My day started at 7:00 am. No, not because I had hours of driving ahead of me, not because I wanted to get ready for Hanson when they hit the stage eleven hours later, but because I had conditioning for soccer. Boohoo. I'm extremely sore as I write this. Anyway, at around 1:30, my friend Courtney picked me up and after lunch and quite a few errands, we reached Deer Creek around 4:30. The first act was at 5:00 on the New Music Stage (it was tiny! I feel bad for the people that played there). So Courtney and I found our seats (row BB seats 12 and 13). I thought we were going to be really close, but it turned out we were one row in front of the lawn seats. Oh well, no one was sitting in our area, so we had a clear view of the stage. There were a TON of girls up in the front few rows, pressed against the fence. Hanson teenys. It's ok to be excited, but I got kind of annoyed with them. For example, since they were so close to the stage, they could see a little bit of the backstage area. I'm not sure quite what happened, but I guess Isaac was standing back there talking to some tech guy about the positioning and stuff, and the girls were screaming their heads off. That was pretty annoying (I'll admit I was a little bitter at my seats). So anyway, Courtney isn't a Hanson fan, but she was there because she wanted to see BBMak. We saw two of our other friends and oh-so-cleverly handed them our tickets so they could get in to the pavillion seating and come sit with us. We figured out our game plan: Blessid Union of Souls started at 5:20 and finished at 5:50. BBMak played (on the other stage) at 5:55 and played until 6:15. At 6:20, Hanson played on the main stage. So right after BUofS played, we ran over to the little stage to see BBMak. I'm not that big of a fan, and girls were screaming all around me, and I was hot and uncomfortable, so when the crowd started chanting "BBMak, BBMack, BBMak" I said kinda loudly, "SUCKS!!!" All the sudden everyone was quiet and turned to face me with these mean looks on their faces. I was like, "Just kidding guys, they're awesome! They're so talented, and man can they sing. Hoowee!" Then I started singing "Back Here" so they'd know I was joking. Wow, I never realized that people were so fierce about such a new band. Well, you learn every day. After that unfortunate incident, the guys came out and played some songs, and they were ok, but not quite my style. I was getting antsy to get back to the main stage because I didn't want to miss Hanson, but they started playing "Back Here" and my friend wouldn't leave. So right after they were done, Courtney and I ran back to the other stage, leaving our two other friends, Brittney and Lee to see the end of the song.
We got to our seats and Hanson was already in the middle of "Where's the Love". I didn't feel too bad about missing the first two minutes of that song. They didn't play the extra part like they did on LFA or TT&theMON, but it was still really good. Let's see, Taylor was wearing black leather pants and a purple silk shirt, Isaac was wearing tan pants and a blue shirt, and it could've been denim, but I was pretty far away. Zac was wearing tan pants and a black tee-shirt with some white writing on it. Anyway, right after WTL, they launched right into "Runaway Run", which went really well. The girls were going crazy in the front row, and I was amused with watching them. Taylor was jumping, Isaac was pumping (his foot) and Zac was bouncing on his little drum seat. After that song, Taylor took the mic from it's stand and was like, "LET'S TRY SOMETHING GUYS! I'M GONNA TEST YOUR RHYTHYM! SEE IF YOU CAN DO THIS!" And he started clapping his hands over his head. Instantly tons of hands were up in the pavillion, clapping along. "GOOD! NOW DO THIS!" He said, pointing to the sky and waving his arms side to side. Everyone followed. "GREAT! NOW DO THIS!" He kept his hands pointing, but when they'd go to the left, he'd swing his body to the right, and vice versa. Very amusing to watch. Everyone started doing it. Throughout this whole thing, Zac was doing random drum fills and Isaac would play some little lick on his guitar. As soon Taylor said "GOOD JOB" about the whole pointing/throwing-your-back-out-of-socket thing, he whipped out his harmonica from somewhere and started playing. So they played "If Only" and it was really great. At one point, he jumped off the stage, ran up and down the little fenced in area and hi-fived a bunch of people, jumped back on stage, ran to the piano and started singing. All of this in perfect timing and within like, ten seconds. The crowd was going crazy. I guess there isn't much of a keyboard part in this song, because he was running around the whole stage. At one point, he ran up to Isaac and held up his mic so they could sing together. That was really cute. After the song he just like, threw his whole body down and panted for a while. What a drama queen. Haha. After "If Only", Isaac announced the next song as "The title track off the new album, you might have heard it." So they played "This Time Around" and got a little mosh pit going in the front of the stage. During Isaac's solo, he walked up to the very edge of the stage and bent down so the kids down there could see him play. That was really nice of him. After "This Time Around", Taylor pointed at some girl in the audience, commenting on their interesting signs and shirts. I don't know who he was talking about. Zac, who hadn't really spoken much during the whole thing, was making weird noises in the background in some odd voice. It was funny. Then Isaac and Taylor introduced "MMMBop", which got a lot of non-Hanson fans dancing and clapping and singing. So that was really nice to see for me. After "MMMBop" Taylor thanked ZPL for holding the show and started talking a lot about something, but I couldn't hear what he was saying because of the loud screams. Finally, Isaac bust in with his "In the City" riff and walked back to the back-up keyboarder behind him and was like, hopping up and down while he played it. A lot of people really liked the song and were dancing. After that, they mentioned that they'd be touring and hoped they could come back to Indianapolis sometime in the summer. Zac got up, ran right to the end of the stage, and handed some lucky person his drumsticks, and then they left the stage.
