Soooo.... where do I begin?
I got up at 3.30 am, breastfed little Dean, put him in my bed because Ifigured he would sleep better if he could still smell me even though Im gone, quietly brought the baby monitor to my mom so she would hear when he woke up (I later found out he slept till well past 9 am after I left lol).
So I grabbed my stuff, downed 2 mugs of instant coffee and then my dad took me to the airport, which is only about 10 minutes from my house. I may live in a tiny town that has a bakery, a butcher and 3 small grocery stores and little else, but we do have an international airport :)
unfortunately said airport only has flights to london, not manchester, so I had to fly to munich first, then from there to manchester. the flights were short and uneventful. An hour to munich and then 2 hours to MAN.
No need to bore you with the details.
When I got to Manchester, the first thing I had to do was go to the bathroom and pump milk, which I had to do ever 2-4 hours during the whole trip, which was a giant pain in the ass, but well worth the effort to be able to see Avenged Sevenfold :D
I cant put into words the relief I felt when I saw Kate waiting for me at the airport. I had been a little worried that she would turn out to either not exist, or be some fat creep that lives in his moms basement and getting a huge laugh at the thought of me standing at manchester airport like a lost puppy. So once I saw Kate, I really wasnt worried about much else anymore :)
We took the train into manchester, went to have a coffee and some lunch at a place called afflecks or something like that, where I had a grilled cheese type samich with mushrooms. it was delicious. I also almost threw my passport into the trashcan there when I was getting rid of some newspapers I had in my bag from the flight. Thankfully I missed the trashcn with the last one and when it hit the floor, my passport slid out. whew! that could have been a disaster!
Our original plan was to meet up with 2 more people and leave all our stuff in their car, but they couldnt come, so we had to take a tram to kates dads house (and walk about 30 minutes) to drop off our stuff and get ready for the show.
first however, we scared the crap out of Kate's little sister georgia, by standing in the driveway talking, but she could only see me so she freaked out because there was some strange chick standing in her driveway... lol (She is 12)
Before we went to queue in front of the venue, we stopped at a little bar and had a few drinks and the most digustig burger ive ever had.
I had to pump milk one more time before we could get in line, but then the fun could finally start. and by fun I mean standing in line for over 3 hours in the freezing cold. without a jacket. but honestly, I was so excited, I couldnt sit still anyway (or stand) so my constant moving, fidgeting, jumping and dancing kept me pretty warm. In the whole crowd, I saw about 1000+ A7X shirts, hoodies, etc and..... about 4 stone sour ones lol. It was pretty clear what most of those kids had come for. And it sure as hell wasnt "Hellyeah".
Kate had called her friend Rachael who had been wanting to go to the show but unfortunatly didnt get a ticket in time, who was absolutely stoked to get the chance to go to the show at the last minute. Since we had 2 extra tickets, she also brought her twin brother Stevie with her.
I knew Rachael from the LPMB and facebook, so it was totally great to meet another online friend :)
We were pretty close to the doors, so when they finally opened we got in pretty quickly, unfortunately, once again, I had to go to the bathroom to pump milk first, otherwise we would have probably gotten much better spots. But we were pretty close to the stage, on the right side, only a few feet away from where Syn Gates would be standing. We only had to suffer through "hellyeah's" performance, which was worse than I expected and didnt go by as quickly as I would have liked.
When they finally vacated the stage, you could feel the excitement in the crowd. just watching the crew set up the stage for the band had people cheering, pushing and shoving and just generaly going nuts.
The backdrop was amazing, it was a giant version of the album cover, with cemetary gates and pillars with skulls on them
The drumset was still covered when the lights went out and the crowd first cheered and went nuts and then went very quiet when "sound of silence" by simon and garfunkel started playing. it was a serious goosebump moment.
A shiver just ran down my back while writing and reliving this moment. Thankfully my Son came and put a hat on me so I dont get cold :)
when the song ended, someone ran onto the stage and pulle the cover off the drumkit. Im not a hundred percent sure what happened next, because the crowd went so wild that I had to focus on not being thrown to the ground, or worse, pushed back ;)
The next time I managed to look at the stage, all the members of the band had already taken their positions (M. shadows in the middle, J.C. and Zacky on the left, Syn Gates on the right and Mike Portnoy behind the drums)
As I expected, they started off with "Nightmare" which I must say is a song you HAVE to hear live. its nice on the CD and all, but I think live is how this song is meant to be enjoyed. It was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!
The next song was "critical acclaim" which as you may know, has parts sung by the late Jimmy Sullivan (The Rev) so when his voice came blasting from the speakers, all the members of the band (that I could see anyway) pointed up towards the sky, as if to say Jimmy is singing this from heaven. it was one of those moments, you had to be there to understand the awesomeness and significance.
and now I have to make lunch for my kid. I will have to write the rest later tonight, but Im publishing this first half now so you guys can be jealous ;)
(my spellcheck is in german so not working, forgive me my typos and the lack of capitalization, Im lazy that way)
