I Ask You: Was It Worth It?

So this past Friday, I went to see the fabulous Kings of Leon at Rockefeller Centre...para gratis. Sounds awesomesauce, no? Well, I wouldn't call it that.


Good Time To Roll On
The first time I've seen them live was at the 1st All Points West Festival at Liberty State Park and I was blown away by their performance. I've heard of these hombres a few years back, but the only songs I knew by them were King of the Rodeo and On Call. I didn't even know they were gonna be playing a gig there. However, once I heard the songs from their latest album, Only By The Night live, I was completely mesmerized. It was completely different from their previous work. It was music which, I felt, both brought the crowd together and allowed the listener to somehow fall into its warm embrace as though they were cradled by what was the most understanding human being ever to exist. It may strange, but only a few musicians have this talent to captivate the audience in such a way and I felt this band succeeded in doing so. Plus, they got the Thom Yorke seal of approval and that usually means a good thing. The dude has a brilliant knack of finding good talent in low-key musicians and then they eventually find their way to the top. If it worked for M.I.A. and Bat For Lashes, hey, why not for The Kings of Leon?


Hmmm...
Since I had such an awesome time seeing them last year, I wanted to see them this year at the Toyota Summer Concert Series on the Today Show. The shows were held on Friday mornings for free and people were allowed in on a first-come, first-serve basis. I went with i miei amici mainly because I wanted to share a day without sleep with them, wait like a wretched hobo on the pavements of New York City at 4:00 AM and listen to the band...again...but this time, a bit closer. And when I mean close, I mean close-enough-to-wipe-my-sweat-from-my-brow-onto-Caleb's-shirt close.

I Shouldv'e Bought The Electric Company
In order to accomplish my first task, I stayed with my awesome chums, Jymmi Aaja and Reese, over at Jymmi's place. I looked at the time. It was about 10:30. To start off the night, we decided to play a "friendly" game of Monopoly with the kid (Jymmi always mentions him as the kid, so I'll just continue this story with his identity as so). Apparently, this game of Monopoly is far from friendly. I was assured by Jymmi that the kid has never won a game of Monopoly in his life when he played with her and felt it was impossible to lose to this child. I was also made aware that Jymmi was the champion of champions when it came to Monopoly for five years straight. Unfortunately, this was the night I made her retire her title with humility and allow the kid to take all the glory for once. I didn't do this on purpose. The kid was begging for some property I had because he had the other matching two. I just wanted him to shut up the fuck up to be honest. After I traded the property, the game as we knew it, fell into an irrepressible vortex and gave birth to a brutal army of unreasonably expensive hotels and house rentals. For every other turn, Jymmi gave me Medusa's glare in hopes of me turning into stone and preventing me from making any other stupid moves. The damage was done. The kid won the game and there was nothing we could do about it. To me it was just a game, but to Jymmi it was a matter of life or death. Kinda like Jumanji, but worse. I looked at the time. It was only 12:30 AM. This was gonna be a long day...

The Ultimate Procrastinator
One hour goes by. Then two. Then three. Time really does fly when your watching YouTube videos of music videos and band interviews in anticipation for a concert. Sadly, this was my first and only prep time for watching Kings of Leon. You know how you have to be in the mood to listen to the band live, so you listen to all their music beforehand? Well, I was in any mood for listening to southern rock for the past two days. I just couldn't get into it. I was too enraptured in fucking Bjork. Of all people, Bjork. I just had to buy her Post album that week, and I just couldn't stop listening to it. Then I was like, "I need to see her live....NOW!!!". But then again, it's no longer 1995, and she wouldn't sound as cool. Besides, the tickets for her last show in NYC was a minimum of 100 bucks. Screw that! So there we were, in Jymmi's room, watching videos. There was one with the entire band and their family around a campfire talking and questioning the significance of men's testicles. Wow, that was priceless. Finally, it was about 3:30ish and we had to go. Jymmi's brother drove us to the train station in record speed and we barely had to wait for the F train. So far so good. We meet up another friend of ours, Zara, and her friend, Marissa, on the line. Apparently, Marissa was waiting on the line since 2:00 AM and we were like 60th on line. Fucking brilliant. Like Oh Em Gee, we're like gonna be like in front!! Fan girl moment!

