earlier. During The Plot To Bomb The Panhandle, a huge pit broke out right by me and I had to join in. No ninjas, just straight up moshing with me, a bunch of beefy Hardcore kids, and fat dudes. Lolz. Fun pit though, someone slammed into me while I was in the air and I went flying ahaha. After that, they said it was the end of their set, and Jeremy gave a mini speech, and said "Thank you all so much, this show blew my mind, a Pop Punk band that plays breakdowns (Told you assholes they were Pop Punk/Popcore, but no, Erik is a dumbass) should NOT be this successful and playing a show this huge, but it shows that if you care enough and put everything you have into it, you can do anything that you possibly want to do." Which hit me, because after tonight, I know there's nothing else I want to do in life but be in their place up on that stage. Anyways, I knew the setlist, and knew there were 2 songs that were still gonna be played. After they came back on, it was just Jeremy and Kevin Skaff on stage with 2 acoustic Guitars, and they played If It Means A Lot To You. This was really cool to see it done live. Everyone calmed down for this song and we were all just singing every word at the top of our lungs. After that, of course they had to play The Downfall Of Us All, so incredibly fun live. Everyone was just jumping around and screaming their heads off. After that, I was incredibly sad for it to end, but this was literally the best night of my life, and the best show I've ever been to. I've never been so happy and full of life in my entire life. And all good things must come to an end. This night showed me the absolute reason why Music is my life, my everything, the reason I have something to get up out of bed for every day, the reason I'm still alive. No show has ever made me feel like this, but this is what I fucking live for, without a shadow of a doubt. Music is my purpose in life, and I promise to fucking chase that dream with everything I have in me. 11/10
P.S. Jeremy pretty much confirmed that they'll be at Warped without literally saying it. He hinted at it though.
Got there at like 6:30, and there was a massive line spanning about 2 blocks down from the venue, luckily I was in in like 15 minutes as it was moving very fast, regardless of how long it was. When I got to the door, the nigger ticket dude pissed me the fuck off. He had nothing on indicating he worked there, and he very violently grabbed my hand with both hands and started crushing my ticket, and I said what the fuck are you doing? Get the fuck off me. I thought he was a bum trying to steal my ticket or some shit. So he's like fine go the fuck outside then. He proceeded to do this to the next dude. So we're both standing there like what the fuck... And I watched him and he was taking everyone's tickets, so I realized he was the ticket dude. So I went back in, and he got in my face "YEA YOU FEEL FUCKING STUPID NOW DON'T YOU?" I was just like whatever let me in, And he pushed me and said "Get your dumbass in there you stupid fucking white boy.". Stupid filthy ass nigger pissed me off. Whatever though.
Glad you had a good time sir. My ADHD kicked in part of the way into bring me the horizon and my mind wandered so I stopped reading. Rancid or me was the hardest struggle to stand up during like you talked about.
You should go to a brand new show if they ever tour again I unfortunately missed them when they came my friends made sure to fill me in on everything pretty much every word of every song got sang louder than the singer the entire set.
You tryin to be a hero fool? You wanna see badass mother fucker?! I'll show ya a badass!!!
I would prob say the hardest show for me to stand at was at the first dog fashion disco reunion show. the ottobar is kinda small and has no rail, so when you have 350 diehard and crazy fans pushing and moshing, it was even hard to breathe after a while
Holy shit.....according to Kevin Skaff's Twitter, there were 4,400 fucking people there tonight. Goddamn lil homie.
they prob packed that place as tightly as possible. The big venue in philly holds 3500 (and ended up selling out both nights of this tour in like 3 weeks
This tour his Stage AE (American Eagle) in Pittsburgh but I've never been there...or knew it exsisted. They also added a second date because the first date sold out back in January
Comments
Got there at like 6:30, and there was a massive line spanning about 2 blocks down from the venue, luckily I was in in like 15 minutes as it was moving very fast, regardless of how long it was. When I got to the door, the nigger ticket dude pissed me the fuck off. He had nothing on indicating he worked there, and he very violently grabbed my hand with both hands and started crushing my ticket, and I said what the fuck are you doing? Get the fuck off me. I thought he was a bum trying to steal my ticket or some shit. So he's like fine go the fuck outside then. He proceeded to do this to the next dude. So we're both standing there like what the fuck... And I watched him and he was taking everyone's tickets, so I realized he was the ticket dude. So I went back in, and he got in my face "YEA YOU FEEL FUCKING STUPID NOW DON'T YOU?" I was just like whatever let me in, And he pushed me and said "Get your dumbass in there you stupid fucking white boy.". Stupid filthy ass nigger pissed me off. Whatever though.
Got in, and looked at merch immediately, and I'll say, BMTH can't make shirts for shit. All of their shirts were garbage. ADTR had a sick one that had the Pac-Man ghosts beating the fuck out of Pac-Man, and it said "Keep Running Your Mouth." on the back. Wanted to get it, but stuck with my PTV shirt, and got me a PTV Scenie band for $5 lolz.
This exact one, except it's black, not green, still has the yellow writing. Says "FORGET REGRET PTV" Which are lyrics from The Balcony Scene.
I wanna say, this was the most violent and fucking insane crowd I've ever seen, got crushed even more than I did at American Carnage for Megadeth, and it was 10x harder to stay on my feet, but I've come to absolutely love that struggle. No one ever stopped fucking moving the entire night. Got my ribs crushed, got kicked in the jaw extremely hard by a crowd surfer, got my neck smashed downwards by a crowd surfer landing like ass first on my head, but I don't regret it a single fucking bit. As insane as it was, it was extremely fun, and a very friendly crowd. This is gonna get me bashed, but Core/Scenie crowds are so much more fun than any Metal crowd I've ever experienced, and it shows time and time again. This was also a sold out show and everyone was packed in. The balcony was even filled in back to back.
