Brian = NYC

Looking back on this, I look like a douchebag with short hair. haha.

 

 

The day was August 1st, I had been waiting for it for almost 6 months when I saw the big purple sticker on [artist]The Sounds[/artist] new cd [album artist=The Sounds]Dying To Say This To You[/album] back in March that said See The Sounds at this summers Warped Tour! I had been waiting forever to see them live, they never played anywhere near me besides Toronto (about 4 1/2 hours away) and New York City (5 hours by car, 8 by bus) and I didn't have my license at this time (haha didn't really matter, read on) so I really didn't have anyway to get to the shows. Anyways, my friend, Calvin and I are in love with [artist]The Sounds[/artist], Like we idolize them HARDCORE and we got our drivers ed teacher to change the class that day to 7 am so we could get to Warped Tour at Darien Lake (by Buffalo NY, it's about an hour and a half from where I live).


 After class we met up with 2 of our friends and set off on the 116 degree day. We got there and the girls had to be girls and put on all their sunscreen and shit, we were getting pissed and after I MADE SURE my one friend had her ticket, she left it in the car, I was fucking livid haha. We finally get to the gates and see a bunch of our friends, get inside, head right to The Sounds merch tent while they are setting up, I saw Jval (I talked to him on myspace, he is their merch dude) He didn't recognize me so I didn't want to look like an assbag and say somthing :). We went to the big blowup thing that says when all the bands are playing, turns out that they were playing at 1:10 MAINSTAGE BABY!

So we walked around, caught The Academy Is's set, they were pretty good from what I remember

While we were watching them, my friend, Abby called wondering where we were, we lost them right when we got there. We met them at the bathrooms and
THEN IT WAS TIME!

We walked over to the Teddy Bear Stage where Rise Against or Against Me! Or some shitty band like that was playing, they sucked. After their set, we ran right up to the barrier and got dead center in front of the mic, we were waiting a good half an hour before anything happened. The stage crew came out and started setting up, he played a verse of Queen of Apology real quick, then he went off and a few minutes later Fredrik came out and set up his drums the way he wanted, I could barely stand I was so excited!

Fredrik went off and a few minutes later, after getting little glimpses of the rest of the band backstage they came out and I don't even remember what they opened with, maybe Queen of Apology

ok, so they played that song or that and another and then introduced themselves, Calvin and I were totally digging it. They played Queen Of Apology, Song with A Mission, Hit Me, Mine For Life, Announced their new single would be Painted By Numbers, Tony The Beat, and I think they ended with Living In America. There was probably one more song, I can't remember what it was though.

Damnn this is already getting long, on my myspace version the Buffalo stop was like minuscule compared to the next one, oh well, I got time.

Hit Me! Video:

Pictures from Buffalo
 

^^Total love right there!^^

Alright, more pictures here http://s7.photobucket.com/albums/y284/brianmigliore/THE%20SOUNDS/?start=0

Well after they were done playing I felt like my life was complete, we walked over to the merch tent, we were the first ones there for the signing then we accidentally got out of line and had to get behind a few people

we got up, met them, I told Maja how much I fucking loved her and she kissed me haha, I got some shit signed and my picture taken with Maja and felt like my life was an even bigger case of DOMINATION

 and my double signed (one for real) booklet

yeahh thats it for Buffalo, the good shit anyways, we atched a couple more bands, rode some rollercoasters and then went home.
ok

ROUND 2 OF 2006 SCRANTON PA 08/4/2006

This is where things get super good, I need some more Orange Juice though, brb
k

So the day after warped Calvin and I were talking about how fucking awesome and stuff The Sounds were and we knew that there was another Warped Tour in a place called Scranton PA (I'm very familiar with the area now) We had no clue where this was, but we live on the border of PA and NY so we have easy access to  state, I checked it out that night and it was like a little under 3 hours away, not too bad, and as long as I passed my road test the next day

