Warped Tour 2007 - Family Force 5

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-flips out- Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.

In all seriousness, I am getting to the point where I don't know how much longer I will be able to have enough humanly energy to flip out as much as I have in the past few days!! It has taken me all this time to compose myself and calm myself down enough to write a legible blog entry. If I was to have even attempted to write one Friday morning let's say, all you'd read would be:

djgurtfgfbvnbruytrugfnbgdbgbfgOMGOMOMGoejthfbghgd!!!!!!!111!!!!!!!

&that's just the beginning! :D As some of you may be aware [those more than others, esp. if I spoke with you after Thursday, you'd be telling me to shut it by now haha], Warped Tour was Thursday [July 26th] and it was a day to NEVER be forgotten. It was not only AMAZING, FANTASTIC, TERRIFIC, AWESOME, SUPER, AND OUTSTANDING, it was ALL those words and MORE!! I have thought and thought over and over again if there is even one possible word in the entire English language to sum up the extreme joy I have felt in the past few days! :D :D I have never been this happy, pumped, and excited in my entire life! :D I mean, my heart is throbbing just thinking of the events that happened on July 26th. I don't even know where to begin. I just need you all to know, that it was one of the greatest days of my life and I am never going to forget it!! :D It was definately something special, and I have had a hard time making myself STOP randomly smiling 24/7. :D :D Oh em geeeeee!!!!!

Now that I have somewhat tried to make you, the reader, see how exciting Warped Tour was for me, I will try to calm myself down and write all about it without skipping a single detail because I'd love to have this to look back on. :D :D :D :D

Let me start by saying Warped Tour was my first huge concert, ever. I had no idea what to expect except what my imagination led me to believe. I never thought I'd see such a mass of people there as I did either. xD For being my first concert, it sure was the best thing I have ever gone to. I still cannot believe it. :D I feel like pinching myself twenty times over to see if I had dreamt the entire day. xD

I woke up at 6am on Thursday morning. The earliest I have all summer. I got up as though it was a school morning in a way, which obviously felt weird. It reminded me of my vacation to the beach because typically that would've been my one summer day I wake up at 6 or earlier. :P Anyhow, it was planned that I would meet up with my two best friends Abby and Nicole, along with Abby's friend Erica, by 9am so we could head up to the Toyota Pavillion, where the concert was to be held. After trying to eat the largest breakfast I could, and again packing a small backpack with last minute neccessities I hoped would make it through security, I was on my way to Abby's house. We spent most of the car ride there speaking of the bands scheduled to be playing at Warped Tour that day that we were excited to see, and of course, most of the time was spent discussing the band we three share as our ultimate favorite, Family Force 5. :D I mentioned once before that I get more excited when I go someplace and it is packed with people, but I wasn't prepared to see the amount of people already lined up to go inside to Warped Tour! It blew my mind how long the line was. If I could describe it's length I would, but that'd be impossible. I later learned there were thousands of people there, the majority teenagers. I also saw a number of classmates and other school friends, not to mention my English teacher a few times, but that's for later. ;) The sun was beating heavy on top of the mountain as we joined the very very very far end of the line. I didn't mind though, we had a good hour& a half to wait though until 11 which is when they'd start letting people through the gate, Warped Tour itself not starting until noon. While standing in line my friends and I just chitchatted a lot and I tried not to breathe in all the cigarette smoke. [Seriously, that whole day I felt like I was choking, haha every other person smoked, aaccck.] Amid conversation I mentioned to my friends "Oh my gosh you guys, you know what I just realized, Family Force 5 is breathing the same air we are right now!! Like you guys they are so close to us can you believe it!!" That brought upon an exciting FF5 conversation when all of a sudden my friend Abby gets this look of ultimate shock on her face and she starts to point to the left of me and goes "OMG. Is that Nadaddy!!!!!!!?!?!?" We turn in that direction and before our eyes we notice that in fact it IS Nadaddy, the keytarist of Family Force 5 walking on the outside of the long line with Tubbo [their video producer] holding a huge Family Force 5 sign advertising the time and stage they were going to be playing that day and asking strangers who did not know who they were to buy their CD.

