The concert last night was amazing. That's genuinely the only word I can think of, because I'm still completely speechless. But amazing doesn't even start to cover it. I got a load of footage which, after doing my homework, I'm going to start editing together. I'll upload it to YouTube and post it here whenever I finish it. Throughout most of it, you can hear me screaming and singing along. And it's kind of blurry because I had to zoom in. Even though I could see them pretty clearly on the stage, they look like specs through the camera. It was weird.
Fun and B.o.B were the support acts, and while Fun was pretty good, B.o.B was absolutely awful. But whatever. Hayley came on to sing Airplanes, dressed in a thick winter coat. I love her pink hair, and it looks even more amazing in person than it does in photographs.
When Paramore officially started, there was a curtain in front of the stage, and you could only see the silhouettes, but when it was time for Hayley to start singing, the curtain dropped. It was really effective.
She loved how we all screamed after pretty much every sentence when she was talking, and said it was one of the biggest concerts they'd ever held. She also loved how co-operative we were when she asked us to do stuff (stand up and dance, sway, get our phones out, etc.), and the last time anything as big as this happened was in December '09 in the same place (London 02 Arena).
She made us all stand up and dance for crushcrushcrush and spent about five minutes making sure the majority of people were standing up. Apparently, it usually takes a good fifteen minutes or so. And then we all got our phones out and waved them in the air to The Only Exception and I got a lot of footage of the crowd swaying their phones because it was really amazing (it's slightly jolty, though, because I kept switching the phone and the camera between hands).
When she introduced the band members, Jeremy and Josh easily got the loudest cheers (until Josh introduced Hayley), and I managed to record her saying "WE. ARE. PAAARAAAMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOREEE!" which I'm really proud of. She says it at every concert, and I knew that more than anything, I wanted to record her saying that. AND I DID.
The last song they sang was Misery Business, and she led into it like this: "Before tonight ends, we have some business to take care of. And there is only one kind of business at a Paramore concert." And then the music started. It was so amazing. Josh from You Me At Six came on stage and started singing, too, and while I'm not a fan (I haven't really paid them much attention, to be honest) of You Me At Six, I can't deny that he has an amazing voice.
Jess and I both got Paramore hoodies with "Paramore" written in small, red letters on the front and "PARAMORE" written across the entire back. There's a fountain pen/injection needle between the PARA and MORE, and under neath it says "We wrote our names in blood." (a line from Ignorance) which I think is really creative and I love it to pieces.
When they started playing Decode, nearly everyone started cheering loudly ... and I just sunk into my seat and silently watched them perform. It's not a terrible song, I suppose, but (a) it's overplayed, (b) it's Twilight, (c) the cheers proved to me just how many Paramore fans like Twilight, and (d) I'm really not-at-all keen on it. It's the only Paramore song I don't like.
I really wish they had played Decoy and Swim in Silence (two demo songs), along with For a Pessimist I'm Pretty Optimistic and Careful. But I know they have to limit themselves, and the songs they did choose to play were wonderful, too.
Now, I could go on and on about that marvelous concert, but I have homework to get on with and things to catch up on online. So, suffering from Post-Concert Depression, I bid you farewell.
In brief, other news:
- I have tickets booked to see Deathly Hallows on the 19th at 5PM.
- Darren Criss was absolutely amazing in Glee (This deserves it's own blog post ... I'll write one up after I watch next week's episode).
- I'm doing terribly with NaNoWriMo. I'm a fair few thousand words behind.
