st. louis: the heyday

the wonderful boys of colorado finally came back through the midwest! what a lucky girl i am. i first met these boys through my good friends of cavashawn and state & madison. they toured together on what was fondly referred to as 'the rad bromance tour' and i think some of us are still trying to sort through all of the shenanigans that went down during those couple of weeks.

they played cicero's on a weeknight. not exactly conducive to my school and work schedule, but what the hell. sleep when you're dead, right? abby decided last minute to come with me, so that was a plus. we gathered our stuff, trekked from columbia to st. louis and had ourselves a good time. we had dinner at panera, attempted to get homework done at starbucks, and eventually gave up and headed down to cicero's for the show. there wasn't much of a crowd; it was mainly composed of all the other bands. but all the bands were talented so that was a plus. the heyday played a lovely set as always, we stuck around for a little after and chatted with each of the boys, then made the late-night drive back to school.

check out their tunes and tell me how fucking awesome 'fools go fallin' is: www.theheydaymusic.com

st. louis: the heyday

i was totally guilt tripped and suckered into this one. one hundred percent. i had no intentions of going to this show whatsoever. it was two days after fall formal in chicago, the same night i was supposed to be making the seven hour drive back to columbia since i had class the following morning. well the day after formal, nick had some friends over. and among those friends were the heyday boys. and they guilt-tripped the shit outta me until i agreed to go. (it's really not that hard, i wanted to go to the show all along. it was more about my health and sanity, but who needs those things anyway? pshh.) so i agreed. and made a slight detour to st. louis for their show before driving back to columbia. and it was a good thing i went, because the turnout was low, and the least i could do was add to that low number, right? it was a fun and lowkey night. we hung out and talked all night when they weren't playing, and overall it was a good decision.



shenanigans at nick's place.

st. louis: the rad bromance tour

featuring the heyday, state & madison and cavashawn

finally reunited with some of my favorite [chicago] locals and oh boy, was it a fun friday night. actually  thursday night was interesting too. state and madison needed a place to crash and although i wasn't at home in st. louis at the home they know so well, i did have a lovely little apartment with a couch and some floor space. so it was around four in the moring when they arrived. i let them in, went back to bed, and that was that. gotta love touring and crashing on random floors. so the weekend finally commenced at three on friday and i made my way home. stopped at the house for a little bit to freshen up, ate some dinner and headed out to the firebird. i was surprised to see people lined up outside, and even more surprised to see how many people were already inside. i'm not a big fan of this is energy, the headlining band, but they sure know how to draw a crowd, which was most fortunate for the bromance boys who needed fourteen hours worth of gas to get them to austin overnight. eek.

the heyday was the first of the three to play, and i had forgotten how great they are live. i'm kind of ashamed to say i haven't given their album as many listens as i should have, seeing as i've had it for months. they remind me of a delightful little mix of limbeck and the format. if that's your thing, definitely check em out, you won' t be disappointed. state & madison played next and MAN did they sound good. they always sound good live, but they sounded REALLY good this time. maybe it's because i hadn't seen them in so long and was excited, but regardless, it was great. the crowd flocked to their merch table immediately afterwards so that's always a good sign. loved the new songs they played too. can't wait for them to be released! and finally, there was cavashawn. scott's vocals never fail to make my jaw fall to the floor and benton never fails to make me smile with that permanent grin he always has plastered on his face. overall, it was the rad bromance boys that stole the show - the opening band was pretty terrible and like i said before, i'm not a big fan of this is energy.

it was so good to see some of my favorite people all in one venue, playing right after one another and all singing along to each other's sets and hopping up on stage to join in occasionally. i've said it before, but i love those state & madison and cavashawn boys like it's my job and it's always good catching up with them. scott and i talked crazy fan girls and tony and i gossiped about all things chicago-band related. nickolas about knocked me over every twenty minutes or so with huge bear hugs. and jonah thanked me about forty seven times for the amazingness of my apartment shower. the litte things in life, i tell ya. check out http://www.radbromancetour.tumblr.com/ for live updates on all their shenaningans at SXSW. it's entertaining, i promise.

st. louis: state & madison, the heyday and cavashawn

weekday shows are a bitch when there's a two hour drive involved, but this one was definitely worth it. it had been three months since i'd seen cavashawn and two since i'd seen state & madison. definitely not okay when i was seeing them every few days over the summer. so i hauled ass to st. louis on a wednesday night, dropped off my stuff at home and headed down to the loop. hung out at starbucks for a while and eventually met up with nikki and stephanie who drove in from chicago/eiu. we made our rounds and said hello to everyone and caught up on always-interesting gossip. [tony was apparently a little impatient. i got a text saying "where you is?" to which i replied "right behind you..." haha.]

state & madison played first. and played a very short set. tony said later that they had to cut four songs - two of which were new. boo. so that was kind of a bummer, but they put on a great show nonetheless. one of their new songs that i've heard maybe twice before, finally has a name - phantoms - and i absolutely love it. once again though, it's cicero's, in which band line-up is key; there weren't too many people there yet. but i knew all the faces that were there, so they had their main group of fans present which is promising. i always forget just how much i love them until i see them play again, and everything is renewed. i probably look so dumb with my goofy smile plastered on my face, but oh well. the heyday played next, a band from denver whom i've never seen before. i've heard a lot about them though from various bands and friends, and they didn't disappoint. reminded me slightly of the format which is always a good thing. i ended up buying a shirt and cd for fifteen bucks and talked to the lead singer randy. good deal. at some point i'd seen jon and tiffany walk in and went over to say hey, and got sucked into quite the conversation. i've been really trying to get building rome to play shows with some, or one, or all of "my bands" and i'm really hoping it'll happen sometime in the future. *crosses fingers*

so cavashawn finally played and oh man. it was a great time. there was a large and very energetic crowd considering the night, and i feel like they've really improved since the last time i'd seen them. nick and tony came and sang for a few songs and the drunken shenanigans were definitely entertaining. there were also a few not-so-familiar faces in the crowd which is good. afterwards, we all stood around forever and had various strange conversations and were eventually kicked out, to where we then stood outside for a good forty five minutes and talked. lots of memorable events and conversations took place outside, but aren't quite suitable for a public blog... haha. so we eventually said our goodbyes, and nikki, steph and i got some jimmy john's for a much overdue dinner and headed back to my house. woke up six hours later. drove back to columbia. went to class. love it.

what is my life?