We left Ark City at about 3:00 o'clock and entertained ourselves by talking about music and telling stories. We went to Collinsville first which is a small town north of Tulsa. I wanted to eat somewhere we couldn't get back home so we ate at a place called The Silver Dollar even though I think the other guys did not want to. It took longer then we thought and we started to run a little late. I liked the place even though Chad compared it to me holding his hand "through the gates of Hell".
After that we went to Caleb's sister's house so she could drive us to the venue. We didn't know where we were going and didn't want to have to deal with traffic so we asked her to drive us there and she agreed. We got there at about 6:30 and stood in line until 7:00when the doors opened. Then we quickly got to the stage and stood there for an hour until the opening act started.
While we were waiting, Chad met up with a Russian foreign exchange student that came from Arkansas that he met on the internet. It got a little awkward from this point on. I'm sill not that sure how they found each other online to be honest but we met her there.
The first band started at almost exactly 8. They were a psychedelic rock band from San Fransisco that was surprisingly good. They were one of the best opening acts I have seen at a concert.
After the first act we had about a half-hour break before the Monkeys started. In the meantime we jus tstood there trying not to collapse from standing for so long. Finally after all the sound checks, they took they stage.
As soon the show started, a large group of the most obnoxious British people came up and up and basically pushed me and Caleb back three or four rows. Caleb, being the scrappy and lightweight fellow that he is was able to actually push his way up to the very front with his Russian gal pal where they stayed about the whole concert.
The concert was awesome. The only album of theirs that I had listened to extensively before the show was "Favourite Worst Nightmare" and they played a lot of songs I was not familiar with. They started off with "Dance Little Liar" which I didn't recognize but is now one of my favorite songs. It has a hypnotic three chord progression that is great live. After that they played "Brainstorm" which is one of my favorite songs and is great to watch in a huge crowd of people with a strobe light.
My favorite song of the evening was "A View from the Afternoon" which I had not heard before the concert but have listened to probably thirty times since. It has an awesome dueling guitar section in the middle that is really difficult to play and awesome to hear.
When they finally left the stage I was really disappointed because they had not played two of my favorite songs. I assumed they would be coming back because almost every concert I had been involved an encore of some type. When stage hands went back on stage to change the guitars I knew either they were coming back or someone was playing the cruelest practical joke ever.
They finally came back and play my favorite song "Fluorescent Adolescent". I was really excited. They even added a new verse into the middle of the song that was awesome and I want to find the lyrics to it because I can't remember all of them. They didn't play "When the sun goes down" or "Teddy Picker" which I am still disappointed about.
The only downside to the concert was, as I have already mentioned, the obnoxious group of British people. They entire time they were pushing people and yelling so you couldn't listen to the music. Most of them were smoking and one of them opened a can of beer and threw it in the air and got beer on everyone. I left the concert smelling like weed, beer, and British sweat.
After the concert was over, me and Caleb found Chad again. It turns out that during the end of the concert a security guard handed him one of the set lists as a souvenir and the Russian girl, Lilly, found one of Alex's picks on the floor after he threw it in the crowd. Chad wanted to try and get the set list autographed so we set off outside to where we were waiting in line. We went to the gate that lead to the parking lot behind the venue and in an ill advised attempt to meet them climbed under a gate to get through. A security guard stopped us and we asked if we could talk to the band because we could see some of them. He asked them if it was alright but they said no and we went away. Lilly decided to go back on her own and flirted with the guard. She came back about ten minutes later with an autographed set list.
When that was all said and done we left again for Caleb's sister's house and spent the night there. We left for Ark City at about 6:30 in the morning and made class the next day. All in all it was a great evening.
Quote of the day "Your wearing a Paul McCartney shirt and you don't smoke weed?" random stoner talking to Caleb.
