RECAP: Panic! At the Disco at The Norva 6/2/2011

[corbae]

I also saw Panic! At the Disco in Norfolk! I am just kind of faily and took a couple weeks to write it up. That is because this is GIANT, omg. You can skip to the pictures if you want, I totally will not judge.


I took Thursday off but instead of sleeping in I made these:




Spencer's is kind of bad. He is the most flawless (ty likeaglass, that is the perfect adjective) in actual life and yet I could not make him an awesome Chuck Norris ID badge. Part of that is because I could not draw him shirtless because dear god how would I face him across that table and hand him a shirtless pictures of himself, but part of it is also that I drew a not-awesome picture. Anyway, I drew them and took them to Kinko's to be laminated and then I was off.

I'd been stressing out about driving back directly after the show until the super nice and generally awesome manipulant offered me crash space in her hotel room. I was even more grateful for her offer after driving on the tiny highways in rural Eastern Virginia that I had to take to get to Norfolk. I would have driven into a peanut field at 2AM and that would have been sad. So thank you again and times a million, manipulant. You are the reason my car does not stink of peanuts.

I arrived and parked across the street at the mall (thank you random concertgoer at Iron & Wine for that tip!) and went to get lunch at the California Pizza Kitchen (yum). Then it was off to do street team stuff in the line.

NDP was just at the front of the regular line, so I sort of awkwardly line jumped to be in the right area. I felt pretty bad about it after I'd handed all that stuff out so I sat to the other side of the doors. While I was sitting there Evan walked up with Zack and gave me a high five. Yay high fives! Then there was more line waiting and more handing stuff out and at one point I sold my extra ticket to someone's dad. Eventually likeaglass and manipulant arrived, and everything got much more awesome. Then Zack came to round up our line and likeaglass and I started getting antsy because kinetikatrue and sansets had our tickets and were stuck in traffic. But they showed up just before Zack started checking people off the list, so yay! (This recap will be full of yay!, btw. Fair warning!)

Zack arranged for the venue to let us stay inside after M&G, which was awesome of him, and we all went inside and up to the balcony and he gave the speech. The radio M&G was lined up right after us and got the same speech, and one of the radio guys was taping everything with a camcorder. Zack called him out but he just kept stealth-taping, which I thought was both dumb and brave. Aaand then I turned around from talking to likeaglass and there they were! Spencer wasn't at this M&G because he wasn’t feeling well, which we learned after the fact is apparently Zack speak for "water-skied for too long in North Carolina on his day off and is getting some extra sleep in before the show." And there I was worrying that he was sick.

We were sort of terrifyingly close to the front of the line so my turn came up way too fast. I still didn't have anything for them to sign but I did have the badges. I gave Dallon his and he said "thanks!" and then proved he had no idea what he was thanking me for when I said that it was difficult to draw someone as Bruce Wayne (he has none of the identifying features you get with Batman). He was all, "This is me as Bruce Wayne? Awesome, you remembered!" to which I was a little um duh, this is the whole reason I asked you that question. Ian was paying attention and said that if they remade Batman Dallon should play Bruce Wayne.

Ian's turn! I handed him his badge and said I hoped he meant the 80s version of Master Shredder because that's who I'd drawn him as. He liked the tiny bit of Ian-hair that is poking out from under the helmet to identify him. There was really no other way to denote "this is Ian!" with a character who wears a face mask and a helmet.

Next was Brendon, who'd picked another difficult-to-draw character in Moriarty. I handed the badge over and asked which version of Moriarty he liked best. He picked the books because he was "more sinister." Brendon Urie is amazing, you guys. ♥

I was standing at the corner of the table, trying not to screw up manipulant's M&G again ;). Zack was standing kind of beside me at Brendon's right. I gave Brendon Spencer's badge to pass on and said "It's sort of Spencer as Chuck Norris" because I'm not happy with the illustration. Brendon (or possibly Zack? manipulant, do you remember?) said "It's definitely Spencer as Chuck Norris," and they were both grinning. I had started walking backwards away from them already because I am awkward but I stopped and said something like, "Not really, because he's wearing a shirt."

Brendon said, "That's because he's going to rip it off later." I was unable to deal with that so I fled back to the line. IT'S OK THAT SPENCER SMITH IS WEARING A SHIRT BECAUSE HE'S GOING TO RIP IT OFF LATER. ♥ YOU GUYS ♥

And then we did the picture and I managed to look awkward in a completely different way than in Charlotte, so that was cool? I guess?

Zack let the front of the line go down to the barrier after everyone had their pictures taken. I was originally more centered but the rest of my group was separated from me by some other girls. I ended up moving, so I was to the left of the keyboard. The stage was much higher than the one at the Fillmore, so the keyboard blocked a lot of my shots. Oh well. I had a much better view overall even if my pictures don't reflect that. I ran to buy a fun. shirt (I own more Panic shirts than there are days of the week, so I didn't let myself look at those) and grab a drink before the show started.

