Weezer Fangirl Adventures – Part 2

continued from Part 1...

We got to the arena around noon and met up with my linemates from the mall. In my experiences, lines are boring but when you have someone with a common interest to pass the time with, it’s really not so bad. Microsoft had set up the jumbotron this time to scroll through our tweets and pictures. Again, pretty cool to see your name and stuff up there.

Before the show started, while I was getting some free burger sliders, I noticed ANOTHER signed guitar on a table covered with 102.1 The Edge (Toronto’s alternative radio station) poster surrounded by some guys who were receiving attention that minor celebrities might (obviously the radio personalities – IDK, I don’t listen to the radio really at all anymore, although this was the same station I listened to back in high school and where I first heard Weezer being played). A lot of people were looking at the guitar too. I went over and asked what the deal was. The radio guy told me they were giving it away to the person who proved on Twitter that they were the biggest Weezer fan. It may be clear at this point, I have never met anyone who is a big of a fan as I am.  GAME. ON.

He said they would be announcing it on Melani’s show the next day. I had roughly 24 hours to prove my love. I took it VERY seriously. I WANTED that guitar and since this was a chance to earn it rather than being based on luck, I was making damn sure it came home to live with me. I came up with what I thought were several very good reasons of why I am their #1 fan (Lol). At least, in Toronto. You can decide for yourself…

The boys eventually came on stage and played a great show, as usual. This was the 9th time I’ve seen them live. They are always good, but of course, energy levels vary. I wasn’t disappointed. And it was also really fun for me to hang out with my new buddies during the show, one of whom was seeing Weezer perform for the first time.

Since I am a shortie, I didn’t have the greatest view of the stage. Usually I could see EITHER Rivers (lead) or Scott (bass – always plays on the right hand side) or Brian (guitar and keyboard – always on the left), but not all at once. And I couldn’t see Pat (drums) at all. (Until he came out to sing Song 2 by Blur, which was the highlight for me.) We were not very close to the stage and off to the left a bit. I didn’t mind. It was more the atmosphere I was enjoying this time.

this was my view most of the time

pat singing a cover of blur's song 2 was awesome

Afterwards, we got to into yet another line to meet the band. We were told before that we would receive a pre-signed photo as well as have our photo professionally taken with the guys. Also, we weren’t allowed to bring anything to have signed. I had brought a photobook hubby and I made from the Weezer Cruise just in case, but true to their word, event staff pretty much did a pat down of everyone as they approached the area. I was hoping to get to the back of the line to maximize our time with the band (a little trick I’ve learned over time – you’re not as rushed when there is no one left waiting behind you) but we ended up around the middle.

The whole thing was extremely rushed. When it was our turn next, someone snipped off our wristbands and ushered us over to the band. I barely had time to say hi to them! And I didn’t want to take up the chances of the people I was with if they wanted to say anything. I did manage to tell them to have a good time on their upcoming second cruise, to which Brian asked if I was going and I said I couldn’t make it this time.

By the time I was walking away from the other side, the next group had already taken our place. We were given our signed photo and told the one that was just taken would be available on the Microsoft Store Facebook page later on.

At 1:45pm Monday afternoon, I was lying in my bed, listening to Melani’s radio show on my ipad. At that point, I was thinking ‘I had to have won, right?’ (I had creeped all the incoming tweets to The Edge and I had, by far, the most in number and the best reasons, IMHO.) but there was that lingering doubt that things like this don’t happen to me. I had never won anything before. I had mediocre luck at best when it comes to cool things like that happening. Nevertheless, Melani came back from a commercial break to announce the winner and I sat there rigid, awaiting the news. When she said my name, I FREAKED.

Now, I had liked to think that although I’m easily excitable around friends and never shut up and am a total goof, I can keep my cool in situations like this. I am not one of those screaming, crying, psychotic fangirls.  I can tell you… you THINK you will act a certain way until you get to that moment. My reaction totally caught me off guard.

I jumped up off the bed and screeched to hubby, who was downstairs, “BABY, I WON! I &*%$ING WON!” and started jumping around and laughing like a twelve-year-old idiot. I did my best to listen to Melani as she extoled my virtue as Weezer fan and also made poked fun at me for being crazy. I immediately jumped back on Twitter to thank her and freak out a little bit more.

After an email from her and then her assistant to verify my info and tell me where to pick up the guitar, I could finally relax. Nothing made me happier than having that guitar in my hands. I not only EARNED my prize, but I felt I had earned my stripes as a TRUE Weezer fan and a proper FANGIRL.

Interesting sidenote:  Don’t ask why (or do, and I MAY tell you), but I ended up having a conversation on Twitter with a paparazzi guy from Toronto about three weeks or so later that lead to talking about Weezer. He had been at the show and had seen the guitar. As only these ‘types’ of people can do I suppose, he found out from The Edge guy that they had already decided AT the show to give the guitar to me. I had tweeted them while I was still in line at the Microsoft Store that I have a ‘flying W’ (Weezer’s logo) tattoo on my wrist when I was still trying to win the first guitar. The radio guy told the paparazzi guy that unless someone else came up with something better, “the tattoo girl is gonna get it”. The rest of my tweets were just icing on the cake, I guess.