Anyways, onto the night of my fucking life.
We Came As Romans: Whatever. To Plant A Seed was sick, but they're whatever, I also didn't like that their clean Vocalist uses effects live. <_> Got the crowd pumped though. Good thing they were only the opener and were done with their set relatively quickly. 6/10
Pierce The Veil: Perfect. Just like they were the first time. But better this time around. I was pretty far back at the start of the set, but fought my way up to like 3 people behind the rail, where I stayed the entire night. They started their set with their Black And Yellow cover, and everyone went fucking apeshit, including myself. Everyone was jumping and screaming the song, perfect intro to their set. For a band that has very minimal screaming, these motherfuckers get an insane crowd reaction. Everyone screaming every song, insane pits, getting crushed the entire time, everything. They once again played Like A G6, and it was one of the highlights of the night. It was fun as Hell at a 500 people club back in January. It was 10x more fun with like 3,000 people back to back on the floor fucking jumping in unison with strobe lights and shit. They also made a girl jizz her pants. Before they played Yeah Boy And Doll Face, they were like "Well, this is the first time we've ever done this, but which one of you females wants to come up on stage?" so they all screamed this deafening high pitched shriek and every single one of them went batshit insane. So he picked this black girl, and she was like shaking, and Vic was like "Sit in that chair. I'm gonna sing you a song." So they started playing Yeah Boy And Doll Face, he got on his knee, grabbed her hand, looked her directly in the eyes, and sang to her, and she was like having fucking convulsions or some shit and holding her chest with tears in her eyes. <_> Although, I can't blame her, 'cause I'd flip shit if Lights did that for me, but it was still lulzy. Also, Jeremy McKinnon came out and screamed his part in the chorus of Caraphernelia at the end of the song and everyone went crazy. Too sick. Anyways, I already blew my voice out and wore myself the fuck out with their set, but I knew it was only the beginning to a perfect night. 11/10
BRING ME THE FUCKING HORIZON: Holy shit. They made their mindblowing set from October look like a mediocre band of 12 year olds playing their first show. I wanna say, I was extremely worn out from PTV's set, and didn't get into it as much as I wish I could have, but this also due to how much I was being crushed and how much the entire crowd was pushing forward the whole set. There was one point that Oli said "FUCKING JUMP!" And I tried to and couldn't get my feet off the ground. That's how tightly we were packed in. Due to how much I was being crushed, I was literally not able to breathe at one point, and I was trying to catch my breath for a good portion of their set, which held me back from screaming a part of some of the songs, no matter how much I wanted to. But regardless, I was screaming every word to the best of my ability. Especially during Alligator Blood, the part where he screams "SO PUT A GUN TO MY HEAD....AND PAINT THE WALLS.....WITH MY FUCKING BRAIN. *Gunshot*." was too fucking heavy live, and the breakdown following after literally made the fucking floor shake, that Bass drop was fucking INSANE. Perfect way to pull off a Bass drop live. Oli was a fucking machine. He was absolutely fucking controlling the crowd and making it his bitch. He wasn't even that aggressive on stage back in October. I think every band knew how fucking huge this tour was. Even PTV was so much more aggressive and demanding on stage compared to their set in January. His Vocals were spot on and sounded even better live than they do on album, and he's gong back to using gutturals a lot more, which I loved, his gutturals sound fucking amazing now, Powerful as Hell. For their fifth song, I knew they were rotating between The Sadness Will Never End, Crucify Me, and Football Season Is Over. But I got an even better treat. They played motherfucking Blessed With A Curse. The second I heard the opening notes I fucking lost it. Screamed every last word at the top of my lungs. That song is just so powerful live. The group chants were insane. They proceeded to play Anthem, which was just as mental live as I thought it would be. Right before the breakdown, the band stopped playing, and Oli said "This show has the biggest fucking attendance of the tour thus far, so I wanna see a motherfucking wall of death to match that. Wall to fucking wall, give it everything you fucking got, I'm not gonna start playing again until I see you motherfuckers go wall to wall." Now, for anyone who's been to Congress Theater, you know it's a fucking big venue, each side was at least 100-150 feet apart, literally back against each wall, each side had hundreds of fucking people. Matt, Lee, Jona, and Oli all got on top of the backdrop, jumped off simultaneously, and started playing the breakdown, and OH MY FUCKING GOD, I have never seen something so mindblowing live before. The Bass drop was deafening, the floor shook, and when that wall of death collided....words can't fucking describe it. They closed with Chelsea Smile, and before the closing breakdown, They stalled the Music and played the triplet riff repeatedly, and Oli said "I want you all to get the fuck down to the floor, every single one of you, and on my count, I want to see every single one of you on that floor jump the fuck up and go fucking crazy." so we all got as low as we could, and on 3, we all jumped, and it was fucking insane. Literally the entire crowd, back to back jumped at the exact same time. Once again, impossible to describe how fucking amazing that felt. I will never forget this set as long as I fucking live. Too amazing for words. 11/10
P.S. Jeremy pretty much confirmed that they'll be at Warped without literally saying it. He hinted at it though.
I laughed
You should go to a brand new show if they ever tour again I unfortunately missed them when they came my friends made sure to fill me in on everything pretty much every word of every song got sang louder than the singer the entire set.
They essentially wedged everyone in because they wanted high fives from the band and didn't do a pit until like the second to last song.