Hey, Ho. Let's Go!
The line begins to move at about 6 AM and I haven't felt the urge to yawn yet. I'm running solely on adrenaline right now, which is a miracle. Usually if I was planning to pull an all-nighter, I would take a half-hour nap and then the rest of my consciousness would be sustained with the help of my good chums Senor Tropicana and Madame Lipton. However, this time I was only depending on my solid 12 hours of sleep I got the day before. I was so confused as to what day it was. It was as though Thursday hit the replay and reverse button at the same time. Our anticipation begins to grow as we hear the sounds out-of-tune guitars and the loud echos of the amps. The line turns on the corner of Rockefeller Centre and the people flood into the plaza, filling all the empty spaces. From afar, we can just make out the white tent which was going to house the Followills. We can also make out the small crowd that already formed in front of the tent. We're gonna be so fucking close, I was telling myself. Then we came to an abrupt holt. What's this? A bar?? Why are we separated from the crowd near the tent? @#$%!?!

Very. Important.Pieces of Shit.
It turns out, the people in the front were "VIP" fans. Now you ask, how do you get the passes? You just assume that these people had some connections with the Today Show. Or they gave a shitload of money to get the passes off of bloody Ticketmaster. Or they just a load of people joined together and decided to fashion out a pass made out of laminated coloured paper at Kinko's. Well, apparently, these "fans" were just ordinary people like you and me, cept they went to NBC's website and filled out a form before the show to get these special passes. What makes you qualify? NOTHING. Even the radio hosts weren't allowed to get that close to the band. Another thing is that I didn't consider them as the real fans. There were little children and old fogies there! What 4 year olds fancy Sex On Fire? And what 60-somethings have any idea that Kings of Leon is a real band? There was also a HUGE space between the bar and the VIPs. It was so inefficient (and unfair) to keep that bar where it was because about 50 other people could have filled up the space. There was no way of crossing, smashing down, crawling under or dismantling that metal bar. We. Were. Screwed.

Oh Yeah...
Oh, and did I mentioned the rain? Oh sorry about that. Well, it rained. And it rained. Then it didn't rain. And then it rained again, but harder. Just to make it worse, as soon as the Kings of Leon stepped out for rehearsal, the VIPs put up their umbrellas because perish forbid, they would dampen their lovely attire. If your going to a concert, you don't dress like a fucking whorebag or beach bum. Especially when it was going to rain that day. The fans who were stuck in a rut like us were of course, feeling the same way as we were. They were shouting and screaming, "PUT THE UMBRELLAS DOWN!!". What made it worse was that the guards let people way in the back in the front into the VIP section. They didn't even deserve it! We barely saw the top of the stage, and at most, saw the bottom edge of the white tent. The way the speakers were placed in front of the stage was brilliant because it was blocking half of the stage. If we were lucky, we got glimpses of Caleb's scalp and Nathan's drum set. Even though none of us real dedicated fans had no way of seeing the band on stage, we were able to to hear them loud and clear. Clear like CD quality clear. We all sang along with the band like drunk bastards. This random Aussie in the crowd held up a sign saying, My Sex Is So Soggy to the camera, in hopes that the Today Show knew what we were going through. We continue to scream at VIPs to put their umbrellas down. We cursed at the people who got an easy ride into the VIP section. In a stupid kind of way, this whole experience was bringing us all together, because we were the ones waiting painstakingly for hours on the edge of a dirty sidewalk for one purpose: to see the Kings of Leon. It was beautiful.

Waiting For You
While they rehearsed, the band played "Use Somebody", "Sex on Fire" and "Notion" and within half an hour, they left the stage. When were planning to come back? Two hours later. Two long fucking hours just to play the exact same songs. And then the rain began to pour out of the clouds like cow piss. Brilliant. What more can a fan ask for? The security guards continued to let in more VIPs who came in a little later, or what I think were VIPs. Their passes were no where to be seen. The guards didn't bother to even ask for them. Every ten minutes or so, we continually asked the guards to let us edge a bit closer to the stage. The asking grew into pleading and finally evolved into plain old begging. Nothing worked, obviously. Some people began to leave. Our beloved Aussie that we grew to know and love thirty minutes ago abandoned the crowd. The rain began to pour harder. All six of us huddled under two small umbrellas. Soon, we began to whine. The rain falling down our cheeks and the raindrops could have been easily mistaken for tears at this point. We looked so pathetic drenched in the pouring rain, covered with the twilight city dust, and eyes heavy of sleep. We became so delirious of everything around us. Then Zara made an amazing discovery.

