10/23/09 - MTV Ulalume Fest - Merriweather Post Pavilion - DBS

[LPPhan2005]

Shit, what a long day. School was a bitch having a fucking argument with my Spanish teacher and my fucking classmates telling me to stfu. It was fucking cold out too. However, Chester/LP has been my drug of choice whenever I was feeling down since 4th grade, so all was well.

 

I changed into my LPU 4.0 clothes as soon as I got into my mom's car and she got my brother and his friend and we were off to Columbia. Nice car ride, blasting OoA because I really can't stand listening to a full AFI CD, I wanted to be surprised by Paramore and Cudi just wasn't what I was into (and the show didn't really change my mind). Anyways, get a text from LPxDC around 3:00ish that he got in line. I got there around 4:00 and saw him waving his LP bag. Got to meet his friends, one went to PR07 and one was in black eye-liner (it was Halloween after all) and wearing a Trivium shirt. Nice.

 

We get into the venue and see the shitty merch stand. Paramore merch, AFI Merch, Merriweather Post Pavilion Merch and the DBS shirt with the hands on it. No Cudi merch or CDs. I obviously get the DBS shirt feeling like I bought merch at a kiosk on a sidewalk. The shirt is nice though. Me and LPxDC make our way down the stairs and try to work our way in since we were the first 30 people in the venue. It's one bad thing after another. The security doesn't give us our tickets or stubs back and we got in 3 rows behind the barricade. Those Paramore fans don't budge. FUCK.

 

We had an hour to kill, and negotiations wouldn't get us through. Other than passing the time talking to girls (Richarrrrrd), we decided to tough it out. I saw the singer in my band and said "whats up". He was surprised to see me, considering I didn't show up to practice that week because I had the H1N1 virus (forgot to tell you Richard, lol). Costumed people started rolling in too, ranging from masks to hot chicks in Octoberfest or Nurse uniforms. I was pointing babes out to Richard like crazy. I guess he must have bad eye sight or something. To pass the time, a local remix DJ group called Flounder's Mashups were keeping us entertained. They weren't on the main PA system or the screens, and they got annoying after a while. Before Cudi came on, there were 20-something people at the edge of the lawn/pavilion in white ponchos. Most of them had their hoods on. Everyone thought they were the KKK and started booing them. We eventually got distracted by something else and then Cudi came on.

 

Lame show. He is a total studio product, rapped over his track. You could even hear his vocal track in the background. The most he contributed was shouting "Put yo hands in the AIIIARE"! Glad he did like 4 songs.

 

The stage set-up wasn't exactly the greatest either, it seemed lazily put together with all the fake trees and whatnot.

 

After Cudi's shit show, some friendly looking groups of dudes in MFR bandanas and Ve'Cel hoodies started rolling in. This is home. Me and Richard started pondering who's natural wood-colored Mapex drumkit that was, because we were pretty sure Elias uses the DBS logo set. We saw Fu's Julien-K synth set out too so it must've been all DBS stuff out.

 

After soundcheck, the lights went out and of course we all anticipated Crawl Back In to kick the show off. SURPRISE! Fucking End of the World! Surprisingly, Chester didn't spike his mohawk and it made his hair look gloomy. I was right in front of Amir's pedals so the whole show, so most of my pictures are of him. Brandon and Chaz came over a lot as well. Ryan occasionally. Chester started out wearing some weird looking sweater-white collared shirt combo. Not gonna lie, he kinda looked like a Hogwarts student of something. God, so many bands get Harry Potter comparisons when I see them. My dad called Claudio from Coheed & Cambria "Hagrid".

 

