| February 6, 2001 Gothic Theater, Englewood, CO. |
| The day started out normally. My alarm clock sounded at 6:21 a.m. I sleepingly turned off my alarm, got out of bed, got dressed, and got to school. Sand Creek High School, what a school! (obviously sarcastic) Anyways, the school was full of people, of course, we are over-capacity, and the conversations were of various topics: What happened over the weekend?, Did you do your homework?, etc., but my conversation was of deeper meaning. I had talked to my friend, Oliver , and was finalizing the plans to skip the last two periods and go to Boulder, Colorado and pick up my older brother at CU Boulder. We decided to leave during lunch, and get gas and get changed (we had a dress rehearsal for FBLA and we were in "business casual") I wore my PePe Jeans (pronounced pay-pay (like french)) and my Curios George space monkey shirt. We arrived in Boulder at about 2:00 p.m. and parked on the CU campus. My brother's Dorm room, almost a stereotypical dorm room. Two to three bikes, a playstation, a computer, and a HUGE stereo were some of the highlights among pictures of half-naked females plastered on the wall (i'm not complaining). The whole of our assemblage playing playstaion and obviously listening to Linkin Park, especially the older Hybrid Theory songs like: High Voltage, Step Up, and And One, and as well Taproot's cd, Gift. Time passed and it was soon 6:00 p.m.: time for us to head out to Englewood. We proceeded into our cars and headed out on Highway 36 east. The traffic wasn't bad untill we hit the junction at I-25. We took the off ramp going towards Englewood, and at first got lost, but soon found our way after losing 10 minutes or so. Pulling up past the theater we saw many, many, people in line waiting to get in. Waiting in the line, we were looking at the auto and pawn shop, and were making fun of the cars that were there, and the other three were making fun of me for not having any body fat whatsoever, it was cold, what would you do? we got in and they told us to go "upstairs and to the right" which meant we'd be in the balcony. We didn't like that so while Oliver waited in line for a t-shirt the rest of us, Steve, Matt, and myself, went to the side acting like we were visiting the bar, and went to the floor to wait for the concert to start. Finally the lights dim, the crowd's volume rising, band assistance setting up the last of Taproot's set. Then Steven Richards, and the rest of Taproot appear on stage, the crowd goes crazy. Oliver and I try to push our way to the mosh pit that was brewing, He made it but I wanted more, so I try to get to the front, but only found myself 3 or 4 people away from the barrier. It was HOT!! Steven Richards Noticed that we were sweating beyond sweating, so he poured out a few of his water bottles onto the first few rows, and threw the bottles, I caught one and held on to it (knowing that they were sick). I sang along to almost every song. Taproot was AWESOME, I don't think they could have done a better show (and that's taking into consideration the fact that half the two bands were passing around a flu/cough) They did their cd almost completely, as well as a few other songs including Day by Day (The Vampire 2001 soundtrack). After their set the three who weren't too sick to stand walked in front of the barrier and signed stuff, I got them all to sign the cd booklet and I had Steven sign the bottle that was thrown out. Then Taproot left the set, and Oliver and I tried to push further into the "squashpit." Linkin Park crew members began setting up the instruments, and Mr. Hahn's dj stuff. I had already lost my voice, singing along to again and again, 1 nite stand, I, and comeback, so when one of the other fans tried to talk to me it sounded like i had swallowed swords for a living. But it wasn't too bad. Linkin Park started out their set and it was awesome, where I was, everyone was jumping and if you didn't want to, too bad, cuz everybody tried to get to the front. I finally pushed my way up, and sang along, and jumped (as best I could with the barrier in front of me). Mike And Chester were slapping hands with fans, and I got a few slaps. But what I thought was cool was Mike asked if I enjoyed taproot, and I said yeah, then he asked if I was having a good time, I said hell yeah. Yes, that's right out of the 3000 people that were there, and the 50 that were in the front, I was the one, the only one, to talk on the mic. They did their whole cd, plus High Voltage, and Carousel, and when they did those songs, there was about 4 others including myself who knew it and sang along to them. During one of their song, I forget whether it was Mike or Chester, but one of them climbed onto the side balcony, and jumped off into the crowd, it was great. Oliver claims that he made LP play High Voltage, because in between songs, he screamed for them to play it, and then they did, but i kept trying to tell him that it was next on their setlist anyways. So he's just dumb. They finished playing and there was so much noise that it was hard to hear. The drummer threw his sticks and his spares into the audience, and Oliver caught one, and fought over it with some large fan. After the set was complete, all 6 band members came down and signed autographs. I was lucky enough to get all 6 to sign my cd cover. I also got Mike Shinoda (vocals), And Phoenix (bass) to sign my curious george shirt. As they were signing everything, I was talking to Mike, (and yes he talked back, it's called conversation) and told him he should've done 'Step Up' and Mike paused, and replied: "Yeah, yeah that's a good song. Hey thanks for doing your homework." I also told him he should come back in the very near future, and he said he just might have to. The concert was over and the lights were back up. I found my Brother and his friend, and we walked to the cars. I told my bro about how that was me on the mic, and he couldn't believe it for a while. Oh well I guess it's just something the band and I will just have to know. |
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