"He was just a city; she's just a dirt road
But that never meant a thing,
Running from the country,
She needed out but, he held that diamond ring,
Cuz I can't sit and I can't talk
I gotta leave this town and run to you,
Curse these nights that speak your name
I gotta leave this town and come to you,
Break this curse... she barely knew your name..."
I am going to try and be as accurate as possible, I'm also going to try to get everything in the correct order... but yeah, that's not going to happen, so get over it. Also, there's so much that I could write about the guys, so many things that my mind replays over and over but you know what? I'm keeping most of those things to myself -- I want to show them that by sharing moments with me that it doesn't mean I'll go run and spill it all over my blog or my Twitter unlike some OTHER people...
So the trip to Vegas didn't exactly go as planned. First of all, Willow's flight out of Charlotte got cancelled. Not fun. I'm not impressed whatsoever. Of course, Willow and I are troopers; we will not let this get us down and we'll get back on the horse (so to speak) in no time flat. ;) Promise.
Jennifer and I were very excited to see Vegas again... I may have to edit this blog to include all the things that happened with her because lord knows I can't remember shit when I'm by myself. We stayed at the Motel 6 on Tropicana again, walking distance to the nearly everywhere that you want to go that's on the Strip. When we checked in, however, they gave us a map and fucking directions to get to our hotel room.
As I mentioned before, the Motel 6 on Tropicana is the largest Motel 6 in the world... well, we were in building 5. I was not impressed... twas faaaar!
It was almost surreal that we were in Vegas for the longest time - the experience of the first show went by very quickly. Jennifer and I waited outside and were 4th in line where we met two girls who had gone to the Salt Lake show -- Crystal and Alissa. They became our buddies for the day and we were inseparable.
When the doors opened we booked it to the front row, of course...
The guys didn't have an opening act for the first show, played for about 30 minutes to about 15-25 people. They played "The Monkey Song", "Clippity Clop", "Junkie", "Gus" and "Sleeping Giants". (Not in that order.)During the improv we (Crystal, Alissa, Jennifer and I) suggested "Strangers With My Baby" based on a question he
answered at TwiCon *rolls eyes at TwiCon*. (Click the link to view the video, tis hilarious.)
When they took our suggestion Larry goes, "I hope no one sent out an Amber Alert..." XD And then after the improv he goes, "I hope you find your baby..." Larry was fucking ON.
After the improv Jackson looked right at me and said, "do you want to hear a joke?" I kind of paused for a minute, but he was still looking at me - oh, he was actually asking
ME! Okay... "Sure, let me have it," I replied and he smiled, "what do you call a dog with no legs?" I shrugged. "Call him anything you want; he won't come." Everyone laughed, I giggled. He finished with, "I would call mine 'Doorstop'."
The boys went and did their meet and greet... the first thing I said to Jerad was, "first of all, high five!" And he high fived me. I said, "you know, I high five you every time I see you..." he goes, "
I KNOW!" And I *beamed* -- he signed the picture that I had taken with him and Jackson in Tulsa with the silver Sharpie that I brought... as he was signing I said, "I can't believe you actually remember that..." and he high fived me again. ;) Then I said, "but I have something really serious to tell you too..." I leaned down and his face got very serious as he leaned in. I said, "you're my best friend now, plan your life accordingly." He nodded and smiled wide. :D Twas epic.
You know, I bet that a lot of people who don't know me think one of three things when they hear that...
1) That I was being facetious.
2) That I'm in love with Jerad.
3) That I'm insane-psycho.
Now, I'd like you to know that I'm none of the above. I really and very honestly just love and admire Jerad. From the first time I saw the boys live I knew that he was the ultimate rockstar. He's a fucking face-melting guitar player and he's always been so nicer than nice to me... especially this Vegas trip -- he kinda went "out of his way" to be nice to me, he definitely watched out for my feelings that day, *cough* but then again - that's what best friends do. ;)
Jennifer and I talked to Jerad for a second about Vegas and Tulsa... Jerad said to me, "[Jackson and I] got you sick, didn't we?" I said, "a little, but it's no biggie." It wasn't until later that I was like, "whooooaa... how did he know I was sick?" So I'm guessing... well, wait. I'll keep my guesses to myself.
Jerad passed the photo of us down to Jackson and he was about to sign it when I go, "No, no, no, no! Wait!" He stopped and dropped the Sharpie, putting his hands up. "What did I do!?" He smiled. I plucked the silver Sharpie out of Jerad's hand and said, "I wanted you to sign it with this." He found it humorous... ;)
I talked to Jackson a bit about guitar slides with Johnson and gave him a DVD of the photos I took in Tulsa plus 2 CDs "for the road", he goes, "for the road!" And then my eyes caught Jerad's and he nodded, "you did good." He reassured me...
