IT WAS FUCKING AMAZING!
My younger sister and I took a 2hr 45minute train trip to get to Acer Arena where it was being held. The plan was to catch the first bus from school into our town, get changed, drop our stuff off into the car which was waiting parked in the street, get our food and reading material for the train trip, then get to the train station by 4.28pm where our train would be waiting.
Thankfully that all went smoothly.
The train trip went really quickly. I couldn't sit still, however. I was going to be meeting three Mibbians, Emma, Shalisa and Lena, at the concert, and I was getting all jittery and excited thinking about it. XD
After having to changed trains twice, once at Campbelltown and once at Lidcombe, we arrived at Olympic Park station in Sydney at about 7.10. The concert was supposed to have started at 7pm, so we hurried to the venue, along with a bunch of other Panic fans who had just gotten off the same train as us.
We had our bags checked, as per usual, chucked our water and lollies out, and hurried to our door, which was ages away. We had reserved seating tickets. Cobra Starship had just taken to the stage as we sat down.
They were unbelieveable! I'd only had a couple of songs by CS, but their live show was incredible. Gabe had the best dance moves and wore a pair of tight purple skinnies which were very cool.
That night was the night I completely and utterly fell in love with Smile for the Paparazzi. ::inlove: The two songs that I did know by CS quite well they played - Guilty Pleasure and Snakes On A Plane. They played Snakes last, bringing William from TAI onstage for it. dasdklklsdaklasdjkldajklf.
I wish Cobra could've stayed on for longer... they warmed up the crowd really well, and had a way better reception than the opening bands for My Chem had last year.
The Academy Is... were on next. After Cobra they didn't seem so exciting for me, but when they played We've Got A Big Mess On Our Hands it was awesome.
There was a little (well, it seemed like long) break, until Panic took to the stage.
:cheese:
They opened with one of the songs off their album, which unfortunately I can't remember off of the top of my head because I suck. >_> That soon morphed into Nine In the Afternoon, which had everybody dancing around like mad.
They played songs off both their new and old albums, which was good, 'cause I used to be a total sucker for their first album back in my Panic days. XD They played Time to Dance (as an acoustic solo encore, thanks to Brendon : D), Camisado, I Write Sings Not Tragedies, Lying is the Most Fun.., Nails For Breakfast, Tacks for Snaks and a couple of others from the first album, as well as most songs off Pretty. Odd.
Ryan got us to use our jazz hands and click our fingers during one of the songs, and when he moved to our side of the stage to use the tambourine, which apparently wasn't working on his side, he waved to both the people in the mosh and people in the seats. It was adorable! He looked like a young boy on stage... he also bore a lot of resemblance to Paul McCartney from the Beatles. XDD
All too soon we were calling them back onstage for an encore, where Brendon played Time to Dance acoustic. He got the crowd to sing the keyboard part, and had us all jumping around like crazy.
After the show was over my sister and I joined the struggle to get out of the room, joining in the massive crowd. I soon got a text from Emma asking where we were to meet... we decided we'd meet by the merch stand.
It took a while to find each other XD I kept calling her and probably annoying the shit out of her when I couldn't find her. She told me to call Shal, but I'd lost her number, so then suggested I go to the back of the merch stand where I told her I'd meet her originally.
Sure enough, sitting on the ground there was Shal. After the squealy-hug part I was introduced to Jenna.
Emma was still in line for merch, and we couldn't get a hold of Lena for a bit until we found out she was still lining up for merch too. All the while my dad and sister were getting really grumpy as they waited for me so we could get home. Me and Shal, well, mainly Shal, called out Lena's name over the crowd in hope of a response. >_>
When Emma finally got out of the merch line alive we took some photos, squealed and hugged a bit more and continued to call out Lena's name. :tehe:
My dad had just started to walk away with my sister when Lena came running over. It was a true Mibba-mini-convention! Amazing. We took some photos, before I had to run off after dad. ;_; -_- I really wish I could've stayed and talked to them for a bit longer... it sucked. T_T
All in all, it was AN UNBELIEVEABLE NIGHT OH MY GOD. :cheese: More than 12 hours later and I'm still high. We didn't get home til about 1AM.
Unfortunately some of my photos came out grainy. >_< I took about 160, but I'll only post a few. XD
And then me meeting three of the coolest Mibbians around:
I think it's fair to say that seeing as last year was MCR '07 for me, this year will be Panic '08.
... well, that's until The Living End on the 27th of September, of course. ~~