Foxy Shazam was amazing again, even though they were clearly pissed about something. Before the eating cigarettes song the singer asked their merch guy to bring them $365 to throw out to the crowd, because even if we hated their band we still liked money. And he did throw some of it out, it's just that he burned and ripped up more of it. I have half of a dollar bill from their set. Uh, thanks guys? I liked your band before the money.

fun. was also amazing. ♥♥♥ I love them a lot, you guys. I think I neglected them a little in my last post but I've been trying to see them live since I first heard them in 2009 and I was so happy to hear they were opening for this tour.

And then it was Panic! Brendon didn't limp nearly as much at this show. I'm pretty sure he was wearing both shoes so the swelling must have gone down a lot. They were more energetic and chatty than they had been in Charlotte--Norfolk was definitely the better of the two shows.

Security at the Norva was really nice but not the greatest at taking care of the pit. At one point the girl behind me said, "I'm so sorry, I'm about to pass out on you." I turned around and asked her if she needed to be pulled out and she just collapsed. The people behind her caught her and then the girl to my right and I got a hold on her and started trying to lift her over. I have never had anyone faint on me before and I wasn't really prepared for what dead weight feels like. Meanwhile, I'm trying to flag down someone from security and there's no one in sight. Someone finally came over after about a minute and got her pulled over. They got better about handing out water & spraying the pit later but were never really easily reachable.

And then this happened and was kind of hilarious:

And then Brendon slapped Nate Reuss on the ass after C'Mon and before that hot George Michael track! I tried to follow whoever was dancing the best, so the video's kind of jumpy BUT PRICELESS!

After they played Let's Kill Tonight, Brendon LEAPED off of Spencer's riser when he was getting down from the organ. I'm sure my face was pretty D: at that.

Security started spraying the pit with water and Brendon said "Get that water!" and the guy stopped. Brendon: "No, that's good, that's good! Keep doin' what you're doin', buddy," and then started singing, to the tune of Free Fallin', "Cause it's free, free water. Get it while it's free til they charge your tax dollars."
Brendon: "I'm not going to get political but that's fucking lame. I'm not Against Me!, I don't fucking care. I'm just trying to live, man, this isn't about that, I just want to have a good time. And so do you, right! So because you're so amazing--get that free water! Nicely done--so because you are all so beautiful and amazing and sweet to me, I'd like to dedicate this song to all of you now, it's called "Always," OK. So thank you for just showing up tonight, you're amazing."

They did the Super Mario theme before "Memories." Highlights: Brendon and Ian jumping for coins, Dallon demanding a turn and playing the Bowser part.

Before Sins Brendon sang part of "Wind Beneath My Wings" and gave Beaches and Bette Midler a shout-out. Someone in the crowd yelled that they liked his butt and Brendon said, "thanks dad." He then made a point of shaking his ass during the intro to Sins.

Brendon dedicated "Carry On Wayward Son" to all the parents who were "stuck down in the crowd" and "may not like our band." He also called it "Carry On My Wayward Son," which, whatever. I guess a lot of people do that? I'm very, very happy he was feeling well enough to play it because I love that song, and I love them, and they're two great tastes that taste great together. ♥ Also Brendon did some really hilarious/adorable fist-shaking things during the intro.

Then it was time for Spencer to take the incredible staged crowd picture. Highlights: He thinks the crowd looks hot! And wet! Hot and wet is good enough for Brendon! Spencer Smith wants us to give him our O-face! (This video is pretty bad but I find it funny so whatever.)

And then Brendon sang part of "Friendship" by Tenacious D and had a ~moment with Ian.

Then the show was over :( After the show I managed to catch one of Brendon's picks when a tech threw it. This is amazing because I often can't catch a baseball and yet I managed to grab the pick out of the air. I handed more stuff out after the show (and got rid of almost all of it, thank god) while we were waiting for lisechen, who rode up with manipulant but didn't go to the show. kinetikatrue and sansets unfortunately had to head out to drive home around then. The rest of us went in search of food. We had no luck in the area around the Norva so we drove to IHOP instead and had delicious breakfast foods while we discussed potential wave two BBB stories. The whole night was super amazing and I love all the fangirls and cannot WAIT to see y'all again at Hershey and the next Panic tour. ♥♥♥

(and then I woke up at 6 the next morning and drove the 3 hours home and worked a double shift to make up for missing Thursday /o\/o\/o\ NEVER AGAIN)






















































Again, there are some more pictures on flickr.

Comments

[eledhwenlin]

Boyssssssss. :D

[corbae]

I know, right? all the ♥

[turps]

Your reports remain amazing!

Though that pit sounds scary.

[corbae]

thank you again! The pit wasn't that bad, she was just tiny and young and had probably been out in the sun all day. People were packed fairly close but there wasn't much pushing or movement. It did bother me that it was so hard to get the attention of security, but I suppose they didn't expect any problems at a Panic show.