sladeecheverria Blog and Journals

So I went to see Razia's Shadow: The Tour (really, Dutton? You couldn't just call it the Razia's Shadow Tour and let me sounds less pretentious?) on the second, which I realize was several days ago. But you know what? I had better things to do, like watch trashy summer television. I also realize the tour ends today. And I also realize that most people probably don't care about this, but I'll be damned if I don't write about it anyway.

The venue was the smallest I've ever been to and the line was the shortest I've experienced as well. Once we were let in, the venue also was the least packed I've had to deal with, even when the bands were playing. I had room to breathe, it was amazing.

When I wasn't busy noticing that there were only ten people in the line not wearing black, I admired the fact that Anabor's Adam took off his shirt outside their van. Then I saw Ben, lead singer of You, Me, And Everyone We Know, walking towards the front of the venue. I'm a big fan and knew it was his 25th birthday, so obviously I shouted, "happy birthday!" at him. He looked up at my friend and I, startled, and thanked me. Then before I knew it he was standing right in front of us, shaking our hands, and introducing himself and asking for our names.

"Hi I'm Ben." I know dude. I knew it was your birthday, it would be pretty goddamn weird if I didn't know your name.

"Thank you so much for coming. I have to go check in now, I'm sorry, I'll see you later." Uh, what? No problem, I didn't even expect you to come over. Cool.

Now for the actual music part of the experience. Not much to say about K Sera, the local openers, except their singer was moderately cute. Oh, and during soundcheck the keyboardist played the theme to Harry Potter, which was pretty hardcore. They were pretty generic otherwise.

The bands all did their own soundchecks as the audience looked on, and random music would play.  While Anarbor was setting up, we all got to listen to Bob Marley. Drummer Greg was sort of playing along to the music at times, which according to my friend, made "his cute level go up."  Their set was good, and they sound pretty much the same live as they do on the record.  Now, this might say more about their production values than it does their live show, but they were very enjoyable and good nonetheless.  As a bonus, it appeared that my friend and I, along with a small handful of other girls, were the only ones who knew the words, and we were all front and center. That way we all got to feel like Slade was looking right at us when he sang. So dreamy.

Don't judge me! The guys in the band are very good-looking. I'm a heterosexual teenage girl with unchecked hormones, am I supposed to just not care when a hot guy looks like he's smiling at me? Plus, I saw his hand had 19 written on it (all the under 21s had to have their age written on their hands), so we're the same age. My hand may have mistakenly said 18, but I'm 19 dammit! My buzznet profile says so, so it must be true! And if you think I'm bad, you should've seen my friend. She about clawed my shoulder off in excitement when I told her Slade's age.

But that's beside the point. You, Me, and Everyone We Know was next up. Their soundcheck soundtrack was Queen and I could see them all quietly singing along, as was the audience. But somehow I was the only one who started headbanging during "Bohemian Rhapsody," what's up with that? I noticed the guy I thought was like Anarbor's roadie turned out to be the bassist. Oops. His hand read 18. Interesting, as I'm pretty sure all the other band members are in their mid-twenties. Both guitarists, Noel and Rico, were very cute in their plaid shirts. While the guys in Anarbor are more "fuck them" hot, these guys have more of a "marry them" cute vibe going on. (Is it obvious I'm starved for male attention yet?)

Can you really blame me for thinking he was a roadie? Look how tiny! Adorable.

Not surprisingly, seeing as it was his birthday, Ben seemed pretty darn drunk. This makes for a very entertaining set. He was running around all over the stage, and though the vocals were difficult to hear at times, the energy from the crowd and from the band created a really fun atmosphere.

After their set, the people in front of us moved, so my friend and I went from the second to first row. There was no barricade, oh yes. Fun Fact: I've only been in the very front for two sets ever. Both were Forgive Durden, the first set being at Bamboozle Left.

Forgive Durden performed very well. The bassist, AJ, who's also the only one besides Thomas Dutton who's name I caught, had just awesome enthusiasm and was really good at getting the crowd amped up. The girl who did Lizzie Huffman and Greta Salpeter's parts sang well and isn't too bad at the tambourine either. And then there was the keyboardist. I noticed him and his cuteness at Bamboozle Left. But this time I also noticed his hand, and how the number 18 was written on it. (Seriously, I'm so lonely.) He also played the part of Doctor Dumaya for the show, and was quite good.  I have video of that as well as other songs from all the bands except K Sera that I will hopefully be able to get up tonight, Internet connection permitting.

This picture does him no justice.

Logically with the nature of Razia's Shadow, Forgive Durden utilized the openers to be guest voices.  Ben from You, Me, and Everyone We Know took over Max Bemis's role as Barayas the spider, which was an easy choice. Ben has been compared to Bemis many times, and he even sang on YMAEWK's song "I Can Get Back Up Now". Rico from YMAEWK came out to sing background and play the bells during "The Exit". Slade from Anarbor stepped into Nic Newsham's shoes to play the King, and fit in perfectly, despite being a year younger than the girl who played the part of his daughter on stage.  At the very end of the show, everyone came up and sang together, providing a joyous end for a wonderful show.

Immediately after the show my friend and I ran over to the merch tables. She went over to Anarbor's table to buy a shirt from her dear Slade, while I went over to You, Me, And Everyone We Know.

"Can I have a small of this shirt?" I asked Ben, pointing to the one I wanted.

"Sure, honey" he said as he turned around to the pile of clothes, "Did you want the girl one?"

"Uh, yeah.  I am a girl after all."

"Right," he laughed, and handed me my shirt. "I'm sorry, what was your name again? I know faces and clothes and hair, but I'm terrible with names."

So I reminded him that I was Emily and reassured him that it was totally fine that he didn't remember my name, as I could imagine it would be hard to keep fans straight and I just thought it was cool he remembered me at all.

"No, really, it's not that. I just am no good with names."

I then told him how it was a really good show and I had been trying to see them for so long, but it was hard because they don't come to the West Coast often. He talked about how that was because they do it all themselves and a lot of bands don't like to take unsigned bands with them.

"But we should be back in August. Or September. Or October. Sometime in between there we'll be back." Awesome.

I went to go find my friend when I suddenly realized something. I had forgotten to pay for my shirt! Now I have to admit, I don't know how I would've reacted if it was for another band, but You, Me, And Everyone We Know puts their EPs out for free download, and they're unsigned, and I wanted to support them. So I ran back to the merch table. 

"Ben! Ben, I forgot to pay!" I handed over my money.

"Oh that's okay," he said, giving me back my change.  

This time their drummer, Aaron, was there too.  "You are so awesome, that's so honest."

"We should get married," Ben offered, grabbing my hand from over the table. "Let's go to Vegas and get married."

"Ok," I laughed.

"Reno's closer," said the voice of a girl behind me. I turned around.

"You look familiar...." then it hit me. "Wait, were you at The Cab shoot?"

It turned out she was. We were both at The Cab's video shoot for the remix of "Take My Hand" which was filmed at my campus in LA. I've run into people from that shoot at pretty much every concert I've gone to...in LA.  But this was NorCal, so we were both kind of thrown off.

After my adventure at the merch table I met and got pictures with Rico from YMAEWK, Mike of Anarbor, and Forgive Durden's Thomas Dutton.

tl;dr: Entertaining show, cute band guys abound.