This is our stories.....Brand New

 

In December 2002 my friends and I boarded a plane headed for New York City. It was the first time any of us had flown alone, and our first time in the "big scary city". The reason we were flying? A band of course! A band that only a year prior did we become acquainted with and who we had seen 10 times that year even before boarding that plane. When we landed in the city  we dropped off our things at a hotel and went straight to the Knitting Factory where another band, The Movielife, was playing with another favorite of ours the now defunct band The Reunion Show. The show was sold out and we waited outside to see if anyone had an extra ticket. We spotted someone smoking outside of the venue who had a Your Favorite Weapon tattoo on her arm. I went up to her and told her "Brand New, I love them" she took a puff from her cigarette, took a look at me and without missing a beat responded "No you don't". This person would later become one of my closest friends but at the time she was the only person I knew that loved this silly band as much as we did. I had always referred to her as Brand New's biggest fan. No matter where I flew to see them in the East Coast, she was there front row. I ran into her for years, always feeling the comfort that there was someone out there who was just like me. 

If you aren't aware of the band Brand New there really isn't much to say about them that a good ol' google search won't tell you. What I can tell you is that there are a lot of us. People who are zombie like followers of this band. In a trance, following them around stateside in order to hear their music and get their fill. If there was every anyone to take the throne as Queen Bee of these zombie nuts without knowing it, your Queen is Catherine. With 100 plus shows under her belt, a Brand New music collection that takes up most of the space in her IPod, and memorabilia that would entitle her to open up a museum I would say she is pretty close to number one fan status. I think the one thing people are always asking me when I tell them how many times I have seen this band is "Why do you see them so much?" amongst a plethora of other questions. I thought it would be a little fun to finally come out and just spill the beans with a little question and answer session between us girls. If you are a fan I encourage you to do the same.....

 "Brand new is what brought us together, we like to refer to it as world colliding."

i was in pennsylvania this weekend...

...and it was pretty awesome..first off it was just nice to be back in car after so long. I love long car rides..which is ironic because i don't drive but still any time i can classify anything as a road trip I'm in. It didn't take that long to get there and as soon as we arrived at Dickinson College..i really started to regret not going to college. The buildings on the campus were so adorable, i just wanted to live in them. There was even a bonfire going on, that i was sad i couldn't attend. The library was pretty sweet also, it even had a card catalog..i haven't seen one of those in forever!! I sound like im from outerspace right now getting excited about a card catalog but really it seems with technology today these kind of things are becoming non existent so it is just sort of a nostalgia thing....

anyways here are some pictures enjoy...






more at my flickr.....http://www.flickr.com/photos/melephant/show/

vegas

I went to Vegas this past week..(to see brand new of course)
First there was a San Diego trip that was actually fun?
Dare i say.
BUT i hate hate hate san diego crowds, all they know how to do is talk and be obnoxious.
I get that people think i'm weird because i see the same band a gazillion times and that
maybe i do get a little defensive because of it but while jesse was playing coca-cola by himself
and everyone was talking and i just wanted to cry (dramatic i know) but i felt like we were at
an open mic night and there was someone onstage trying their best at getting this song out
and everyone was not just talking but fucking shouting shit over an acoustic song..
i almost punched the guy behind me..i thought that it was worth getting in a fight over..and i wasn't even drunk.

oh san diego why do we have such a love/hate relationship?

after the show we drove to temecula to pick up kathy then me and shadi stayed up and drove half way to las vegas. The funny thing is we left at 3:30 and thought we were being such troopers ..we listened to random shit while we drove , even had a "drunk" rendition of "fall from grace" by the get up kids...
Our anthem became "breaking up" by rilo kiley and somehow we decided we were going to watch the sunrise till we made it to 5 o' clock and found out (thanks to weather.com) that the sun was rising at 6:11 that morning so we threw in the towel and kathy and michelle had the driving shifts.

We got there around 9am couldn't check into the Palms till 12pm but we spotted the Sonics down the street and felt right at home (at least me and michelle did that is) We went to the Aladdin mall so i can check out their urban outfitters (alright) then we hit up H&M where i got a hat (typical) but by that time we were walking zombies. We headed to the hotel where we all proceeded to pass the fuck out . Waking up around 3ish so we can get our Buffet on.
Now if you know me you know that i love food. Me and food have a relationship and it gets pretty rocky sometimes but when it comes to buffets its the strongest of all loves. The Mgm buffet is the best , shadi and i discovered it on our previous trip to vegas. So for 30 dollars we munched on crab legs, lamb, and some mexican cuisine . By this time it was 6pm and i really wanted to check out mewithoutyou (only for the reason that i felt threatened to ) we planned the rest of the night accordingly to make it to their set. Michelle though back at the Palms had opened a tab and we took full advantage of that i took 4 shots of something, had a glass of jack daniels and a midori sour and i was ready for the show. We got inside and thought we were about to see mewithoutyou but we were beyond all reason disapointed when we saw Thrice setting up. Now here is the thing, i don't like thrice i think they put on a good show for those that do , but i really really really don't like their style of music. I don't think they are the worst band ever but if i don't have to see them play i'd be a lot happier. Thank God for the alcohol in my system because they were completely bearable. By the time Brand New was going to hit the stage i figured that the alcohol would of left my system WRONG...i was fucking drunk acting a fool , kind of funny , kind of not...all i remember is freaking out for "archers" which the night before in san diego was the best performance i have ever seen them do of it and rocking out like that would of made sense but for the vegas show...my "rocking" out skills defitnetly didn't fit the mood and i must of looked like an ass but fuck that ...i had fun.
they played well and i was beyond sad to see them go (i might of shed a tear cuz im lame)
it's really hard to get people to understand my whole thing with brand new...
but i love them , they are the only band i still go to see play and it's like a drug.
It gets me through the day ..it brings back soo many memories . It's almost like they
are an imprint of my past and they continue to be of the future. I've met a lot of people through that band, been to a lot of different places because of them, and somehow their music is still good and still completely worth seeing. And when it gets bad i'll stop but it's not about anything besides the music and the good friends i share it with. Trust me i don't want to have Jesse Lacey's baby or anything......