Candy Everybody Wants
Zara points to the windows of the studio. Hours before, we were hoping to get a small glimpse of the band awaiting for their performance. But suddenly, a man appeared behind the dirt-crusted window of the fourth floor. It was Caleb!! It had to be him! His hair, his face, his everything just screamed Caleb. Magic suddenly went into play. The rain stopped and all our faces lit up like hungry dogs. But of course, when a group of people react to something like that, the crowd begins to follow too. Some people looked up and began to point at the window. I started to record Caleb's every move in super-zoom on my camera as though I found something impossible to ever witness, like the Yeti, or Salman Rushdie. He smirked and waved and we all waved back. Then suddenly, someone screamed "They're back!". The entire band was apparently on stage, including Caleb. Then who's that little doggie in the window? Well, not Caleb. We just spent ten minutes staring at a bootleg version of lead singer. Way to go Zara. But we had to admit, it was kinda funny.

Hang On To Yourself
Now, the live show began. The camera was on and scanning across the crowd. At this point, we were too tired to scream or shout when it came by. The band was being interviewed on the corner by Al Roker. All we saw was Al Roker from the distance and not the band. We just assumed for those ten minutes that the band was being interviewed. The rain began to pour again. Joy of joyness. The band went up on stage, and we could finally get a glimpse of all the members, but in bits and pieces. The only person I was able to see throughout the entire perfomance was Nathan but that was only because he was the drummer and the drummer never moves from his spot. But, after the eighth or ninth time seeing him, you get kinda sick of it. The rest of the guys kept on swaying back and forth and it was difficult to keep eye on all of them at once. Luckily, Caleb was wearing a pink t-shirt, so he was a bit easier of to keep track. We compared our cameras and we came to the conclusion that my camera had the best zoom on video recording and Jymmi had the best angle. If we tiptoed high enough, we could clearly see all of their heads. With this combo, we were invincible. Most of us watched the performance from someone else's recording, which was at the perfect angle and distance. As the last time, the fans in the back sang to their songs. It was odd; the VIPs weren't even singing to the song. They didn't even have an idea what was going on. More VIPs and latecomers were allowed in. Why even bother coming now? The performance was almost over. The real, dedicated fans were in the back and there was nothing we could do to change that. I just closed my eyes and let the music take over my body. I almost forgot that this was the main reason I came to this concert: to hear live versions of their songs. It stopped raining. We successfully recorded "Sex On Fire" on my camera and we were satisfied. The jigsaw pieces were falling into place.

Farewell and Goodnight...or Good Morning for that matter...
Just like before, the band crawled back into the building and there no where to be seen. It was then the crowds began to leave. Marissa and Zara's brother left too because they saw it was no use in staying any longer. It was time to make our moves. According to Jymmi, the band should come out an hour later to sign autographs and such. This was our moment, our moment to make up for the the rest of the horrible morning, our moment for the band to see what we had to go to. Just one look at us and you would understand our entire story. Unfortunately, the guards were trying to throw us out and we weren't big enough stubborn assholes to stay. We were tired of it all. Then, there was this tiny line forming on the corner of the building away from the guards. It was right across the band's two vans. Hopefully now we can get a chance to see them. Sadly, a guard saw the line and made us leave. We were way too tired to think straight. We just took the train and parted our ways from that point on. We left without autographed magazines, without awkward pictures with the band, without our satisfaction of seeing the band up front which provided us this lovely entertainment.

For a Pessimistic, I'm Pretty Optimistic
To be honest, I thought this entire adventure wasn't the worst thing I have ever experienced in my life. First of all, I was with my friends. If I wasn't with them, the concert would have been even more sucky. We were all miserable together. Plus, all of us fans were in this together; it wasn't just me and my friends. Their problems were our problems. As I explained before, the Kings Of Leon preformance at All Points West brought everyone together and made me feel so comforted. And you know what, I felt like they did it again. I didn't even have to see their faces throughout the whole show. That's how great an impact their music had on me. Also, I've never stayed up all night and hung out on the corner of the street so early in the morning in the city. I take every part of my life as an adventure, whether it be good or bad. That's what makes life colourful, no? In the words of Bjork (cuz that's all I was listening to this week), "Look at the speed out there, it magnetizes me to it and I have no fear. I'm only into this to


ENJOY".


x Pfredderickk