Weezer's performance in Cleveland on December 8th, 2001, was my very first concert.  I guess the best place to start this story is how I got the tickets, so this next little paragraph is dedicated to two of my favorite people here at good old SRU.

        If it weren't for Matt Cramer and Bill Eckler, I would not have been at this concert.  I blame them for my weezer concert addiction, but more importantly I THANK THEM for opening my eyes. haha  :)  I met these guys in the first week of school roaming around in my hall looking for a frisbee.  It just so happened that my roommate had one, so she gave it to them, and in return they gave her a can of RedBull which, might I add, is still sitting on top of her desk untouched.  haha  Anyway, Crame gave us his screen name before they left, but it took me a couple days to actually message him cuz I figured he wouldn't remember who I was anyway.  So I finally messaged him one night, and as it turned out, we were in the same precalculus class (along with Bill).  He said that they were havin' trouble and asked if I could help them, and that was the beginning of our little study group.  To sum things up, at the end of the semester, they bought me two tickets to the weezer show in Cleveland as a thank you for helping them.  To quote Rivers Cuomo, "How cool is that??".  THANKS AGAIN GUYS!!

        Okay back to the show....

        There was a slight problem with choosing which of my three best friends to take with me.  There's Kim, who I've been through the most stuff with and I can trust unconditionally; Melissa, who's always there for me when I really need her; and Michelle, my sister, who's been there for me since the day I was born...the person I can tell just about anything to.  All three of these people have said to me at one point or another that if weezer ever came anywhere near us they would take me to my first concert.  I decided to take my sister because I figured we share the same blood so that would be a good excuse as to why I hadn't taken one of the others. :)

        The problem arose that we needed a ride there.  If all else failed, Michelle could have driven us, but my parents were extremely against that because..... well, let's just say she's not the worlds greatest driver, especially in places she hasn't driven in before.  We were all set to take a bus only the bus schedules were retarded, and we would have ended up having to sleep over somewhere in Cleveland (probably not a good idea).  We could have gotten a ride with one of our friends that were goin' up but everybody had full cars.  This is one of the examples of how Melissa (aka Mel2) is always there for me when I need her.  She offered to drive us there and back as long as we paid for her gas.  She said that she'd bring somebody with her and they'd hang out in Cleveland - shop or something - until the concert was over.

        So that was that.

        We got there way early (which was pointless since we had seats so it's not like we had to race anybody to the front) and had to stand outside for about an hour, which sucked cuz it was really cold.  Then finally it was time to go in.

        The first thing we did was walk all the way around the Convocation Center and look around for familiar faces.  We didn't see anybody right off, but it was still an awesome experience for me.  I had never seen so many people wearing weezer shirts all together in a big group like that.  I was always used to wearing my weezer t-shirt in high school and having people ask that ever haunting question "what's a weezer?".  Being around so many fans, well.... It put a big smile on my face.  :-)

        We decided to find our seats and check out the view.  We were sitting in 216 P in seats 11 and 12.  The seats were kind of far away, but we were directly in the center so we had a really good view.  It was kind of cool cuz we could see everything from where we were sitting... Not just the stage and the band but all of the audiance too.  I guess most people don't care about that, but it was my first concert, and I just wanted to take it all in.  So they were good seats. (purple arrow pointing to where we were)

        Finally 7:30!!!

    The first band to play was Jimmy Eat World.  I had heard of them before, and Kristy's a fan so I heard their music coming from her room.  I also downloaded a few of their songs before the concert.  I really like them.  Unfortunately, the crowd didn't seem to care for them much.  I kinda felt bad cuz nobody was moving at all.  I don't know why, cuz I honestly thought they played very well.

        About 30 minutes of intermission.  Blech.

    The next band to perform was Tenacious D.  I hadn't heard of them before the concert, so I had no idea what to expect.  But as soon as the "TENACIOUS D" banner rose, a lot of people were screaming and cheering, so I knew it was gonna be good.  Tenacious D is basically two guys (Kyle and Jack Black) singing and playing guitar, only their songs are hillarious.  Kind of in an Adam Sandler type of way, only a bit more crude.  But in a good way.  They actually have a LOT of talent aside from the humor if you listen to their voices and their guitar playing abilities.

        About another 30 minutes of intermission.  Bah.

        Now, I can't say that I remember too many specific details about this concert, because I was pretty much in awe the whole time.  The guy sitting next to me was pretty cool.  I remember him cuz he was the main person trying to get everybody in our section to stand up at the end and cheer for more and stuff... I must say, the crowd kind of sucked at this concert (with a few exceptions).

        Anyway, Rivers had some comments during the show, none of which I could hear because of all the cheering and stuff.  Plus, like I said, I wasn't really paying much attention to specifics.  I remember hearing him mumble stuff, but I couldn't understand what he was saying cuz of all the noise, so I didn't think anything of it.  I do remember the first song they played.  Well, not the entire song.  But they entered the stage and began playing a Creed song.  "Can you take.... me.... hiiiiigher?"

        The setlist wasn't too bad, although they only played one song from Pinkerton which is probably my favorite album.  Although, like I mentioned on the previous page, it's a very hard decision between that and the blue album.  But anyway, they played 6 songs from the green album, 1 from Pinkerton, 7 from the blue album, and 5 new ones.  So with the exception of Pinkerton, it was a fairly even mix.

        When they played Only In Dreams (a VERY good song btw), they had big chunks of glitter fall from the ceiling onto the crowd... and the smoke effect was awesome cuz it made it seem like a dream... all you could see of the band was their silhouette.  The crowd went nuts for this song.
        The encore was amazing... They had a giant =w=come down slowly behind/above them, and when they came out for the last two songs they had it all lit up and stuff... and there was smoke everywhere... Everybody went crazy singing along and dancing and jumping up and down and stuff.  Very cool.

        And the addiction began.

        We had a bit of a problem keeping Mel2 awake at the wheel on the way home, but we all made it back safe and sound.
 
 

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