whew... finally have use of a computer with intranet.
set list:
1. I Think I Can
2. Blues Drive Monster
3. Carnival
4. Crazy Sunshine
5. Instant Music
6. Freebee Honey
7. Terminal Heaven's Rock
8. I Know You
9. Funny Bunny
10. One Life
11. Ride on Shooting Star
12. Little Busters
13. Hybrid Rainbow
14. Last Dinosaur
15. [encore] Advice
Best dam friday the 13th ever. [skip to "CONCERT" if u dont want to read the whole thing"
well, on wednesday i got a bad fever and had delusions (such as my bed being my mortal enemy and i had to heal myself by finding.."ten".
) and i almost didnt make it to my thursday 5:45 flight!! luckily, i skipped school thursday and got well enough to travel at 2pm.
Southwest Airlines is okay for a very cheap price (bearably uncomfortable). i arrived at my aunt's house at 1am. woke up and got to ACEN at 8am.. NEVER GO TO A CON WITHOUT PRE-REGISTERING. the lines looked like hell for At-Con registration.. and u have to be around the otakus the whooole time.. [line #1]
tickets for the first concert were distributed right outside the registration room. i got there early at around 9:30 and waited in the new line for that. [line #2]. in both lines i was behind a trio who seemed to be there just for the concert. a girl had a pink striped shirt which had a drawn Terminal skunk and "the pillows" on the back.. weirdest self-made shirt i saw. anywayz, the tickets (i'll scan and post one up when i get back home) and badges were stamped with invisible ink.
With that done and over with, i could do anything else for the next 7 hours..
but the exhibit hall where people sell stuf was pretty small..and bags werent allowed into the concert so i couldnt buy anything anywayz.. so i spent like..5 hours watching anime.. when i got out to goto the restroom, an amazing thing happened.. i heard the security (or what they call "Incident Response Team" ) yelling to "Get outta the way" so i moved and i saw that they were escorting the pillows to the grand ballroom for the concert! i yelled out for "Jun" becuse i was still sick and he has the easiest name to say. but he didnt hear. then i saw SAWAO~ and i yelled the loudest i could and he saw me and waved at me and he lurched forward to get a better look (which i later figured was because of my home-made shirt, i'll talk about it later..) GAWD. that was amazing.. and they're really around the same height. and for some reason..they looked very "gray" compared to everything else. i guess theyr just THAT old..
i did what every other sensible person would do-followed them.
then the lines started for the concert. i was around the 11th person in line, but they kicked me out cuz i had my purse with me.. =O so i ran to the hotel lobby to see what they could do. after 10 minutes, i got my bag checked in, and i ran back and got in line.. i got in luckily and waited in the big expanding circle of people outside the grand ballroom. geez..i tried looking for someone from the forums.. but noone seemed like they were.. u cant imagine how many odd stares i had because: i looked like a minor and should have been at school, was asian (minority..), was ALONE, and was constantly lost.. =[
CONCERT(s)
Opening for the pillows was "S.W.E.K" (dont ask me what that stands for, i dunno). which was an amateur group of otakus playing music from animes.. but they had a trumpeter, tromboner, and a tubist <3<3<3 accompanying them. they played songs like "Kensai ..something." from FullMetal Alchemist. Love Machine from Morning Musume (they called it "disco"..) and Blurry Eyes from L'Arc~en~Ciel. at first, i was behind a group of friggin tall guys at the stage group (i'll draw a picture and scan it ) but i was able to push my way through to the front with the other smaller people~ yay~ buahaha. i knew the lyrics to the songs, most of the crowd around me was silent (there should be a rule that states only avid fans to be at the front, the rest is a waste..). i had to move around a lot cuz the speakers were so dam loud they were controlling my heart rate in quarter notes. the performance was decent. mmm loved the tuba parts~. SWEK went on for around an hour. then the ACEN staff member who was dressed like Ikari Gendo from Evangelion told everyone to get out of the room so the pillows could sound-check.. although it was done already.. (ACEN really doesnt know how to host a concert...geez). so we got out and waited AGAIN. after the first concert was delayed for an hour.
while waiting i saw someone with a "sank you my twilight" etched into his sweat-jacket.. looked pretty kool. and his friend had a white shirt with (for some reason) the faces that the pillows drew of themselves at that one concert with the japanese-speaking-green-haired-British dude (mann, i need my comp.) on his shirt and "all busters go to heaven" on the back with a picture of..buster-kun with a halo. (um..MORBID).
went back in, and this time i was farther off than before =O . hehe.. fortunately, i knew how to beat that. =] i squeezed through and managed to get to the front again- behind 2 people from the front of the stage on Manabe's side. the pillows started right away and played their amazing first song. ack.. this guy next to me started flirting with me..
