I Died

As you know, the epic Kings of Leon concert was last night. Blew. My. Mind. The best concert experience I've ever had... such an amazing night.

C. came with me, and we met downtown around 1:30, parked then got lunch at Dania's Gourmet, which is a restaurant of indiscernible ethnic origin. They had gyros and falafel, and Egyptian desserts. Regardless, it was really good. It was late afternoon, so there was no lunch crowd, and the guy who worked there loved us, so we sat at the bar and took our sweet ass time, drinking wine, sharing old stories and generally losing our shit about seeing the Kings in a few hours' time.
After lunch we headed over to Phillips Arena, which is attached to the CNN Center. After walking around the whole arena looking for the best door to wait in front of, we parked it in front of the inside doors in the CNN food court. And damn, did we meet some characters. The man selling chicken from China Bistro was particularly annoying, yet knowledgeable. He kept saying, "Kings of Leon- three brothas and a cousin." We also met several security people, and became "their girls" and they promised to remember our faces and take us backstage (didn't happen, but it was sort of nice of them all the same).
We're waiting at like...4:30, grab a beer and just sit & chat. There was only one group of girls "ahead" of us. And they were all dressed alike; it was really bizarre. Tight jeans and plaid shirts....it's like they were dressed like KoL to see KoL. Hmm. I suppose my 14 year old mind would have thought in the same manner.
More of a crowded started forming around 5:15 for the door opening at 6:30. Here's what the deal was: if you had general admission floor seats, (like us) you had to wait until the doors opened, go UPSTAIRS to get a wristband, then back DOWN to the venue seating. They also did a metal detector check and searching purses. Here's the kicker- you weren't allowed to bring in a camera bigger than could fit in a shirt pocket. (I think they should have written this on the ticket, or said so on the TicketMaster website. I digress). Well I brought my uncle's bad ass camera, which was definitely bigger than that. So C. and I had to strategize. I wrapped it in my cardigan and stuck it in C.'s purse with the instructions to keep her hand over it during the search. And it toooooootally worked. And praise Jesus, because if I had to run back out to the car to put it away, I would never have gotten the place that I did.
.......did I mention we were FRONT ROW?

FRONT ROW, motherf*ckers.
As in the barricades were in front of us, and the stage was 5 feet from that. The opening band was White Lies. Eh, sounds like the nouvele vague stuff from Hollister stores. Anyway. I was fiddling with the camera, making sure I knew all the settings and whatnot. And the King's own security detail comes up and says, "That camera is too big, you're not supposed to have that in here." and I'm just like, "what?" Hairflip. Trying to play the dumb blonde, "they never told me that." Then he said he'd let me take pictures for the first song only, then I had to put it away. And he was big and mean, so I behaved and only took pictures during the first song. SO i don't have too many pics, but they're quality.

Opening act played until about 8:45, then Kings of Leon came on at 9:15ish. Lost. My. Shit.
Here's the set list:

• 1. Crawl
  2. Be Somebody
  3. Taper Jean Girl
  4. Molly's Chambers
  5. Fans
  6. Revelry
  7. I Want You
  8. Four Kicks
  9. Charmer
  10. The Bucket
  11. Sex on Fire
  12. Notion
  13. Closer
  14. On Call
  15. Cold Desert
  16. Slow Night, So Long
  Encore:
  17. Knocked Up
  18. Manhattan
  19. Use Somebody
  20. Black Thumbnail

I'll admit, I got a little teary-eyed during Notion and then again during Use Somebody. Even though their older albums are my favorite, and better, in my opinion, those two songs from OBTN are amazing and the lyrics are really meaningful. /end emotional paragraph.

The set was great, some songs I'm not wild about, and I wish there was more old stuff. But fact of the matter is, this is their tour for the latest album, so it stands to reason that 80% was OBTN tracks. I would have died my death for Trani though. And basically anything from Youth and Young Manhood.

I honestly could not stop staring at Caleb. He is honest to shit the dead sexiest man I have ever seen. His hair- longer and amazing. Beard- almost had an orgasm. Outfit- not too styled, probably picked it out himself. Voice- so on point. I did not think it was possible to be more infatuated than I am now. Well, I am.

Before the show, we saw a stage mgr pouring Patron into solo cups and placing them around the stage. During the show, Caleb took a few shots and chased them with Gatorade, and Nathan was drinking beer from a bottle with a straw held by someone by the drum set. Oh, and he was totally toking up also. I think during the break between the set and the encore they all went back and just took shots to the face, because Caleb and Jared were dancing with their guitars and Nathan looked blown out of his mind. And during the ending song Black Thumbnail, Caleb wailed and just rocked his ass off.

Caleb took a few breaks between songs to thank the crowd, saying even though he was having some sound troubles, he couldn't get mad because we were such an awesome crowd. He looked up into the high-rise seats a few times and just shook his head in disbelief and looked to his brothers smiling. It was nice to see him so (relatively) humble and appreciative of the crowd, and not spitting his whole "We're the goddamned Kings of Leon, so fuck you" attitude he's been known to throw. He said the band's been looking forward to the Atlanta show for awhile....their first show was at Smith's, and he was amazed that they just sold out Phillips Arena. Here's what Nathan twittered earlier today:
doctorfollowill Atlanta knows how to party. What a night, what a crowd, what a hangover. We will come back whenever yall will let us. Thanks a million.


Here's a video someone took (who was not as close as us, ba haha) but you can see C. & I between Caleb and Jared. In the middle of the second verse, Caleb got sort of sassy and moved his finger around in a circle, as if to say "this song is too slow and taking too long."

Now I'm going to put up ONE of my pictures from the show. I would put up more, but they're actually super decent, and I don't want people stealing them. I tried to get the whole band in a shot, but damnit if I wasn't just too close.

I don't really know what else to tell y'all about the concert, other than it was a great experience, and I can't wait to see them again. I won't even bring down this post with negativity and rag on the mom behind us or the 14 year old girls. It's alllllll gravy now.