Thursday: The day started on a dark note, because our mother wouldn't let us use the GPS - she had to pick our grandma at the train station in Windsor (because Windsor is so far away and difficult to find), and she threw a big stink about us supposedly getting lost because I'm a female and I can't use instructions printed off the Internet. BECAUSE YOU'LL GET LOST IF YOU FOLLOW ROAD SIGNS. ROAD SIGNS THAT TELL YOU WHERE TO GO.
Shelby had a half-day at school, so Abby and I ran errands for the morning (and by "errands," I mean fucking around at the grocery store for an hour and spending $52 on groceries for the trip because SOMEONE told me that Milwaukee isn't a veg-friendly city, even though it totally is), and were totally geeked by the time 11:00 rolled around. We had Toshi thumping some freaky music via awesome cassette adapter. We stopped for snacks in South Lyon (WARHEADS, BITCH!) and then resumed our Jeffree Star dance party all the way to the middle of nowhere southwestern Michigan.
Along I-94, near the Indiana border, we saw many a raunchy sex shop, which was perfectly amusing to us. Also entertaining was the "Michigan agriculture grows for you!" billboard.
In Soviet Russia, your Maserati is a face!
We stopped again in Indiana at (my favorite) a Pilot truck stop for gas and a lunch of soy ham and Muenster sandwiches, which is where we saw this:
Periscope Jeep!
Back on the road, approaching Chicago, we switched from random music dance party to Kill Hannah dance party, which we grew weary of after NEARLY TWO FUCKING HOURS OF TRAFFIC! I swear that everything that came out of my mouth from the outskirts of Chicago to the Wisconsin border was "FUCK!"
We finally got to Wisconsin, and to Katie's shortly after; around 6:30 central time. We unloaded our stuff and piled back into the car for a journey to Pick 'n' Save, the local grocery store, which must always be spoken with a redneck accent. Then we ventured to Cheng Wong, the best Chinese place known to man, except for the fact that they don't serve tofu. Shelby and I both ordered the mixed vegetables with brown sauce (!), and Abby settled on the chicken with Chinese vegetables, which she describes as "bleh. The chicken was rubbery."
Next came Kopp's Frozen Custard (!), which is the closest thing to God that exists on this planet. The place is a simple building as you pull up, but the entrance around the side is completely glass with a sanctuary-esque waterfall (AKA babbling brook) park close by. Since the place was absolutely packed, we decided to take a seat on a myriad of stacked logs near the street, which offered some riotous humor and non-comfort. I wept about forgetting I Heard a Voice in my DVD player and forgetting the vegan ice cream in Abby's freezer the whole time. I'm still scarred.
When we got back to Katie's, her girlfriend Lacey went to take the garbage out and got attacked by a giant raccoon that was hiding in the dumpster. We played on the swing set for a while, until I almost met my demise in slippery mud, and Katie almost totally ate it on her skateboard. When we went inside, we hung out and learned how not to attempt crime in Milwaukee county: DO NOT STEAL SEWER GRATES. Oh, and we all wept about the passing of Rue McClanahan (why is the world unfair?! She was my favorite Golden Girl!), before drifting off into Blaqk Audio-induced sleep.
Friday: We were all early to rise on Friday morning due to the time change and the presence of the maintenance man fixing the light in Katie's kitchen. While waiting for said maintenance man, we had the radio tuned to 102.1, Milwaukee's alternative station, waiting for the Davey Havok that we were promised the night before. It was kinda lame; they kept pronouncing Havok, "Hav-OK." But it was still nice to hear his sleep-laden voice early in the morning. And I'm a creeper.
We mostly lazed around all day, since Katie was at work and Lacey was lost somewhere in Hales Corners on her bike. At around 2 PM, we all decided that we needed to fancy ourselves up for VergeFest (which was the following day!!), so we walked to Pick 'n' Save while trying to find a Walgreens, which was right in front of Pick 'n' Save, but we didn't notice, even after we walked right through the friggin' parking lot. At first, we ended up walking the wrong way and passing The Olde Store (not kidding), which had an awesome garbage can:
And My Father's Mustache (also not kidding). After we left Pick 'n' Save to go to the Hallmark Store, looking for a heart-shaped hole puncher to give Abby a Crash heart manicure for the show. They didn't have one.
