I still act like I'm 16.
For instance, I decided, upon seeing that a band that I didn't know anything about, and that I had only heard one song from, was playing a show in NYC on the night before my birthday, on a school night, that I just had to be there. I mean, tickets were only 10 dollars, so it was obvious that I needed to go, right?
That day was insanity. We had a shortened day at school, and I hauled ass out of the building as soon as it was time to go. I ran into my house to change, and was gone again, officially hitting the road at about 1:10 Thursday afternoon. I picked up Mandy and we were on our way to Philly to catch the bus to NYC.
The bus ride was...interesting. It took us longer than it should have and the moron Greyhound driver thought that because he was angry over someone's headphones he would stop the bus in the middle of the Lincoln Tunnel. Makes sense to me. Whatever. Greyhound sucks, but for some reason (I'm broke; they're cheap) I keep going back to them.
After catching a cab from the bus station to the venue (and missing out on pizza with my new Shone friends) we started walking up the line outside of the venue. Some girl in the line points at me and yells, "YOU! YOU! I think I'm looking for you!" She was. We jumped into line with our new friends, and waited anxiously for a show that we really didn't know anything about.
Okay, so here's the deal. This band has had us on an insane viral marketing roller coaster since December 21. We got to hear the album about two weeks ago, but didn't actually have the album in our digital hands until the week of the show. Up to this point, we still weren't entirely sure who was in the band. We had suspicions and some people that "confirmed" it on twitter, but no real firm lineup. Honestly, I was still pretty certain that slendyclown was going to off us all.
The opening band, Sleep Bellum Sonno, played, and while they weren't a band that I'd run right out to learn more about, there was a decent enough vibe going on in that room. Mostly, though, I think the entire room was waiting with baited breath to see exactly who was part of this mystery band.
I just want you to take a second and think about something that still blows my mind. The show was sold out. And it sold out early on. We only had one song by this band. We had NO IDEA who was involved. This band that no one knew anything about sold out an NYC venue. People were travelling in from all over the country for this mystery band. That is just bananas to me. Bananas.
Anyway, the band comes out, in costume, and everyone in that room was giddy with excitement. The band consisted of Andrew and Vin Accardi, Brian Lane, Mike Strandberg, Ben Homola, Joe (?) Cannetti, and an unknown man who played the sax and some keys. Now those of us who have been all over this campaign are super excited to see the band for the first time.
The show itself was very loose; very relaxed. That was alright by me. Andrew seemed super humbled by the fact that so many people were there in spite of everything. They played 8 of the nine songs on their album, and that is the only complaint about the entire night that I have. The song they left off, "Bestial" is my favorite song on the album, and might be my favorite song right now.
Aside from that, the night was perfect. During the entire campaign, "Levi" has been telling us he has been watching us. This was evident to us, especially with the cover art, but I was still blown away when someone yelled out, "Where's slendy?" and Andrew, without missing a beat, started asking where Slendyclown was. That was a name that someone dubbed the Brian Lane character from one of the early videos in the thread (sorry, that sentence is a train wreck) but it was never an official name from the campaign. Somehow, him knowing what we were talking about made me feel like we were really all part of something special.
After the show, many of our friends that couldn't be there were waiting to hear something from those of us that were. I guess for whatever reason we all stopped tweeting right after the show, but when I did get a second to catch my breath and tweet, my tweet read "sorry. show was a fucking riot. loved every second of it. would do it all again, even the missing the bus part. that was super fun."
I think that describes it pretty perfectly.
If you are interested at all in what happened that night, the video of the live stream is here. I warn you, though, its bouncy and crazy because I was bouncy and crazy.
also, here is a picture that someone else took. Mike Sapone, who we believe produced the album, put this picture on Facebook and its pretty perfect.
(We sort of missed our bus home, but that was okay because we got to go eat and get some cupcakes before we came home. the bus thing, though, is a story for another time.)
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