Alright continuing, There was no reason that I wouldn't pass, I dominate driving. The next day rolls around, I go to drivers ed, go to my road test, the lady gets in my car and says she can't give me my road test because my inspection was overdue (by 2 fucking days!!!!!) so we went and got it inspected, went back, the bitch still wouldn't let me take it despite the fact that no one else was there. ughhh My dad bitched at her and we went home. The next day I remember perfectly, it was a thursday, we had drivers ed class at 8:30, we were taking the final (which I bombed lmao) and after the test a bunch of us went into the teachers lounge to wait til everyone was done, Calvin and I were telling everyone how awesome Warped Tour was and stuff and how we wanted to go the next day in Scranton but I couldn't drive because the stupid bitch wouldn't let me take my road test. We decided that we would go anyways, my parents were going to Florida the next day, wer didn't have drivers ed, so there was nothing to stand in our way! No one thought we would actually do it but I went home and bought my ticket, went to work, was walking to my friends and I called Calvin to see if he was in, his mom picked up, she asked me if I was a good driver and stuff, you know, the usual concerned parent things. I talked to Calvin and we were fucking ecstatic about the next day, it was unbelieveable that we were going to do this. I got home and went straight to bed so my parents couldn't talk to me at all, my dad found directions to Scranton on the mantle in my living room and woke me up to ask me about them, I told him that I printed them off for my friend haha. My mom woke me up the next day when they were leaving. It was about 4 AM, I said goodbye and tried to go back to sleep until 5 but I just couldn't do it, I was so fucking pumped I can't even describe it, well I was a little scared too. I got on the computer, got a few final directions, printed off my ticket and set off to get cCalviun a little before 6, we got to Giant Food Mart (where I work) right when they were opening at 6, we saw Fantoon, told him what was up, went in, got some red bull and some batteries (excuse the typos, this thing is getting so long it is lagging tmy internet and I don't see what I type until about 30 seconds after I type it) we were off! we decided to take "The Scenic Route" even though my drivers ed teacher told up to just take the expressway (I was scared to tdo that, I've never driven anywhere but the country/my town that has 7000 people in it. We get going, get last a few times, nothing too big. we look at the directions printed off from Mapquest and see that it says we only have about 11 miles until Scranton! We were so pumped, then we looked at the map that came with it and it said we were only halfway there haha. I kept driving until we got to a Burger King, we went in and asked for directions and the lady at the counter said we just stay on the same road for about 2 and a half more hours until we get to Scranton, this was ok I guess, even though we had already driven well over 2 hours, that meant there was no way in hell it was going to take under 3 hours total, we were just happy that we were going the right way. We drove for another 2 hours or so, saw a travel agency in the middle of nowhere and decided to stop and ask them for directions to make sure that we were going the right way. sure enough, we only had about an hour left to go, we were driving along the shitty hills and saw a sign in the distance. This sign read SCRANTON! CAlvin and I fucking yelled at the top of out lungs and gave each other a high five at the red light by Gays  Hardware (we tried to take a picture of the sign but the light turned green haha)We finally get into Scranton after like 6 hours, the place is huge, way bigger than we thought. I'm driving along and somehow end up on the "Central Scranton Expressway"
[img]http://www.dot.state.pa.us/penndot/districts/district4.nsf/81-380-CaseyInterchange.jpg[/img]
yeah, thats it. Keep in mind there was TONS of traffic and I had never driven in anything like it (my first time driving on a 2 lane expressway was the day before in drivers ed) and this thing was 5 lanes of pure hell! haha. Ok I'm getting sick of talking about driving, we finally saw a sign for Wilkes-Berre(the lady at the travel place told us to go right past the exit and the exit we were looking for, Montage Mountain Road was just past it). ok, I know this is probably sounding really shitty now, I don't even know what I'm typing but we got off at the exit, drove the wrong way, ended up at some offices, turned around, cut off some skinhead guy that was really scary, got in a traffic jam going up to the venue, my gas tank was on empty and I had no clue where we were, I just knew that we were 2 miles away from seeing THE SOUNDS! we finally got up to the makeshift parking lot in the grass and got out of the car, I put on my shoes (I always wear sandals in the summer when driving, I hate wearing shoes) thats kinda irrelevant but whatever. As soon as we step foot outside the car, some Jesus dude comes up to me and asks me if I want to donate for a bible, I'm like uhh no thanks, he goes over to the skinhead guy that I cut off, who is talking about "I'm not fuckin' parkin here, if anyone touches my fuckin' truck I'll fuckin kill them" Calvin is like going crazy telling me to look, I do, the guy takes the bible looks at it, gives it back and is like "get the fuck outta here" haha

