Take My Hand, Let's Get Famous

Featuring The Academy Island, Armor for Shellfish, The Ocean Summer, Driftwood and Cobra Starfish.

But seriously, I went to the Sleeping With Giants Tour in Chicago on 11/24/07 and here is what went down. As far as I am concerned, it was more like the Sleeping on Chicago Streets tour.

First of all, my roommate and I are in LOVE with these bands...so we decided to get into Chicago at 3 in the morning. Yes, you read that correctly, 3 in the AM. So if you start to put things together such as Chicago "The Windy City," November, and winter you can gather that it was cold. Actually, cold is an understatement. Waiting from 3 AM until the doors opened around 6 PM was pushing us all onto the brink of hypothermia. We looked it up, and we were decently far into the stages of hypothermia. It's alright, we made it through with some new friends we made who also got there around 3 AM. We braved it out with 2 comforters and 5 other random blankets as well as handwarmers and hoodies. All that matters is that we made it in and out alive.

The area around the Riviera Theatre wasn't bad. We tried sleeping outside of the venue since we had not gotten any sleep for around 24-36 hours because we were so excited and hardcore. Only one creepy man scared the shit out of us. I would get into detail, but I'd rather not talk about that near death experience. Let's just say I began to pray to god and I don't even believe in god.

We did some jumping jacks to keep our circulation flowing, sang some songs, got videotaped for random TAI DVD's and TAITV (which we sadly did not get on, hopefully the DVD). We did see Armor for Sleep go into the restaurant next door, but I didn't want to be one of the idiots who chases them down, breathing their air and taking up their space. Sometimes you have to let them just try and lead normal lives for a few seconds. Nate from Cobra Starship also walked through the front doors near us, but he looked in a hurry, so no words were exchanged there either. To sum it up, we met nobody and our efforts of arriving at 3 AM seemed pointless. Eh, things looked up a bit when we got into the venue.

But before all of the excitement, it didn't help that there were rumors that all of "Santi's Little Helpers" were going to be allowed in the venue before everyone else. So shit started to hit the fan. We were thinking "How the hell can they get in first, before the 7 of us who had been waiting since 3 AM?" Luckily, my roomie and I got front row. It was quite the relief. I didn't have the barrier for Cobra Starship as I would have liked, but three boys left in front of me and I fought my way into that damn spot!

Cobra Starship was amazing as I expected, except I am sure everyone would have liked their set to be a lot longer. Sadly, I cannot even make it to their headlining tour.

Sherwood was alright, I am not really into their music, but it was amping me for the other bands.

I had only heard one or two songs by the Rocket Summer, but Bryce left an excellent impression on me. I loved his set.

Ah, Armor for Sleep. I was singing my heart out for this portion...it was one of the best performances I have seen in a long time.

And TAI. There's nothing better than seeing these boys in concert, I sang my heart out yet again during this part. It's amazing to have Mr. Bill Beckett singing in your face the whole time, interacting with you and making the whole thing amazingly personal.

Overall, this concert was very uplifting and I wish I could press rewind and do it all over again minus the 15 hour wait. Again about the cold, you know you were on the brink of death when you wear a hoodie into a sold out concert, front row and do not get hot until the middle of the 5th and final band's set. Yes, I was still freezing in the venue and finally warmed up during the TAI set.

Afterwards, we wanted to wait around and meet the bands, but we had 3 hour drive ahead of us and needed to go back to school the next morning at 8 AM. Damn it. So we still didn't meet anyone...LAME.

The drive home still remains a huge blur to me. I was on the brink of sleep the whole time, so the lanes meshed together after awhile and I just kind of hung in there. Amazingly, I kept on route and made it home.

To this day, I still have bruised ribs and knees from being pushed onto the barricade for the whole concert. I will also remember how my lungs were compressed and overall, my body feels smaller and not as sensitive to cold weather. I swear waiting outside that long has lowered my body temperature; it can't be that bad, it will help me through the La Crosse winter treks to class.

As I said before, I wish I could relive these moments. Also, I wish I could find the awesome people I met in line on MySpace or something. Oh well, you can't win 'em all.

Kate