VNV Nation Banned From Texas
(... $1 to Ronan)

Yes, this is me home from the concert. It was fucking awesome. But before I start about the concert I must give some play-by-play occurrences pre-concert.

So I got to Catie's around 4-ish, and then we went to Sheree's for a while, and at about 19:00 or 19:15 we left for the concert. So we're driving and listening to the radio, since we can't listen to anything but the radio. We're driving, and driving, and after a while, we begin to wonder if we took a wrong exit somewhere... We played some car tag ("You're It!") and played hard-to-get, and then we got kind of lost. Before we got lost, though, car-tag boy fell behind. So we had to keep to the code, right?

While we were lost, Catie discovered that she is St. Joseph's Baby Aspirin, and we found out that "You can get a sex change but you can't do it twice". We had a slight detour in Richardson, and after a minor excursion through the ghetto, we happened upon Florence by chance. This was exciting, it meant we were almost at the venue. So we found Elm Street shortly thereafter and drove around it for about 20 minutes trying to find this venue. After the second go-around, we were coming to a stop at the red light and I turned to say something to Catie... and saw VNV Nation (on a poster, I think, or painted) on the wall across the street.

Purely by luck, I found the Gypsy Tea Room, which is NOT after all on Elm Street like the direction said. See if I ever follow directions again. We found parking a few blocks down for $5 and then ran/walked back to the venue to get in and see the concert. I had my debit card (which I used to buy the tickets) and valid photo ID, so that Catie and I could get in to see them. We were almost an hour after the doors opened because of our detour and minor excursion; however VNV did not start until at least 21:30.

Anyways. While we were there, we met some interesting characters by the names of Casey, Jawdat, and I never really did catch the other guy's name... I want to say Alex but I am probably wrong. Apparently at the A23 show about a month previous there was a girl who looked like me, because I was asked if I had been at the A23 show. No, I hadn't been, but I would have liked to go. *grin* We also met a few other people, one of whom was rather pretty in a quasi Mana-esque sense -- good makeup and hair -- and he had nice hands. His friend, who we met first, seemed like an all right guy although he turned out to be a bit of a pervert. Some grab-ass occurred during the night, which wasn't so cool, but we did do some sing-along-age and quasi-dance-age. Anyways... So the interesting characters who I first mentioned helped us take some pictures during the show, because both Catie and I are short, and also gave us money to get water.

Ronan is a pretty amusing guy. He was talking about who's from where here, and something about "You're from Mexico? ... Everyone in the state's from Mexico!" and "getting a letter from the President" complaining about that or something... and the newspaper headline "VNV Nation Banned From Texas". We laughed at some of that.

After the show one of them gave Catie money to purchase a VNV shirt, and the souvie guys took a photograph of her home-made VNV fanshirt. If I had had $25 I would own a VNV bag, however I had $5 that we used to pay for parking. We ended up giving them (interesting characters, that is) a ride to IHOP so they could get home, and although we kept insisting "no", they left $20 for gas money (after insisting that we take it) in the back of the car. Then we went home.

I don't remember all of the songs played, as there were a couple that I didn't recognise (although I've heard all of them, I couldn't place which they were) and I don't remember order... However, I have a list of most of the songs at least.

Playlist (this bit's in order, I'm sure):
Chrome
( . . . )
Homeward
Honour 2003
Solitary
Beloved

(these ones they played, but I don't know order)
Arena
Darkangel
Epicentre
Joy
Legion
Perpetual
Standing


But yeah, that's the concert review. Kinda.