And My Father's Mustache (also not kidding). After we left Pick 'n' Save to go to the Hallmark Store, looking for a heart-shaped hole puncher to give Abby a Crash heart manicure for the show. They didn't have one.
Then we went to Blockbuster, thinking that just maybe there was a small chance that they would have a copy of I Heard a Voice, since Milwaukee is a hotbed of AFI fans and a cult town. They didn't have one.
When we got home, Lacey was playing video games, so we worked on our nails and waited for Katie to get home. After a dinner of barbecue soy sandwiches and cheese pizza, we drove down to the marina and hung out around by the art museum to listen to the distant sounds of the first day of VergeFest and play with sequin tacos. We also stopped for photo-ops, of course, when we weren't busy looking for the Bronze Fonz.
We headed back toward the pier to wait for Shelby's friend Amber, who never showed up thanks to bad planning on the parts of both parties. Katie and Lacey played catch, and Katie got hit in the knee with a baseball. We also found the best boat in existence:
On the way home from the lake, we blasted some rap guys out with Gaga, and when we finally got there, we were all tired enough to go straight to bed. After all, we had a big day coming up (!).
Saturday: The day of VergeFest was upon us, and after months of planning this trip, The Freaks were finally going to reach our goal. Except we ended up leaving late, which wasn't a bad thing, and Lacey stayed home. And it rained. And Weezer fans suck. And the set was really short. And the pit was terrible. But other than that, survey says: TOTALLY WORTH IT.
Festival started at 2 PM, but we didn't leave the house until around 2:15. We had to stop at Walgreens, after we finally knew where it was, to get a silver sharpie, just in case. We ended up using it to immortalize AFI on a bathroom stall door. Oops. It looked something like this:
Except the bathroom stall doors were not lined note pads.
I was stuck driving (ugh) because Katie decided to chug the majority of a serving of liver poison before we left. When we got to the venue, we dodged scalpers and scoped out the place, which was really big, so the stages were really separated and you could barely hear the other bands that were playing at the same time. We sat by the lake for a while and then headed over by the skate demo (which got rained out) for a while before we spotted the playground. We spent a good hour there.
Our original plan was to get over to the main stage at 6 PM, but after we ate at 4 (the only thing Shelby and I could have were a disgusting variety of cheese nachos), the pit was already filling up. The last band before the main acts finished up and most people left, so we ended up right behind the barrier which confined the DFers that had traveled longer distances than us to see the best band ever.
The first band was The Ravenettes, who were pretty good. They were the only band that played the main stage with a girl in their lineup. And she could fucking shred. But we didn't really pay attention to their set, thanks to Davey Havok and Adam Carson's attendance on the balcony. They were also watching the set. Davey had on the brightest pink shirt I think I've ever seen. Oh, and Weezer was up there too, but we don't talk about them.
After The Ravenettes departed, so did Davey and Adam. One of the stage guys was wearing a fedora and had a beard, and we speculated whether or not it was Smith Puget (it wasn't), and we also were privy to the Terrorist Salesman, as Katie called him, because of his completely mingin' beard and uniform grey suit. The next band was Cold War Kids, who were some kind of funky dance alt rock thing (?). They caused stupid ho-bag bitches to try to mosh/dance. One of them was griding on Katie, because apparently she looks like a guy from behind. A really short, feminine guy. Said ho-bag bitches were taken away by security soon after, causing our crowd-family to erupt into cheers. Davey, or at least we think it was Davey, made another surprise appearance on the balcony during the set. Overall, Cold War Kids were okay, but nothing beats what came next.