You can just imagine the pure excitement wiped over my friend's and my face when we realize that they are walking closer and closer down the line towards us! We didn't have a clue what we should do, so I'm like "you guys help me like wave them over or something!!" I start waving and Abby joins me and Nadaddy sees us and comes right over and next to him is this shirtless man with a hat and sunglasses on, with a huge video recording camera blocking his face and he is filming it right at us. It takes a minute for it to sink it but Abby realizes right away that the cute shirtless man is none other than the lead singer of Family Force 5, Soul Glow Activaturrrr!!!!! :D Apparently half the band was just walking around to get word out and being as unknown as they are, nobody else around us even cared who they were. [Note: This made it even better. My friends and I love unknown things and stuff that isnt popular. We love how nobody at our school even knows of this band, and we love how it's our special thing in a way and that makes us be able to enjoy it more!! :D]

Continuing! Soul Glow came over and just held the camera right in my face so I was just standing there smiling like a complete fool and waving sometimes because I couldn't believe it was him and we knew he was probably picking up footage for their Really Real Show youtube series. :D Tubbo, the guy trying to sell their CD, begged us to buy like four of them and we already have the CD [obviously!!] so we just wanted to talk to the band members there. Abby and Nicole could barely speak, and all Abby kept saying to Soul Glow was "can you sign my shirt???" I wanted Soul Glow and Nadaddy's signatures too because they are awesome members of the band and I could hardly contain my excitement!! I had brought a sharpie marker and gave it to Soul Glow [oh my gosh he touched my hand and I thought I was going to meltttttt...for goodness sake he didn't have a shirt on!! :P] So he proceeded to sign Abby and Nicole's shirt, it read "SGA". In the meantime Nadaddy signed this piece of paper I had. Then I asked for Soul Glow's and as I tried to hold the paper steady in the air my hands were shaking so bad he had a hard time keeping the marker steady! Haha woah. But he got it down and I was thrilled. Then Abby was a step ahead of me and already had her camera out, mine was still in the box, lolz. So she started taking pictures and asked if Soul Glow would get in one with us and he did! I am flipping out just writing all this down! It is unbelievable. :D :D :D :D [Note: Abby got her pictures developed yesterday, so I have some to share in this very blog entry!!]

This is the first picture when we first saw them! As you can see Soul Gow has the camera [and no shirt. hehe] and Nadaddy is the cutie in the green pants and Tubbo is the guy holding the sign to the left!



This second picture is hands down one of my absolute favorites! This is the one Soul Glow posed for with us!



If those pictures are not amazing, I don't know what is! Hahaha now look. If you can't relate to my obsessive joy and excitement at that very moment, just picture this right now: Think of your all-time favorite band/musician. The one that you have heard every single one of their songs, followed their progress, catch them on TV, maybe even tape it, you have pictures on your bedroom walls, you have even written "I heart -band name-" on your school notebooks. The one that you are obsessed withh! Now, imagine meeting them and getting to talk to them and take pictures with them!!!! :D :D It is NOT everyday you get to meet your favorite band. I feel EXTREMELY lucky! I mean, Warped Tour didn't even begin and here we have met half the flipping band!?!!?! :D :D :D :D It was an extreme moment of joy! After they left we just drooled, practically, and all we kept saying was "oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, what if i sweat the signature off? oh my gosh, did we just meet who i thought we met? oh my gosh!!" It gets better!

A few minutes later on the opposite side of us Chapstique, the guitar player in the band was walking on the other side trying to catch up with the rest of his guys! I turn around and there he is! That cute blonde wearing his chipper shades and flashing that gorgeous smile exactly the same way I see it every day on my bedroom wall picture. Now my friends and I were already shaky from just meeting the other two, now Chapstique!!!! Oh my gosh!! :D He was super friendly! He came over, gave us high fives, I almost missed I was shaking so bad, and then he started to ask our names and he goes "what's your name" to Abby and she just kept saying "whaaat? whaat?" like we were in such a daze. I even said my name twice by accident because I was so out of it. :P He must think we are such dorks, oh well. :P We seriously couldn't control ourselves. None of us had ever met a band we loved like this before, everrrrrr! Chapstique was real sweet though! We asked for a picture and he said "Sure! As long as we can make it awesome! :D" I have that picture to share as well! You can decide whether it came out awesome or not. ;)

Here you go:



Awwwww isn't that just the best!! :D :D It turned out that a few lesser known bands were freely walking around the lines getting word out. We did meet a few other band members of people we never heard of, but hey, they were cool and let us listen to their iPod so that was all good and it passed time while waiting in line! :D

The rest of the time waiting in line I barely remember. My friends and I could not stop talking about Family Force 5 and how we just met half of them and that this day is already off to the best start EVER!! :D

Around noon we finally got in through the gates because the line started to move quickly. I had my bag searched but thankfully passed! I was happy I didn't open my drink because then you had to throw it out. xP Which would have made me mad because I wasn't about to spend 5 bucks on a drink inside smaller than the one I bought for a dollar fifty. Anyway! :P

