Norfolk was the beginning of the journey, and arguably was the most eventful. My 21st birthday was on October 21st, so the festivities began early. After a night out in Greensboro, Lorin and I woke up early to make the drive to Norva, and even though we got there early the day before, we pulled up to see that nobody was there. This never happens to us, so of course we went looking around for a group of people, but we soon realized we were the first two to arrive. Believe it or not, the fact that I abstained from too much alcohol the night before was 100% worth it when this realization hit. We took our seats on the sidewalk, propped up our sign, and it felt like we were in for a lazy and uneventful day.
We couldn't have been any more wrong.
A number of different venue workers made their way outside and eventually chatted us up, and they thought that we were just super early for the concert that night. Of course when we corrected them and said we were waiting for Hanson, they didn't believe us. Hanson hadn't played the venue, so they weren't used to crazy people getting there so early to wait for a band. Eventually the venue people went in and told the manager about us, and he came out and chatted us up for a while too. It was the typical fascination with us that came next, and for the rest of the day the guys would come out on their breaks and hang out. Not to ruin anyone's hardcore exterior reputation here, but they were the absolute nicest venue people we have met to date.
It didn't take long for Norfolk to show us some interesting people, though. Out of absolutely nowhere, we heard chanting. It was getting louder. I looked to my left and my eyes widened as I was suddenly fearful of getting trampled over - Norfolk's chapter of the Occupy movement was headed straight towards us. People were banging on tins and carrying signs, playing guitars and causing a ruckus. Some stopped to talk to us and tried to convince us to join them, and I just shook my head and commented that we wanted front row a whole lot more than democracy. Some of them weren't pleased with that answer (ha), but eventually they kept coming back to check on us as the day/night wore on, brought us brand new pillows and some extra food just for the heck of it.
Not even ten minutes later, a homeless man came up to us and asked us if we had cigarettes. Lorin pulled one out and handed it to him, and before we knew it he was singing 'Amazing Grace' at the top of his lungs and doing a victory dance up and down the sidewalk in her honor. He went away, and just as we thought everything was about to return to normal, there was a crackhead on a bicycle across the street in the park that attacked a pedestrian. He went flying back into the air, his glasses falling by the wayside, and it was literally surreal to witness it. At about this time I decided to pull the pepper spray out of my purse and have it more readily accessible, but obviously our entire morning was extremely eventful and there was no sign of it slowing down anytime soon.
I was super excited to go across the street for some lunch when the insanity died down a little bit to get a fabulous CPK pizza on honey wheat crust. I walked in the door, which was the back entrance of the mall, and I froze. I was standing and staring at an entrance to Nordstrom. It took every ounce of will for me to direct myself into the CPK and sit still when I was waiting for my order, knowing Lorin was across the street holding down our spots. I was good and behaved, going back to enjoy my pizza and wait to see who else was going to arrive for the night.
I gotta say...there was a point in time that Lorin and I were convinced this was the first show in history that nobody (except us) was going to camp out. The people after us didn't show up until 7-8pm or so, and we knew we were not alone when they drove by blasting 'Where's The Love'. The venue guys were getting worried about it too, that we were the ONLY insane people, even though we assured them that this was normal for a Hanson show. The line for the NOFX show was forming on the other side of the venue, and of course people got a kick out of the fact that we were waiting for Hanson. It was utterly entertaining to be on the outside of this concert, as people were getting thrown out every other minute, others were crowdsurfing, most were drunk, and it was an insanely interesting group of people.
By the end of the show more people had shown up, and a bunch of the NOFX people kept stopping to ask us questions. One of our brilliant friends brought up the idea that we should start charging people for questions, which we did so shamelessly (and actually made a decent amount of money doing so!). Eventually the venue died down and it was time to sleep, which of course I did very little of as I was the one with the list that was woken up each time someone else came (one of my friends described this as the 'call of duty' associated with #1, ha, and I totally agree).
We had the first reservations in the morning for the restaurant, so we ate some food and got in line. It was a decently long day and of course we met some more crazy people. We also saw the same pedestrian that had gotten beaten up the day before by the crackhead on the bicycle, and we asked him if he was okay and got his side of the story in addition to what we had seen. Apparently he had made ugly remarks to the girl he was with and it was in defense of her honor? It was kind of confusing. At any rate, the rest of the day was spent huddling on the sidewalk, climbing on light posts (well, just me), making new friends, bonding with old friends, dealing with the typical line drama, and dreaming about that moment you finally grab onto a barricade and everything suddenly becomes worth it.
According to twitter, these were the highlights of my Norfolk concert experience: "Front row center HELL YES!"..."Some m&g girl comes to me and says I stole her spot. LOL don't leave then, dumbass. I came here 10am yesterday, NO SYMPATHY!"..."Taylor made MMMBop a bit sexy tonight hahaha love it. Speechless!"..."Taylor grabbed and pulled my hand. I froze."...oh, and then there was that time where we went so insane jumping during 'If Only' that we took out the barricade and it lurched forward, just enough so that Taylor noticed and gave us that grin of his like he was proud. Haha. The set list was fantastic, and there were a few songs I had never heard live before that I got to experience which was absolutely amazing.
When the show was over, I made my way to the back of the venue as people were making their way around. I saw our manager/owner friend and went over to talk to him when he spotted me (he started referring to me as 'Crazy #1' and Lorin as 'Crazy #2'...we also knew he was legit when he came out and promised us that we would get front row). He still didn't fully understand when I told him it was all worth it with this giant grin on my face, and just as we were heading out, we said goodbye and high fived our venue friends that had stuck around. Made our way out to the bus, got a picture with Zac and he signed my Hanson TOMS. Soon we were in the Hansonmobile with our friend Nicole in the back headed back south. Definitely could not have asked for a better start to Musical Ride 2011, though the rest of the shows had a lot to live up to in terms of beating out the great experience we had in Norfolk.
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