he told me i looked cute and kept asking me to join him and his friends for something. and i declined the whole time.. i missed valuable concert time cuz of that guy.. but then again, while i was trying to get away from him, i found myself right in front of Manabe. XD he noticed me quite a lot cuz i was practically screaming out the lyrics to all the songs (besides freebee honey.. man..i regret not listening to Penalty Life more ..).
during every guitar solo, i stopped jumping and simply raised my fist straight in the air. homage to great guitar playing. they sounded GREAT live and watching him play it out on his Mustang.. the BEST. also from that view i saw everyone else, Sawao, Jun at the end, and Sato (who seemed to sweat the most!). they played the list pretty much the whole way through. pausing for water and toweling every so often and Sawao introducing the songs as he always does "i love you, funny bunny" and "C'mon Little Busters". Mann he had energy that night. ack.. Sawao looked Soooo OLD when he came on, but he had a lot of kicks in him. i was afraid that he wasnt going to take this concert seriously.. but everything went well. =D although BDMonster (whom i met at the Autograph session line) told me that one time, sawao was playing off one fret and when he looked down to fix it Jun and Manabe looked at eachother and laughed a little.
There was a mosh pit in the area in front of Sawao and i heard that area was the worst cuz it really a lot of tall guys just jumping around (but then, when they came back down, their elbows hit people on the head.. -_-'').
and..hm..ok.. random things: ah yes. the usual pillows staff was there! that guy who always takes Manabe's guitar when he bows down at the end of a take (the dude with the mohawk), a guy from Walkin dvd was there too.. they had someone taping the concert from the stage view, someone else taking pictures, and ACEN filming for their simulcast in another room.
at the end of the concert, i asked the head IRT for a setlist, but he said no.. then i asked him if he could take off a thong that someone threw onstage cuz it seemed embarassing, but he said "well...its for the band, i cant take it off the stage.."
wut a weird impression of Americans eh?
afterwards, i ran to the hotel to get my bag, then up to the autoraph session. there was a line that seemed like a mile. =O these two guys in front of me were pretty fun.
and while i was in line, we saw BD holding Manabe's set list, so i quickly asked them to hold my spot in line and ran after him. i asked to copy the list, and while were deciphering the abreviations for songs, i asked him if he went on Instant Music, and he reads stuff, but he rarely posts.. then we went on a search for the men's restroom.. (??)
AUTOGRAPH SESSION
the line progressed into the maze of the Diplomat room and was cut off around 30 people behind me. (LUCKY!!). and pillows brought their swag!! i was still pretty dizzy from the concert and the sight of the many tshirts almost killed off the circulation to my head~. there was the 916, She is Perfect, Walkin, Good Dreams, I Like You (for girls), Nekoduro, Super Trampoline, Kissen, Terminal Heaven's, Makura, Thank You Very Much I Like You Busters. and of course, the keychain/cellphone sets.
my hands are hurting..i'll make this quick.. they had a cd sale "3 for 35$" of FLCL and Penalty life cds, so i got that. and i bought 7 shirts..
so i was holding up the line, when i got my stuff, they hurried me over and i holding all the stuff and everyone was required to have wutever u wanted signed out and ready. so i shuffled over to a chair nearby and shoved all the stuff in a bag and when i looked up, the pillows were in front of me.. (i think they were amused with the scene.. some little girl bought so much stuff then realizes she was being watched..
) i took out Walkin cover and they were surprised (thnx terra) but they paused to look at my shirt and they commented that they really liked it, they asked where i got it and how i made it, and ahhh.. manabe told me twice that he really liked it~ and i asked where "Jun-san" was (dangit!! i forgot to use formalities.. cuz im used to referring to him as just Jun).. and manabe said "ah..Jun.. hotel". and he laughed when i looked sad. i think manabe recognized me after staring at him throughout the concert. heh... Sato didnt say much..
and i didnt get to take a picture with them cuz i didnt have a camera (concert rules..grr). whew..that is pretty much it.. on saturday, i tried getting a picture at their second autograph session, but they cancelled the session to get to a press conference. o well. it was still worth the trip here. =]
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). there wasn't really a pit going on, but it seemed like one wanted to start. me & the other guy i was there with limited ourselves to sort-of-halfway-headbanging, though there were some who were getting a little too crazy for the surrounding people. my friend was actually one of the people who accidentally clipped somebody on the head, he was bringing his arm down out of the air and got bumped into the woman next to him. i feel sorry for both of them, the woman because she got clipped with an elbow, and my bud because he felt really guilty and it kinda wrecked the night's mood for him. 