this was the tweet that sealed the deal

~~~~~
If you missed it, check out PurpleBrina's Music Monday this week. She let me take over and it's ALLLLLL Weezer videos. 

Weezer Fangirl Adventures – Part 1

I remember sitting in my tenth grade math class with my friend Taryn belting out the words to the recently released song “Say It Ain’t So” (and now you know how old I am). I ultimately failed that class and had to make it up in summer school…  but I can’t blame that on my favourite band of all time, Weezer.  Right from the beginning of their rise to fame, I was there, listening to, FEELING their music. Weezer may not be “deep” or “profound” but they are catchy, singable, and fun, and they occasionally have that one lyric that reaches into my heart and reflects what I’m all about. It was instant connection. I can’t really explain why, but I don’t really try. And I don’t have to. I just love Weezer.

I can’t remember where or when, but front man Rivers Cuomo has been cited saying that there are two kinds of Weezer fans – the older ones who were fans in the beginning and go to shows only wanting to hear the classics like “Buddy Holly”, “My Name Is Jonas”, or “El Scorcho” and the newer fans who only know the recent stuff like “Memories”, “I Want You To”, or going REALLY far back, “Beverly Hills”. Maybe Rivers in unaware fans like me exist. I was there in the beginning and I am still here, loving each new thing they drop and eagerly anticipating new releases.

At the beginning of January, Weezer posted on both their Twitter and Facebook that they would be doing a free show in Mississauga for the Microsoft Store’s grand opening at Square One Shopping Centre.  The actual store opening celebration stuff was going to be at Square One but the Weezer show was scheduled to be at the Powerade Centre… IN MY CITY. 10 minutes from my house. And free? Yeah… I decided as soon as I heard that, I was going to do whatever it took to be there.

The deal was, in order to get these tickets, you had to line up at the mall on Friday night at 10pm and stay there overnight until the store opening at 11am Saturday.  The first 2500 people inside the store would receive 2 tickets to the show, but only the people who had stayed overnight could get Meet N’ Greet wristbands.  So, there I was at 9pm ready for the Microsoft employees to give us instructions where we should start lining up. After about 15 minutes of chaos, they decided we should line up outside the mall doors until 10. I would like to point out it was around -35 degrees C (-31 F). I wasn’t really prepared for that. But the line up to line up was only going to be around half an hour. I could totally do that for Weezer. Hubby was nice enough to offer to stay until I got settled in the actual line for the night. After that, I was going to be alone. While we were standing there, shivering our asses off, excitement was high among the fans gathered. I noticed how young the majority of the other people there were. The people right in front of me looked at least to be in their 20’s so I started up conversation with them and they turned out to be pretty cool. They promised they would let me up with them if they got there before I did. Yay. Making friends already.

my new friends showing off our cool new t-shirts

The doors finally opened and, bless them, the Microsoft employees had everything organized and under control. We were ushered in an orderly manner inside the nice warm mall and set up in a 3-tiered snaking line against one wall. Event employees came out and wristbanded the first 200 of us with orange bands that we were to trade in in the morning at the store for our official Meet N’ Greet wristbands as well as sandwiches and chips from Panera. At that point, it was just a matter of staving off the boredom and I was home free. I was pretty much on my own until about 6am. Thank goodness for charging stations!

my little "camping" spot for the night in the mall

Throughout the night, the Microsoft Store let us know through their Twitter and Facebook event page, as well as in person through their event employees, that they would be giving away a lot of great prizes in the morning as we waited in line for the grand opening. To be entered to win, all we had to do was tweet them and use their hashtag for their new Ontario store. (This marked their seventh store in all of Canada.) They would be giving away things like X-Boxes, Surface tablets, and other cool Microsoft technology but they also had a guitar signed by the members of Weezer that they were giving away. Needless to say, I started tweeting my ass off. Just a few to start with but as soon as everyone was awake and starting to line up outside the store location, I was all over it.

my line buddy won a cool camera

They gave out two prizes at a time. Usually something okay and then something really great. (The first giveaway was a set of speakers or something, followed by the Xbox.) They also had big screen TVs set up throughout the line-up that would play a loop of some of the tweets they were receiving. It was actually pretty cool to see my name and words come up so often.

my tweets made the rotation shown on the screens

When the guitar was given away, I was only a little bit disappointed to see it go to one of the guys who was ahead of me in line, but I had talked to him a bit the night before and he seemed like a cool enough guy.

it's not so bad when a prize goes to
someone who seems like an actual fan

After all the store opening stuff was over, I made plans to meet up with my new buddies before the show the next day and then went home to sleep/recover.

~~~~~
continued in Part 2...

Thoughts on Fandom

Fandom is an interesting thing. I’ve recently been contemplating what “fandom” actually means and what it means to be a part of one. I always thought to the belong to a fandom meant that you had to be out there, waving your fangirl flag high, interacting with other fans, travelling all over to catch a glimpse of the objects of your obsession or to commune with other like-minded fans. Indeed, those are some of the best parts of fandom, but there are also the quiet times you spend at home alone either watching the movies, reading the books, listening to the music, whatever the case maybe. There are the times when your ears perk up in public when a stranger mentions something and you DON’T say anything but feel that little rush of pride or kinship. Or perhaps extreme defensiveness on behalf of your fandom, depending on what was overheard. There is the aspect of spending (too much) money to collect the merchandise or spending hours poring over magazines and Google searching for every picture or article. My point being, you can be part of a fandom without much interaction with other fans.

This also changed my view of myself. Until recently, I thought of myself as a one-fandom kind of girl. It’s true that the whole Twilight thing took over my life in a way nothing else has ever come close to doing. But I also have separate chunks of my heart belonging to other fandoms. Things have come and gone (I was a huge NKOTB devotee when I was a young girl), and others will probably stick with me in some way or another for my whole life (like my obsession with the TV show Friends).

The only thing that rivals Twilight in my life, at this point, is the band Weezer.  I have been a fan since “the beginning” and it has only intensified over the twenty-year span of their career.
Coming up later today, after PurpleBrina's Music Monday (all about MY favourite band), check out my story (part 1 & 2) about how I recently went to a free concert and ended up winning a guitar signed by the members of Weezer.