With the first appearance of Reno (AFI's drum tech, who looks remarkably like Hunter Burgan), the rain began to fall harder. When Smith came out, we started getting smashed together like soy fibers in a Boca burger (vegetarian similes. WHAT.). The biggest surprise of the moment was that Smith had trimmed his beard down to normal, less-refrigerator-y capacity, and he wasn't wearing a fedora. Weezer fans decided to trash AFI before they even started performing, but by the time Adam hit the stage (he was the first one out), The Freaks were in our own, blissful world where Weezer fan douches don't exist. Next followed Jade Puget with the opening chords of "Medicate," and it all went uphill (and downhill) from there.
Here's the set list:
"Medicate"
"Girls Not Grey"
"The Leaving Song, part 2"
"I am Trying Very Hard to be Here"
"Kill Caustic"
"End Transmission"
"Beautiful Thieves"
"Dancing through Sunday"
"Perfect Fit"
"Love is a Many Splendored Thing"
"Veronica Sawyer Smokes"
"Love like Winter"
"The Days of the Phoenix"
"Silver and Cold"
"Miss Murder"
During "Girls Not Grey," Davey almost decapitated Smith with his mic cord. In the middle of "The Leaving Song, part 2," Jade smashed himself in the face with his own guitar. These are typical antics. The A-typical antics happened when I was the only one fighting to "Kill Caustic," and everyone got the memo really late and started fighting to "End Transmission." Durp.
I freaked out for "Beautiful Thieves," I fought some more to "Dancing through Sunday," (which was when the real shit started to happen), Davey went down in front of the barrier on the other side of the stage from our location during "Perfect Fit."
Again, I was the only one fighting to "Love is a Many Splendored Thing." Come on people, the main lyric of that song is, "I HATE YOU!" How do you not fight?
Ben Grey, the lead singer of usual AFI opener Scarlet Grey, joined Davey in the singing of "Love like Winter," but none of us were really paying attention due to douchebags singing the wrong words, crowdsurfers (Jesus Christ, Crowdsurfing Sucks!), and getting separated by the pit monster. Katie got pushed into the DFers (in front of Hunter), who were pissed about the goings-on of the night (especially the rain, which was getting worse, and the wind was picking up. We actually exhaled vanilla lace at an AFI show.). Abby ended up in front of Davey, two rows from the barrier. Shelby and I got sucked back out of the pit and toward other DFers who had been avoiding the whole area. The last three songs were bittersweet, as we won't be seeing AFI again until August, on our home turf in Clarkston. Everybody do the Pine Knob dance!
After the show was over, we all knew that there was no chance that we were staying for Weezer, which is good, because the DFers at the show said that they sucked. Apparently the lead singer was totally trashed and forgot the words of their own songs, and they did some fucked up Gaga cover. Ugh. We stopped at the merch table (where Fritch wasn't) and Abby snagged a tee and Shelby and I got a poster which stares out into the hallway from Shelby's room and creeps everyone out.
When we got home, Lacey nursed Katie back to health. I guess someone jammed her hip into the barrier when everything got fucked. This was Katie's first concert, by the way. We all stripped out of our wet clothing and restored our voices with post-show vegan hot dogs. We tossed our wet clothes in the dryer in the basement, which reminded us of Hunter's creep-tastic video in the bonus features of I Heard a Voice/the secret beginning of the "Love like Winter" video. Which isn't a secret. My driver's license and Shelby's Hot Topic card got dried, along with our VergeFest tickets, which were lame and on receipt paper anyway. After the clothes were done, we did some more AFI-induced sleeping to prepare for our journey home the next day.
Sunday: Sunday morning pretty much consisted of scramble-packing and clean-up, followed by our last trip to Pick 'n' Save, gas for Toshi, and hitting the road. This time, we went around Chicago, even though the tolls can kiss my ass. We partied to AFI, Blaqk Audio, and Hunter Revenge for a vast majority of the time before a sleepy Shelby requested Paramore at the Indiana border. The drive was uneventful until the Michigan border, where we snacked on the remainder of our vegan hot dogs and complained about how much we hated being home. After Gaga in Paw Paw for gas, we grew weary of the highway, so we took the back roads home from Whitmore Lake. It rained most of the way home. When we unpacked, we realized that Abby's Chinese had leaked all over the cooler, and the ice water was now chunky with Chinese veggies. Vomit.
The end...for now.
