At the end of March, I went to see Sherwood at the Velour. Cora and I started the night by meeting Matt, Mandy, and Ethan at J Dawgs in Provo. Matt had heard that the guys in Sherwood really like J Dawgs and go there every time they play in Provo, so we thought we'd see if we could run into them. We did. The whole band was there with everybody else that they travel with. My nephew Ethan was running around like a crazy person, and everyone thought he was pretty cute. Which he is.
We headed to the venue for the show, and there were three bands before Sherwood. Three! It was crazy. Sherwood didn't come on until after 10:00. But it was so worth it! It was hands down the best Sherwood concert (heck, the best concert period) I've ever been to. It was a. maze. ing. Really and truly amazing. The crowd was so into the show, but they weren't being crazy and stupid. Everyone was just having fun, and it was great.
I didn't take a ton of pictures since it was concert number five for me.
There were so many good things about this show! I'll try not to gush since I still have another concert to talk about in this post, but there was one point where they broke into amazing a capella three-part harmony. They didn't even play a starting note. It was crazy cool. They also played a couple of songs that I have never heard live, which is always awesome after going to so many shows. Their last song of the night (well, before the encore) was "Party in the U.S.A." by Miley Cyrus. Dave (the one in the first picture) sang lead and crowd surfed. It was probably the funniest thing ever, though I still hate that song.
After the show, we talked to all of the band members and I got a t-shirt signed. I also got a drumstick from Joe, which was awesome. I've wanted one since the first show I went to. It still makes me happy to see it sitting on my bookshelf.
This past Tuesday, Faith and I went to see OK Go in Salt Lake. We were both a little nervous because it was at a 21 and over venue, and neither of us had been to one before, but everything was fine. Though there was a guy right behind us who was completely smashed. It was kind of funny.
We managed to get so close to the stage. We could have reached out and touched the lead guitarist. It was awesome. I have to get that close at the next Sherwood show. I just have to.
It took forever for OK Go to come onstage, and the opening two bands . . . well . . . sucked. Kind of a lot. And they were really loud, so that wasn't fun. Plus, there was this middle-aged man with this really impressive beer belly who was staking out a close place with his wife, and all through the opening acts, he kept looking at me and Faith. Creepy. I get the heebie jeebies just thinking about it.
Then OK Go came on, and it was pretty dang awesome. (Warning: picture overload ahead.)
The show was complete with a confetti cannon, light-up jackets, lasers, and light-up instruments. It was pretty ridiculous. If they hadn't actually been really good musicians (they sound just as good live as they do recorded), the gimmicks would have really bugged me, but instead, they were just fun. Damian, the lead singer, actually jumped down into the audience a couple of times. It was awesome.
At the end of the absolutely ridiculous four-song encore, the drummer came to the front of the stage and chucked his drum sticks out at the audience. I thought we would be too close to catch one, but one soared right over my head, and I caught it. But as I was bringing it in, this super awesome (feel the sarcasm) girl behind me grabbed the handle with both hands and wrenched it away from me. I was so mad, but I think I got something even better than a drumstick.
After the show, Faith and I bought posters and stuck around to see if the band would come out. They never did, so after a few minutes, we decided to go out to my car, which was parked behind the venue. Little did we know that the tour van was there too. Damian was outside talking to a couple of people, so we went over there and chatted for a second. Tim, the bassist, came out too, so we got their autographs. The other members of the band had disappeared somewhere, apparently, but at least I got a couple of autographs. It was pretty sweet. I wanted to take pictures, but a little bit after we got out there, a bunch of people came and completely monopolized the guys' attention, and it was really late, so Faith and I decided to take off.
All in all, it was a really good show. I had tons of fun, though there were a couple of things that bugged me. The lead singer loved the F-bomb. It was only in maybe two songs, but he said it over and over in chatting with the audience. And then he decided to crack religion/polygamy jokes. Because we've never heard those before. It just got a little old. I was really glad their actual music was awesome, because otherwise I probably wouldn't have had any fun at all.
So to sum up, even though OK Go had more money to do more gimmicky things, I still liked Sherwood better. They're not foul mouthed (at least not on stage, and not in person as far as I can tell), they don't make fun of Utah's religion, and their music has no swearing in it at all. Plus, the atmosphere at the two venues was completely different. I much prefer the all-ages venues to the 21-and-over venues.
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