Still with DBS, they owned Condemned and they went into Morning After. I actually didn't really listen to it that much, considering there's like 3 versions of it. I'm a lazy fan, don't hate. Richard was disapointed, considering this song goes back to 2001 and none of these non-hardcore LP fans deserve to hear it. The crowd eventually seperated Richard and I, which was fine. His blonde friend got videos on his camera while he flailed his arms and screamed the band. Of course, this was met with a reward of a DBS pick and a bottle from Ryan, but this is later. On another note, apparently Richard was on the screen during Walking In Circles, but we didn't notice it. By the middle of Too Late, this security asshole with an afro and a face that resembled Travis McCoy was being a jackass and told me to put my camera away. The badass inside of me would've said "Up yours, cocksucker!" but the person who didn't want to be kicked out of the venue put away my camera. He actually jumped into the crowd to tell others to turn their cameras off. Props again to Richard's friend (I forgot her name, like Victoria or something), she got 3/4th of the DBS set on camera. My Suffering was a highlight, preferbly because of the doublebass-flam part before the last chorus/refrain. Headbanging has become this developed skill for me and has gathered a lot of stares in a non-metal setting. Ulalume was no different but I had a fantastic experience. Another highlight was the 4 or so times Chester came to stage right (where I was) and made eye-contact with me. This was the closest I have been to Chester since the meet & greet. Still an ecstatic experience. By the time it was all over and 20 Eyes was playing, I expected the 40 year old dudes to sing along. I guess the older men of the crowds were only there to chaperone their 11 year old daughters. Show ends on a great note, despite no one else being blown away by DBS like we were. A little bizarre that Chester threw his mic on the ground in an Axl Roses-style stage departure. Oh well, I guess he couldn't do high-fives/towel tossing because the MTV people were about to award the best costume. And Chester didn't seem pissed off, he was smiling with Amir right after. Elias was a phenomenal drummer in concert, and Ryan gave Richard his stuff.

 

Best costume went to a Sasquatch dude in stilts. Not deserving of money and MTV coverage because of a fucking costume, but MTV will broadcast anything that is irrelevant to music these days.

 

Waiting for AFI...not fun. This naggy lady kept giving Richard shit because she and her daughter wanted to see Paramore. Um...tough shit! He said something along the lines of "I've been in a Slayer moshpit and never have I dealt with someone as annoying as you" or something like that. To make things lamer, the screen would display our LPL/LPU shout-outs. Only the ones that said "Edward Cullen!!! <3" or "Judy, will you marry me?". Fucking lame.

 

AFI came on, Richard and I mutually weren't feeling into them. The singer seemed more concerned with his sequined blazer than he did with being a performer. The bassist kept on acting like Pete Wentz the way he would spin his bass around his body. Poor showmanship, unless you feel AFI. Wasn't our thing, so went to get nachos.

 

Richard saw a dude in a jigsaw mask so he got a picture with him. We got our nachos and soda and we finally had our LPL meetup. Heartlesswind13 and Geki hung out for a bit and then we luckily got to meet Elias and Brandon as well. They seemed like they were eager to leave though. Richard got a funny photo with them where Elias was looking away and Richard was looking down. Brandon seemed to be the only one who was attentive to the photo.

 

Anyways, continued to cruise around the attractions when I met up with my friend's sister. It was cool, and she was out of Richard's league. Still saw crappy merch stands and hardcore kids trying to mosh to AFI. That was pretty lame. Hearing "Miss Murder" added to our AFI bashing. Bleh, hit single and write a bunch of lamer shit. Their singer is so image-conscious. He always changes his hairstyle to match the mood of the album/current trends. Example: Sing the Sorrow/Decemberunderground-era was emo bangs dyed black, because it was moodier album (not in a good way like Alice in Chains' "Dirt"). With Crash Love, which is a happier album, called for a David Bowie-style haircut dyed black and white (think Pepe Le Pew). By the way, I'm only naming those 3 albums because that's when they became mainstream popular. I know they have like 5 other albums, but half of their fan base probably doesn't because they are posers.

 

AFI finished and we went back down to the pit. We see the Paramore set up like the back of Brand New Eyes with all of the picture frames empty and set up along the drum riser. I chatted it up with my singer some more, and met up with someone I used to go to elementary school with. That was cool. We eventually found Papelbon as well. He kept us busy with his iPhone pictures of LP m&gs.

 

Chants of "PAR-A-MORE" became more abundant and it was finally time to give the crowd what they wanted. The lights went out and there stood a 4-foot guitar stand with a candy cane pattern in yellow & red. Damn, Haley is so short. They opened with songs from the new album that I didn't know too well. I felt out of place when it was Paramore's time on stage, because I really didn't know too much of their material. And, it was swarming with Paramore fans who were having their night. Paramore played a great show and I left at the end of Misery Business. My mom was sick and she didn't want to wait too long. I told Richard I was peacing out and he caught the closer (Brick by Boring Brick).

 

To close this review off, this was a night to be enjoyed by the Paramore fans and enjoyed by them it was. DBS was great but it felt like these people didn't get their money's worth because they didn't act blessed by the euphoric performance of Chester Bennington. Oh well, Paramore fans got what they wanted, AFI fans got what they wanted, DBS/LP fans got what they wanted and Kid Cudi fans don't know what a good performance is if they considered him to be a great performer.

 

 

-8 out of 10

Edited December 3, 2009 by LPxDC