So we're at Acquire The Fire. Great event, awesome praise and worship, cool speaker, but, before '97, a big fat zero in the music department. Last year, they had The Brothers perform. I'm still recovering from that one. So I was kinda stoked to hear that Five Iron Frenzy was going to play. O.K., really stoked. So stoked, in fact, that that's all we talked about. Friday night at all the ATFs are known as "prank night", where we're all back at the hotel (in this case the Sacramento Hilton), we're totally jazzed after some awesome, hyper worship services, and we somehow have to get all this energy out. This is the first year where every prank my friends and I pulled revolved around one band (in this case, FIF).
Since Jesika and Crystal are in love with Reese, lead singer dude for the Five Iron crew, we decided that it was just too cool to pass up. Especially since they were literally counting the hours 'til they got to see him. We somehow convinced them that Five Iron Frenzy was going to stay at our hotel (lie), and since I'm totally tight with the band (lie), they could meet the guys and hang out with them (lie). As their eyes popped out of their heads, and their hearts sped up, I casually explained to them that they would arrive at the hotel at about 3:00 AM (lie). I told them I'd call them and get them to come down to the lobby when I met the guys.
As Tom and the rest of the guys cracked up, I continued on with a straight face about all this junk. By the time I was through, they were, to say the least, quite excited. This was going to be one heck of a prank.
At 2:45 AM, I called them. Speaking as though I were out of breath (lie), I told them I was in the lobby (lie, I was in our hotel room) and that the guys were in the parking lot, waiting for their roadies to show up with their eqipment (bald-faced lie). I told them to meet us out by the side of the hotel (conviently right in front of our third story window.)
At his point, I can picture in my mind them hurriedly getting dressed, sneaking out, taking the slooooooooow elevator from the 8th floor, running through the lobby to the side door, and stepping out into the freezing cold at an empty parking lot. We opened our third story window, shouted "THEY JUST LEFT TO UNLOAD AT THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HOTEL!!!" (guess what that is, boys and girls - a lie), and closed the window. They ran to the other side, and we slept until about 3:30 AM, I guess until they finally realized that they had been tricked. They pounded on our doors for about a half-hour, (loudly) demanding to know where Reese is. Pat stuck his head out, said "He left" (lie lie lie), and slammed he door, locking it. We win.
O.K., I guess you want a concert review. After lunch, we all crowded around the stage, chanting "Five Iron" loudly. Finally this guy got up and took 20 minutes making small talk ("So how many Christians we got in the house?"). It was getting to the point where even our youth pastor was saying "I smell stallage." And it's true; this guy was stalling. What happened? Did Five Iron Frenzy get in a car wreck? Did ATF schedule Carman as a replacement act? We were starting to get worried, but FIF came up and started to set up. Cheers from the crowd drowned out the guys nervous, "Ummmm...no moshing..." mutterings. If this wasn't a Christian convention, he might've gotten booed off the stage.
Finally, Reese, Scott, Micah, Chaka, Jeff, and the others took control, blasting out "A Flowery Song". The pit was frantic. Message to ATF:In order to curb the mosh pit, tell your dang security guards that moshing themselves is not a good way to enforce the rules. The part in the song where they all make animal sounds was even more hilarious then on record. The sight of a big guy like Scott doing sheep sounds made my heart all warm and fuzzy.
Next was "Anthem", one of their best songs, and boy, did they rock it. Talk about frenzy. I really think Reese would've stage-dived if he could of, he looked rather envious of us in the crowd, skanking and moshing our hearts out.
Then came "Cool Enough For You", and they brought the house down. After the song was over, the guy I was talking about before promptly ran up and announced that the concert was over. We booed, partly because they didn't get to play "When 0 Meets 15" and "Combat Chuck", but mostly because now we had 2 hours to kill, and that meant listening to Crystal and Jesika swoon over Reesey-boy. All in all, FIF has the coolest stage show, and I will definitely be seeing them again.