may 2, 2009 - bamboozle festival, day one.

There wasn't a ton of bands I wanted to see this day, but there's no way I couldn't go.  I mean, honestly... The Get Up Kids were playing and that was enough.  Going into this day, I had hopes to see New Found Glory, International Superheroes of Hardcore (basically NFG again), The Get Up Kids, Cobra Starship, Horrorpops,  and Gwar (don't even like them, but I aways hear about their live show).  Not a big selection, so I did some wandering.

This is a shot from the ISHC set.  Credit to n1njadrum on Flickr.  They played a great set.  I had seen them before from the last New Found Glory show I had seen at Starland Ballroom.  They didn't play all their songs, which was weird since they don't have a whole lot to begin with.  They switched it up halfway into their set and did a couple of NFG songs and their cover of "No Reason Why" by Gorilla Biscuits.  The crowd for this set was so awkward.  It was a bunch of NFG fans trying to be in a hardcore pit.  While they were still playing ISHC songs, my friend was dancing and when the song ended, some dude just ran up and punched him in the face and ran away after.  Not even during a song!  Not even while dancing or anything, which makes no sense.  I don't know.  I just remember going to shows when I was younger and being in pits and the only time you got hit was if you were too close to someone that was dancing.  Not because you were standing around while no one was dancing and no song was even playing.  Regardless, the set ISHC played was fun and I began getting my v-neck tan line during this set.  NFG has great stage prescence and they showed it during this set.  I wish there was a picture of Jordan wearing the NFG snuggie as a cape.

After this, my friends wanted to see Metro Station, so we headed that way.  The crowd for this band was HUGE.  I'm not a fan of them in the least, but I was definitely outnumbered.  Mostly by little girls.  I can't say I paid much attention to their set.  I think I was in an attempt to get service on my Sidekick and load Twitter or post a Twitter.  We headed to check out Hey Monday after their set and stuck around for maybe 2 songs before we realized we weren't impressed.  I don't know what it was, but their live performance just wasn't that good.  Everything as a whole just sounded kind of terrible.  Like a bad demo or a band rehearsal.

Then again, my friends wanted to see Young Love.  I of course go, since as I mentioned, there wasn't a whole lot I wanted to see this day.  Again, not a fan, but this guy has great stage prescence.  It's not my kind of music at all, but I wasn't miserable during this set.  It was good.  The crowd was really into him and went crazy for pretty much every song.  Also we Wiki'd him and he was the singer for Recover before this?  Wow, who knew, haha.  Either way, here's a halfway decent video of him doing "Discotech".

I honestly have no idea what we did after this.  I know Young Love made it to his merch area faster than the speed of light and my friends snagged a picture with him, but then what?  Not sure.  New Found Glory went on about a half hour later and that's where I ended up.  They played a GREAT selection of songs.  They played "Sincerely Me".  I mean, what else could I have asked for?  Chad posted a twitpic on his twitter of half of the crowd.  The half I wasn't in, but you can get the picture of how insane the front of the crowd was for this band.  You can also see the ferris wheel.  New Found Glory is a great band to see live.  They're catchy, they've got great stage prescence, they always play great, and they're just a solid band overall, in my opinion.  They always play a good set and never disappoint me.
I stayed in the crowd while Cobra Starship played the stage next to the one New Found Glory had left.  I was against the barricade all the way to the right of the same side of the crowd I was in for NFG.  Why did I stay there while no band was on?  Because I had a sick friggin spot for THE GET UP KIDS.  That's why.  They played a few songs off of Something to Write Home About, which is my absolute favorite record by them.  I wanted to embed this video for "I'm A Loner, Dottie, A Rebel", but the user had disabled it, so you'll have to follow that link.  I was about this far back, but against the barricade on the right, so I had a clear view of them.  They played fantastic.  They sounded great and the crowd really just added to their performance.  Everyone knew the words, everyone was calm and not pushing each other or being dicks.  It was just a great crowd to be in.  It was a great performance.  I can't even describe how content I was after this set.  I'm even content thinking about it!  They closed with "Ten Minutes", which is one of my favorites and the song that made the crowd go a little insane.  They didn't even need microphones, the crowd would've had it under control.
"Linc's Special Guest" was Journey.  My friends saw it, but I headed over to the smaller stages to see Horrorpops.  I had never seen them before, so it was cool to see them.  There weren't many people in the crowd, but I had felt like I went to a completely different concert with the people who were in the crowd.  It was cool.  I enjoyed watching the Horrorpops.  This video doesn't do their performance justice, since they sounded much better than this.

I missed Gwar.  I met up with one of my friends from high school during the set of Lydia and wasted most of their set and the entire set up for Forgive Durden talking to her.  After we split, I completely forgot about Gwar and also wanting to even see Forgive Durden and I went to find my friends from earlier.  Missed both sets, but caught some of Third Eye Blind, which was funny in a way.  Because it's Third Eye Blind.  They were awesome, though.  Except when we thought their set was over, then it wasn't, then we thought it was over again, then it wasn't.  Then we thought they stopped playing, but then they didn't.  Needless to say, they ran overtime and we weren't even sure if they were playing the last two songs or what was going on.

Photo credit to alex kral on Flickr.

Fall Out Boy went on after that and they've gotten better live since I last saw them, but I didn't really need to see them.  We caught the beginning of their set and heard a couple more songs as we we were walking out of the festival.  I honestly can't remember what songs they played.  I have most, if not all, of their records, but honestly, I only listen to that song, "XO".  The band played very well, though.  The only downfall was the way Patrick's voice sounded during most of the songs.  I'm not sure what it was, but it was off.  It sounded stressed and as if he was sick, which if that's the case, then what can you do, right?  There's quite a few pictures to choose from on Flickr, but here is one I found that I liked a lot.  You can get the idea how many people were really there, except this isn't even close to half.

Photo credit to gargladdy on Flickr.