we make our way down to this huge ass line, wait for like 45 minutes, we thought we were going to miss The Sounds play which would FUCKING SUCK, all things considered. As soon as we get in the gates, we like sprint about a mile to where the good stages were, it was about 2 PM and as we were running by The Sounds tent, we looked over and Majas girlfriend was sitting on her lap and pointed towards us, Maja turned around and was like "OH MY GOD! IT'S YOU GUYS!!!!" we were like umm WTF!? MAJA IVARSSON RECOGNIZED US! Her girlfriend was backstage in Buffalo and must have seen us dominate that show. We walked over to the tent and I don't remember how the conversation started but we talked to her for about 20 minutes, she told us about how it was like 12 and she was all worried because they didn't have a set list and they werent ready or anything because her manager told her that they played at like 12:30 or something and they actually played at like 4:30 but he forgot to tell her haha, she said she was like "fuck you ya know haha" so we basically just told her about how awesome they were, what we went through to get there and she was absolutely loving us, she held my hand and rubbed my arm for basically the whole time we talked, I was pretty much in heaven :), she asked us our names and if we wanted them to play any songs and then after she told us that she wanted us front row center again, we said goodbye and went over to the big blowup thing to see if any other sweet bands were playing. We were so pumped! We went over and checked out Hellogoodbye, went back to The Sounds merch tent, bought some sweet pins and then walked around for a little bit,  AIDEN was playing(lol #bad) We watched a few songs, decided they were all the same, started walking back to The Sounds tent and some random kid that was on acid or somthing comes up behind us, puts his arms around our shoulders and brings our heads in together and was telling us how Aiden was the worst fucking band there" It was a mix of funny/scary/extremely creepy. We went to the tent and JVal was talking about how bad Aiden was, so I dissed them with him and then I told him I was the kid from myspace that talked to him. We went and watched a band caled We Are The FURY (Calvin talked to them in Buffalo), they were really sweet, didn't have a lot of people watching them though. Now it was time to dominate front row. We walked over to the stage and what did we see? A bunch of 40 year olds revisiting their rebellious years and rocking out to HELMET (bad) it was pretty funny, when my ears were done bleeding, we got right in front of the mic once again and prepared for another awesome show. Same thing, David came out, set some shit up, Fredrik came out, set up the drums. The rest of the band came on, played some sweet songs
like

Dance With Me, Living In America, Tony the Beat, Ego (plus the electric drums), Song With A Mission, Hit Me!,  Painted By Numbers, Night After Night (Rock Version) and Rock N Roll maybe?

Ok so when they were done playing, we walked past their tent and there was already a handfull of people lining up to meet them, Calvin and I opted to go sit down, when we got back to the tent, the band wasn't there yet, so we chilled at the end of the line, the band came to the tent and Maja kept looking up ad me and winking and saying 1 sec! :D  When the line was gone Calvin and I went up to the table for what was probably the most memorable moment of my young life. We get up to the table and Felix and Jesper are like "Hey! Whats up guys!?" We got our programs signed and then they came out of the tent and hung out with us and took pictures for like 2 hours! I don't even remember half the stuff we talked about but they apologized to us for not playing good, which they actually played amazingly, they felt bad we drove all that way and they felt as if they played bad (it's now 3:30 so if you can still understand what I'm typing congratulations!). All I remember is Andy Carlson (works for Kamisol, they produced the Painted By Numbers video) writing some stuff on Calvins stomach, Shouting stuff at weird kids through a megaphone with Jesper, making really queer poses with Felix and having Maja kiss me AGAIN! (Thats twice in 4 days by the way). We just talked and stuff with them for a long time, Maja went back to the bus after a while and we just hang out with Jesper, Felix, and Fredrik. I don't know where Johan went to. The thing I will probably remember the most is when we were about to leave and Jesper was giving me tips on how not to get pulled over, when I told him I drove there without my license because we decided to go see them again because they were so fucking good, he was like in sheer disbelief that we would do that and was like "Rock n roll dudes, Rock n roll." Jesper and Maja were asking us if we were going to go to any more shows of theirs that summer, I was like "I really want to go to the show at the Wiltern in LA" and they were like yeah, thats going to be a really special show, We're going to play goodbye Seventies there too (we told them how much we liked that song, it's not on their cd's so they never play it at shows) and Jesper said if we were going to go to just write to them on Myspace and he would get us on the guest list (AWESOME!) We finally exchange goodbyes and start to head out, we see The Academy Is is playing and decide to go check them out, we get over there and we are too fucking pumped from what just happened to care about anything else so we decide to call it a day. We get back to the car, go down the mountain, run over a rattlesnake and set off for Watkins Glen where I had to drop Calvin off at. After getting some gas and driving around looking for the right way to get home I decide to just take the highway because back roads suck. After getting boxed in by semis, Going 60 miles in the wrong direction from Watkins Glen, and an extremely awesome day, I made it home. Unfortunately so did my parents a few days later. They were fucking PISSED i put 850 miles on the car, my dad almost killed me but I would do everything exactly the same if I had the chance to do it all over.

I talked to Jesper on Myspace, he got me on the list for LA and I fucking missed my flight because of stupid ass terrorist plots, mother fuckers, I'm still pissed about that.