concert weekend no. 2!

Whew. That was one whirlwind of a weekend. My last bit of fun before midterms come around starting next week for me. So, here goes the fantastic recap! I woke up late Saturday morning (...unfortunately missing my 5K...) and then got together with everyone at Chipman Hall. We left in two cars at around 1:00, but we had to stop at a guitar shop in downtown Provo to pick up a certain SOMEONE who shall be left unnamed :) After nearly missing the shop and being stuck in P-town forever, we successfully picked everyone up and were off to Salt Lake. Or Salty Lay's, as some say. We made it to the Gavilan Center at 2, after parking and everything. The line was enormous-we were all a little worried, especially because one of the bands we wanted to see started at 2:10. Luckily, it turned out that the line was for will call and we had gotten ours sent in the mail. Well, almost all of us-poor C. had his on Will Call so he still had to wait in line! Luckily he made it in before any of the bands he wanted to see started.

So we went in and tried to find a spot to stand, which was difficult, to say the least. The place was packed. Wall-to-wall. But we wanted to be up close for Imagine Dragons, so we took a breath and  dove in.

Scary crowds.

Pretty packed, no? It was actually a little scary because some idiots thought it would be funny to push everyone back and forth-which meant that we all almost fell over once or twice and were crushed! Ahhh!

About to start!!

The first band that played was the Wombats, who were awesome. The girls all stayed further up though because we didn't know their music as well, but the boys W. & C. got started early and went all the way up to the pit from the beginning! We met up with them for Imagine Dragons, who played after a set change.

ID!

And there they are!!! The lead singer doing his mic check, at least! The band was started in Utah Valley, and it was so sweet to see the lead singer get all emotional to be back home after they've made it pretty big. P.S.- he's LDS and married! So fun. 

Actually performing!

Their music was great live- you could tell that they moved it down a couple keys otherwise it would be too high to sing for that long, but still amazing. 

So excited!

Truth be told, we were pretty sweaty after hanging out in the pit for their entire set, so after Imagine Dragons was done we took a water break. Unfortunately, that meant that we missed (most of) AWOL Nation, which I was bummed about, but we still heard all their songs. We just weren't in the pit or super close. 

Post-pit picture.

Next up was Grouplove, who we were able to see pretty well. We weren't in the pit (which was a good thing, if you ask me...), but we had a great vantage point to see the entire stage and moshing without actually being down in it.

Yes, one of the members is in a plaid bathrobe. Don't ask me why.

Grouplove was awesome. Everything was awesome. ANOTHER AWESOME CONCERT WEEKEND. I had listened to some of Grouplove's songs before, but I found that I liked them even more live. And later on that day, we actually got to meet one of them!

Of course, it's bathrobe guy!

After Grouplove was some crazy band called The Used who like to profane a lot, so we just kind of took a break. And while we took a break, we ran into a celebrity! Well, a YouTube celebrity that I actually had no idea who he was, but everyone else did. And hey, he was tall and cute!

Apparently he's a guy from "Kid History" shorts
on YouTube. I'll have to look him up!

After our amazing celebrity run-in, it was time for Neon Trees. We couldn't see them that well because they were closing, so everyone was there (there were two stages for earlier in the day). We decided to walk around to a different side of the stage to see if we could see the stage better, and THEN- the HIGHLIGHT of the concert:

IMAGINE DRAGONS AGAIN!

We ran into the LEAD SINGER OF IMAGINE DRAGONS! AND got a picture with him! I'm bummed that my purse is hanging awkwardly, but, oh well. SO COOL. So we got to listen to amazing bands play and met 3 CELEBRITIES/BANDS. Not too bad for 25 bucks. 

We never really got to see Neon Trees that well, but we could hear them just fine. I realized that I didn't know their music that well, just hits like "Animal" and "Everybody Talks".

Camera-above-the-head shot.

After Neon Trees finished, we all drove back to Provo (which was an adventure in and of itself...like getting on the wrong freeway!). Everyone ate dinner at IHOP together, which is actually delicious at 10 o'clock at night, and then came back to Helaman to watch a movie on blankets on the lawn with everyone in our carpool and some other guy friends of my friends from BYU-I. I can now say that I have seen Mean Girls! It does have some great one-liners, and now I know what people mean when they say "You go, Glen Coco! And none for Gretchen Wieners". You know, stuff like that. 

All in all, another wonderful concert and weekend. It isn't all fun and games though-lots of work these next couple of weeks and we hit midterms. What's left for me tonight is a home-cooked meal at J&J's (sosososo excited. you have no idea!), my Sunday Skype chats, and ward prayer. Great weekend. Ready to start the week again tomorrow!