Earlier when we had met half of Family Force 5 we made the best mental note ever that they were going to play at 1:00 at the Hurley.com stage. :D Oh boy, I couldn't wait to get to see them play live!!!! A band called Bless the Fall was playing before them, and since we got there early we had to wait until they were done which seem to take forever and they were just a big screamo band and yeah, it was loud. xD Abby, Nicole, and I got extremely lucky AGAIN. We were able to get up right in front of the Hurley stage as close as you could possibly get! You couldn't get any closer than we did! Right up to the gate in front of the security guard. I could almost lean over and touch the stage! Hahah. :D So this made us really happy! We waited paitently and just got really excited and enjoyed watching Family Force 5 preparing their instruments to play next!! Some pictures were taken during that time. Check them out below! :D





Hearing Family Force 5 play live was UNBELIEVABLE. I mean, it was the most exciting thing to have happen right in front of me! :P I am even surprised over my own obsessions with this band now that I think about it! Haha, like my whole life I have loved listening to music and I'd like songs here and there, but never have I liked a band as much as them. You may think I am only saying this because I saw them, but that's not true. Ask any of my friends, I liked them the whole past school year. This has only made me like them even more! I haven't been this obsessed over an artist since Britney Spears in SECOND GRADE. I loved her then. I still find pictures and posters and CDs and I had of hers back then. I would've cried if I met her, haha. Not so much anymore, but you get the point. It takes A LOT for me to fall into a major obsession over music. I mean I love plenty of bands, they sound good, are cute, whatever. Family Force 5 has the whole package and them not being real popular and taken over by those follower kids who would just like them to be "cool" makes it all the better! :D

Okay, back to their live show! As soon as the music started pounding through the speakers you couldn't hear the person next to you, all you could hear was Family Force 5 and you felt the waves of music dance throughout your body and you wouldn't even realize it but you'd see yourself just dancing like you never thought you could and loving every moment of it! Being right up front with my best friends who love this band as much as I do was pricelesss! Just seeing Soul Glow Activatur right in front of my face rolling around screaming "HOLD UP WAIT A MINUTE PUT A LITTLE LUV IN IT" is amazing! Period. My friends and I were just screaming and singing along to every lyric we knew and dancing and just flipping out. It's something incredible, I can't even describe it! I remember singing along to "Replace Me" and Soul Glow had his mask on and it looked like he was looking right at me and I just kept singing the lyrics right on with him trying to hit every word and my friends were doing the same thing. It was AWESOME. They sang the following songs: Kountry Gentleman, Drama Queen, Love Addict, Numb, Replace Me, and the last was Earthquake, one of my favorites, and def. one of Abby's! Before they started to sing their last one Soul Glow was like "Everybody now jump up and down for this last song or you have an ugly personality!" Haha I remember him saying that or something. xD Whether he said that or not the loud beat of that song was enough to make the stiffest person ever flip out. My friends and I [along with the large crowd standing behind us] started to jump up and down throughout the whole song as we sang along. Oh my gosh, it was incredible! :D When it was all over, my ears were ringing and my legs felt like jell-o, I thought I might fall over, but all I could do was smile and say "wow."

What a moment to remember in my life eh? :D I have more pictures to share now from when they played on stage! :D Lookie below:





You can tell from these that there is nobody in front of us besides the security guards! That's how close we were able to shimmy up. :D Plenty of other fans lined up behind us, so we were lucky. [and I am 99% sure we were FF5's biggest fans there that day, ahaha.]

My favorite live show picture- :)



The rest of Warped Tour was still really exciting. Hot? You betcha. Sweaty? Oh yeah. I saw Big D and the Kids Table, got the signatures of Hawthorne Heights, heard/saw Amber Pacific, Chiodos, All Time Low, and the others, witnessed some cool mosh pits, had someone spit on me, had full bottles thrown over our heads, but nothing else compares to seeing my favorite band. :D I mean, my friends and I couldn't talk or think of anything else but Family Force 5 the rest of the day!!!! :D

The thing that still amazes me, is that the day got better YET! :D Every band there had a merchandise tent set up. We were so dazed we walked right by FF5's tent the first time, but eventually we found it! At the merch. tent we met Intern [FF5's new well, intern, haha, he didn't get a cool nickname] and Tofu Pup [or Pop, I'm not sure]. It was also at the stand where the band members were taking turns hanging out at. After the show we saw them walk there like nobodys! Haha like, they are so cool. :D We went to the merch tent about five times. Haha. Each time someone new was there. Abby met her favorite band member, Crouton [the drummer].