so now that im done with that rant...

We gambled a little after (i lost 40 dollars not awesome)
and then passed out sometime after 2 , woke up at 5am, when it was shadi's turn to drive and i was her wing(wo)man. Now this was probably the most enjoyable drive of my life!!! there was a lot of great music, lost of good laughs, some musicals not going to lie...but defitnetly the best time i've had in a car in awhile (wink wink) Now basically pavement "shady lane" will always remind me of this trip.
God more people need to be into Pavement!
There was an Arizona trip in the works but things didn't work out.
Sometimes real life just gets in the way

street scene 2007

This was my original outift. You can't see it but there is a huge peace sign on my shirt. I figured that it was a little trying to be from brooklyn so i opted for a more simple i just wore what i wore the previous day outfit.





We left around one, and i was wayy worried i was going to miss Sondre Lerche since he was the only other reason i would go to yet another festival. Don't get me wrong i love brand new but it's becoming way more about my atmosphere than catching a band i've seen a gazillion times over.
So anyways the ride over was nice, barely any traffic some good conversation and a million laughs.We got there to a sea of cars luckily we had v.i.p. parking thanks to annel so when we entered Luis let me know there was 15 min. left of Sondre's set so we rushed over there in time to hear one song then a melody of two way monologue and sleep on needles...it made my day for sure . Unfortunately i missed out on all the witty banter that goes on in between his sets. It was a wonderful view though his little small stage was on top of the lawn and the sun was right behind him . Then i decided it was alcohol time , we got some beers then headed down to see the album leaf. I seriously fell in love with them again...sometimes i forget bands exist if i don't hear about them all the time ...they sort of slowly get forgotten about on my ipod but now i will start listening to the album leaf again.

I guess Luis was doing some major scouting cuz he found a photobooth for us at the captain morgan tent, we headed over there after the album leaf and basically invaded that poor booth. If anyone knows me they know that i am OBSESSED with photobooths ...of any kind so we did that for awhile. I went on a hunt with annel for a margarita then we watched clap your hands say yeah. They played that great song "satan satan SAY DANCE" ..it reminded me of roxanne and her crazy religious stories and how we would dedicate that song to her all the time at work..
Then we got in place for brand new which was really really enjoyable . The crowd was tame but not lame (eeeyoooo that rhymed) they played a wonderful set. I had room to dance and sing with my friends it was all very lovely , all except the joke of there last show being in hawaii this weekend..(if it was a joke? i hope it was) After i recovered from the awesomeness of them ..i realized i wasnt feeling to well brushed it off headed BACK to the captain morgan tent but found the "rave tent" on the way ... We all went inside and jumped around and danced like idiots . Then i "challenged" this one raver ..glowsticks in hand and all ...and i think i won if i do say so myself. Artic Monkeys were on and i fucking love there new cd so i HAD to hear it live ..their stage presence sucks but the music speaks volumes and i know that if i was not sick and a little bit more into them i would of enjoyed it more. We were waiting for the killers to come on because well we werent going to leave without seeing them i guess its a thing ya know..then derrick called and came by to say hi for a bit which is always nice to see that boy ....the killers came on and we were very unimpressed...too much gold..too much confettii...just too much of everything. We left 3 songs into it and headed to sombrero's mexican food..so we thought! We got directions from 3 different sources all telling us to get on junction 94 west exit 1b4 broadway/30th st. a street me and my friends now dont believe exist ..after 40 min of exiting..and entering random freeways and streets..we decided to hit up the only mexican food we can find some place called saronga..(sp?) where a drunk girl begged us to let her cut in line because she just got dumped and needed to soak her sorrows in a burrito..then this drunk bitch kept calling Luis her pioneer because he ordered a breakfast burrito. um ok? this is why san diego is weird.... we got out of there ASAP and drove home listening to everything from saves the day to the first brand new album to help shadi sing and stay awake..sometimes on nights like these i think im the luckiest person in the world.