Myself and 3 of my friends, Angela, Danny, and Jena decided we wanted to make a day of this event and go.... 6 hours early. We packed ourselves a cooler with tons of bottled water, sandwiches, chips, granola bars, all the essentials. To our suprise there was a boy already waiting in line, who arrived about 2 minutes prior to us. 2 of his friends quickly joined him and we all shared sandwiches and talked. (I think we brought enough food for the whole city of SF) We got to chat with Adam of TBS and various members of the Used. Quin of the Used went into the skateboard type thing shop across the street and we watched him fall on his ass, good times. They were all so nice to us and I really think they appreciated us waiting in line for so long. About 3 hours later Danny and I went to talk to Adam of tbs and I boasted how tbs and Used fans were the ones waiting in line for so long, not BCR fans. He said he was feeling better (after an breaking his hip playing a show) and wouldnt be sitting down for this show (as he had two days earlier at the Sacramento show). He is still confined to a cain, and would have that on stage with him. So 6 hours passes, some kids got to meet Tom and Travis of BCR, two nice girls who cried, it was sweet. The line got longer and longer and thats when I knew 6 hours was worth it. So on to the show.
TAKING BACK SUNDAY:
This is my first time seeing Taking Back Sunday, I had been to two previous shows they were scheduled to play but one of them they got cut and another is when Adam was injured. I knew this was going to be a profound experience for me. Danny and I rushed to the front of the stage, and were front row. This made me happy. TBS took the stage and played a short set, but worth every penny. We were suprised when Adam wasn`t sitting at all for the whole show. There were a couple technical diffaculties and some people said the vocals could have been louder, but they were the opener so I didn`t expect much for the sound quality. Its hard for me to remember all of the songs they played because I was in such awe and overwhelmed with happiness for just fineally being able to see them. I waited for so long. They played "Your So Last Summer" a crowd pleaser and people danced around to that one. They dedicated a song to Danny, shes a super fan, has a tbs tattoo! They played one of their older songs "The Ballad of Sal Villanueva" and she cried, as expected. The closed with my favorite song. "Theres no I in Team" and of course, I cried like a baby. I still cry when I hear that song. Overall, they played awesome. So much stage energy, I couldn`t didnt expect so much from Adam, with him being hurt and all. They got the crowd into it and let us feel their emotion. It was awesome. Truly awesome.
The Used:
The Used was up next. I got out of the pit for them, I sort of wore myself out with tbs so I wanted to chill for them. But 2 songs into their set, I regretted being out of it because they rocked. I wish I could have been in there jumping around and what not. The singer was so awesome, he has a remarkable voice. I was couldn`t help but just go, "wow." In the middle of the set he yelled, "its backflip time" and the audience called out 1-2-3 and he performed a backflip. It was pretty cool. At the MNL show on Saturday Danny told Brandon to do a backflip, it was funny. Overall, I would say The Used did an awesome job. Lots of screaming and strong vocals. I enjoyed them and the crowd sure did, next to BCR I would say The Used had the most fans there. It was pretty cool to see so many people into a band who isn`t inceredibly popular.
H20:
H20 was up next. I saw them about a year ago and I liked them a lot. On the contrary to a lot of the crowd, I heard a lot of people in line saying how they weren`t here to see h20 but I was happy to see them on the bill. Like their lead singer said, they are definetly a crowd participation band. Without a doubt. Their singer went down to the pit to sing to the audience and their guitarist held out his instrument and let some kids play it. It was pretty cool. Not a lot of kids knew their songs, but I had fun singing along. They had this hip hop feel to them, I didn`t notice this so much the last time I saw them. They have good poppy songs that made the kids dance and jump around. It was rad times. They closed with the Madonna cover, "Like a Prayer." One I was hoping for them to play. It was sick! They played awesome, I would say better then the last time I saw them. A lot of new songs which I liked but also wished they played some older ones.
Boxcar Racer:
This was BCR`s first trip to the Bay Area. I don`t know if I`ll be seeing them again though, sadly. I am a huge Blink fan, not to compare BCR to Blink but I do own the BCR cd and I do like it a lot. The live show was nothing like the cd. Maybe the music was too loud (the bass surely was) but to be blunt, Tom sounded like shit. Also, there seemed to be no feel for the music. Tom stood there, sand with average energy and the other guys just walked around bobbing their heads. When I first heard the cd MelOdy and I were pretty blown away, I think we both just expected another Blink 182. We were dead wrong. The cd is pretty sick, but all of the emotion and good vocals you heard on the cd were absent for the live performance. It makes me sad to come to the realization that they were not good live, I was hoping and hoping they would be awesoome. So many people say Blink sucks live (I disagree with that) so I was hoping bcr would blow people away and anti blink fans could cool it a bit. But I wont be defending BCR to those people. I just didn`t enjoy their show, so we left early.

Well I was suprised by the group of kids who came to the show. I used to like seeing shows in Sacto better then the Bay because the kids were generally nicer. I don`t know if it is just that we brought tons of food or what not, but everyone we met in line and in the pit was just super cool. We met a lot of good people that night who make me think differently about going to shows in SF now. The security was ok, no pictures were allowed and they strictly inforced that rule. Not too much crowd surfing and they weren`t assholes to the kids who did. It was a super cool show overall. Go buy Taking Back Sunday- "Tell all your Friends." It`ll save your life. I promise.

xOxO
Jen aka "xMarilyNx"