It was really great to observe the people there during the concert. A lot of older people were sitting down with their arms crossed at the beginning, trying not to look interested, or genuinely not interested. By the end though, a lot of them were clapping and tapping and dancing. There was this guy in front of me who was drinking beer with his wife and making fun of Hanson, but during "MMMBop" he stood up and started dancing with her and stayed up for "In the City". He was trying to hide it, but I think he was really impressed. I think a lot of people were. Heck, even I was, and I already know that they're great live (or so I'd been told).
Courtney and I found Lee and Brittney who were extremely excited because they'd gotten to hug BBMak and get their autograph. In fact, Brittney had dived into a crowd after one of their pens and had actually gotten it. So they were really excited about that and decided that we needed to find them. I noticed a few girls were standing peering through the fence that outlines the back-stage area. Me, being the clever person I am, suggested that BBMak could be in there and that we should go look (I wanted to see Hanson, but if I said that Hanson might be in there, they wouldn't have cared. So I catered to their needs. Buahaha). So we walked up to the fence and tried to see through it. But we couldn't get to the inside :). There were like, 1 cm of space inbetween each board. I looked through and saw a little meet-n-greet place, some tour busses, some vans, and some security guards in there. No Hanson (or BBMak). Oh well. The four of us created this scheme to find out where BBMak was, so we went and talked to this deejay at the ZPL tent, and after about half an hour, he told us that BBMak and Hanson were going to be leaving soon. Suddenly, I heard screams coming from the girls at the fence, so we all ran back over there to see what was going on. I peered through and could see Isaac WAY far away talking to some little girls (like, 8 years old or something). I figured that that was why everyone was screaming, but it turns out (I couldn't see this from my centimeter of space) that some girl had hoisted her friend onto her shoulders and her friend was looking over the fence, and Zac had seen her and run up and given her a hi-five. All this time I was just looking at Isaac and then I saw a white van pull up and Taylor walked over to it with a guitar hanging off his back and loaded it into the trunk and he and Zac got in. Then some woman from behind me told me that we had to get away from the fence, and since there really wasn't much to see, I left. I was kinda annoyed that everyone was screaming so much. Like, omigosh, THEY GOT IN A CAR!!!!!!!! AUGH!!!!!!!!!!!! I didn't really get it. So anyway, we went back to the ZPL place and they told us that Hanson and BBMak had left already. And you'll never believe what we did. We talked about it for about 15 minutes, and then the four of us left the concert and drove to the airport!!!! It was all my friends' idea, I swear. They wanted to see BBMak again and decided that going to the airport was their best chance. I felt like such a teenybopper, it wasn't even funny. But at the same time, it was incredibly hilarious. I mean, skipping out on a concert to go to the airport where a not-quite-famous-yet band might happen to go to. It was crazy. We got there and walked around for about half an hour. It was so funny. We called one of Lee's friend and had her find out where Britney Spears would be playing the next day because BBMak is opening for her and would be going there. So we looked all over and didn't find them. Too bad. No one really thought that they could have driven until I saw a bus that looked like a tour bus. So we gave up and drove to where we'd hidden Brittney's car. We went to Walmart and Courtney, Brittney, and Lee all bought the BBMak cd. I didn't really want it. So Courtney and I went back to her house and went to bed.
All in all, it was a fun time. I loved seeing Hanson play, and they really did a good job. In fact, on the way to the airport, a local news-caster who was there was interviewed by ZPL and she was talking about how everyone did a good job but she was the most impressed by Hanson. She was saying how they totally played to the crowd and got everyone excited, even the skeptics. She also said that they had surprised her in that she knew they could play, and she knew they could entertain, but she didn't know they could do both at once. ie, it's hard to be extremely exciting when you're stuck behind a piano or drums, but they somehow managed it. I hope after this, ZPL will play Hanson a lot more and the local fans, no matter how insane they may be, will request them a ton.
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