Here's the picture of them both! Cute huh! He's got her arm around her! ;)



We also saw Phatty, who plays the guitar too, but we didn't get a picture with him, which I sorta regret now. :P Anyways, Soul Glow Activatur was there one time so I talked to him like a normal person my second chance I got to meet him. :D I told him how awesome he was up on stage, and that I really like him&the band, and you guys are my favorite band. He was sweet, gave me a playful punch, and I asked if he'd get in a picture with us again for my camera this time and he teasingly said no, but did. :D He put his arm around meeeee in it and I have yet to get my pictures done but when I do I promise more pictures [I hope!;)]

We spent a lot of time walking around and checking out some other bands, and the day was the best everrr! :D I had so much fun with my friends and meeting Family Force 5 is something I will not soon forget. :) Before we were about to go [had to leave a little early, but nobody complained because we were grateful anyhow] I was asked if I wanted to buy something from the FF5 merch tent. In the other four times we stopped there I never bought anything, despite Abby and Nicole buying everything they had. [The pins, poster, AND t-shirts. xD] I told them I think I definately will get something, I had to have an amazing souvenir. ;)

Going back to the FF5 merch tent one more time was MEANT TO BE. Family Force 5 has this really cool guy who goes by the name of Xanadu. He drives their bus and dances on stage during their shows. [You may catch him in the pics above. He has massive orange hair.] Well, my friends always teased me that he and I look sorta alike. I always thought it'd be cool to meet him, and we hadn't all day, but when we went to the tent that last time guess who walked over while I was paying for my awesome FF5 t-shirt!?!? Xanadu himself! With a cup of coffee like he just woke up, and his frizzy ol' hair! :D Abby started freaking out and kept saying "CAT! Get in a pic with him RIGHT NOW!" So we did, and got two sweet pictures with Xanadu!

Here's the one with me. Twins much? :P



After pictures Abby actually asked the poor guy if he thinks my hair looks like his! Hahaha! :P Xanadu was super sweet though. He actually took the time to have a whole conversation with me and my friends! He was telling us how he hasn't washed his hair in three days, and he is tired and hot from lugging the amps to the bus. We felt bad for him. He took time to talk to us though! It was so sweet of him. :D An actual conversation! With Xanadu!!!! :D



It was amazing. I was so happy we went to the tent for that last time and I bought the coolest t-shirt everrrr. I love it. I have hugged it many times already and looked at it fifty times at least, haha. :D

All this just about concludes my amazing day. :D I have some things to show for it too. Autographs, pictures [obviously], free CDs, and other cool merch. I also have two blisters that I adore, and I pulled a muscle in my right calf quite badly from jumping up and down during Earthquake. I love every second it hurts so bad. I love every time when I stand up I limp terribly because it hurts like never before. I love it all! Know why? It is a CONSTANT reminder of the best day I have had. :D :D -rubs leg- It is still very sore. It's a bad muscle pull. I love it though, so much, haha. :)

The ride home, that night, the following day, the day after that, and today has been the most obsessive days of my life, not to mention the happiest! :D All I have been talking about nonstop has been Family Force 5! I go around my house singing their songs, dancing to them with my iPod, and I even petted the poster on my wall. Almost kissed it, but figured it may be dusty or something, haha. I am sure I am driving my family nuts with this obsessions but I love this band dearly. I can't stop obsessing and saying to everyone I talk to "can you believe I met FF5!!!!!" The coolest thing is that my friends Abby and Nicole are totally just as obsessed over this. Especially Abby, she got her pictures developed literally the next day and when she saw how picture perfect they came out she nearly fainted in the store when the guy had to take them from her and ring them up. Seeing the pictures has made it all the more real for me! :D I was talking to Abby today and our whole conversation was like "!!!!!!!!!!! OMG CAT!! OMG BEE!!!!! WE MET THOSE!!!!! :D :D :D :D :D x3874676"

It's been incredible. I am growing redunant here, but I can't even get the words out! Haha it was amazing. I was thinking back earlier that I remember just this pastt school year in World Cultures my friends and I would play the Really Real Shows of FF5, laugh our butts off, blast their new song at the time, "Never Let Me Go", make their picture our desktop, and Abby would even draw Crouton, her favorite. :D Then in "Oh Con's Computer" class next period, we'd talk nonstop about FF5 some more. We had even made our own funky band nicknames up. Abby's was fouton, similiar to Crouton. haha. I forget mine because Nicole and I fought over Nadaddy. :P I remember we would always discuss how cool it'd be to meet Family Force 5 because knowing how they aren't super popular, they'd appreciate their fans and talk to us. We'd dream of what it'd be like. We loved them so much you guys! Now our dream not only came true, but became more than we ever hoped!! :D It's been wonderful sharing this all. =) My hands are very sore now. I want to hug my leg and kiss my poster now [haha jk]. I hope you get to meet somebody you really like just as much one day, dear reader. Thanks for reading my story. =)

Love, Cat.