After the meet and greet we wandered outside to get something to eat and I flat out ran into Edward Cullen taking pictures with people. There was Michael Jackson just chillin' on the Strip and people would rather have their photo taken with the fictional vampire from Twilight... so I got my picture with him too. XD But I made him wear my sunglasses since it was sunny out and that would make it more accurate. ;) [I thought this entire thing was funny as hell...]
Hahaaa, he was actually British... super fucking tall, I'm 5'8 if that's any indication to how tall he is... probably 6'4.
After eating and calling Willow to give her all the deets we went to the Monkeys soundcheck... we were the only two people in there. (Besides the sound crew who were right next to us - Marty, who was so nice to let us watch it!! And Brady, who was chillin' at a table behind us.)
The guys played "Smoke" and I was uber impressed with their ability to soundcheck; Jackson takes musical direction beautifully. I really would love to watch him work in the studio. I'm sure he's very efficient.
The guys had two opening acts for the second show. The Rooks and Imagine Dragons. Both were pretty good, but Imagine Dragons was face-melting INSANE. Hard Rock fucked up their sound, but they pressed on -- they started late, ran over, but fuck were they amazing. They're playing SXSW this year and I am so jealous... I want to go.
They sound like a cross between The Arcade Fire, The Killers and Mute Math live. Wicked.
Dan, the lead singer of Imagine Dragons.
The second show started off great - the boys seemed to have more energy this time around, seemed to be in good spirits and played like their lives fucking depended on it...
They played some great songs, "Wings On Fire", "Reaper", "Poison Oak", "Orson Brawl", "Sweet Face", "The Monkey Song", "Koldpix", "Looker", "Keep Awake" and the improv we suggested for "Lipstick On My Collar"... there was another one or two but I can't remember them...
A little ways into the show Jerad high fived me... he's epic. Did I ever tell you that?
During "Wings On Fire", for the chorus I always light my lighter... we were in the front row and I was right in front of Jackson for this song - during the chorus, while my lighter was still lit he came around the mic stand and got in my face, singing the words back to me as I held my lighter up - at the end of the chorus, he blew out my lighter. ;)
He's fucking smooth, let me tell you. That boy knows what he's doing.
Whenever the boys play "The Monkey Song" I always scream out, "I love you Spencer Bell!" and Ben decided to reply this time, he goes, "I love you too, but you know, from Spencer." It was adorable... so now? Spencer loves me. :) Ben said so. Are you going to dispute what Ben said? That's what I thought...
After "Reaper" I smacked a giant roll of duct tape on the stage by Jackson's feet, he smiled and looked up at me, "that's duct tape." :)
You read most of the rest in the last blog about what happened with the mic stand and all that - I'm not going to repeat myself here - we were very sad that they couldn't play the last 30 minutes of their set, especially since Johnson had promised Jennifer that he would sing "Twenty To One" for her that night... they all seemed excited about it, as well... Major bummer.
After the boys came back on stage to tear down their equipment, we got to talk to Jackson, Jerad and Johnson a bit -- won't go into those details, but god they're good boys. You know? How can you not love them?
Some of my favorite photos of the guys from the second show:
The next day we went out to dinner with Phil and his girlfriend... We met Phil at while working the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in 2008 and we met up with him again in 2009 when we were in Vegas for the 10 days -- it was nice that since we were only in town for a few days that we were still able to see him and Deanna.
We talked for over an hour and laughed our asses off. It was really awesome... one part particularly stood out though. Jennifer and I shared a burger at the restaurant and when the waitress asked if medium was okay to cook the meat to, without missing a beat I asked, "do you grind your own meat?"
Everyone went silent.
I said, "It's a legitimate question."
She said, "I'm not sure if we do or not." So I said, "make it medium-well then." And then I had to explain to Phil, Deanna and Jennifer why I asked that. "Someone's been watching too much Food Network," Phil laughed... I got hell for the rest of the night because of it... I think they were impressed that something like
that came out of
my mouth.
(Once meat is ground its exposed to millions of bacteria; if meat is ground fresh daily - it's not a problem to order your burger medium or medium rare -- which I would have done if I could have been assured that it was fresh...)
Later that night we went out to celebrate Jennifer's birthday and I took some photos while on the strip.
Check out the rest of my photography
HERE.
And here's my official statement to the Hard Rock Cafe of Las Vegas:
Rock on,
Jodie
