Thoughts on Epica!!!

While the show I saw wasn't quite as good of quality as the show that streamed online tonight, I'll post my thoughts anyway.

The show was at this little, semi run-down venue in an old building in the north side of Chicago. I'm from the south side so I wasn't that thrilled about going to the north side. But I had to! Epica requires sacrifices! (like missing four classes). We got to the venue a bit after the doors opened, but we still had to wait in a line inside. I think it took like 40 minutes to get inside. We were pretty near the end of the line so a lot of people got in before us. Then you had the people who spent 50 dollars to meet Epica, which I think is ridiculous! Maybe I'm just poor, but hell, how can you charge to let people meet you. Who do you think you are? nvm. Anyway, I did get a The Divine Conspiracy t-shirt!!! Now I can wear semi-nude Simone around<3

We got three opening bands. I'm assuming the first one was local but the other two are traveling with Epica, I think, or at least, they played tonight in WI with Epica too. The one good thing about metal opening acts is you can just headbang along with them and rock out without evening knowing their songs. I usually find opening acts annoying, but these weren't so bad. My mom really likes grunting so she was thrilled! She liked the second band Blackguard. I told her I pirate their cd...

One thing that really pisses me off is when two tall people stand in front of you. Like one was to my left and the other diagonally in front of me. I could not see anything. I was so pissed. I came to gawk at my sexy Dutch woman and GRRRR!!! I wanted to punch those tall people. It's not my fault I'm short. But anyway, the wait wasn't that painful. Usually, I hate going to concerts because it is sooo terrible waiting for your band to come on. It's not that I dislike opening acts....I just really like certain female singers.

Epica came on around 9ish. It all happened so quickly. They appeared one by one, and I just thought WHERE IS SIMONE<3? Then Simone appeared and I had to stand on my tippy toes to see her. Like the WI show they started with Resign to Surrender. I think Epica sounds a lot heavier live. Like all I heard was the noise of the instruments. Simone had to like scream to be heard over and even then, sometimes I couldn't tell if she was singing. I think our venue just sucked. But I should mention (like Epica says in the online stream) that we did have a mosh pit. My mom thought the people were fighting and she wanted to run. I was like HELLO, SEXY SIMONE<3 Beat each other up later!!! I think the moshing broke out at least three times...

Like I said earlier I didn't get that good of a view even though I was no further than like two people back. I did get ahead of one of the tall guys when Epica came on so I wasn't staring at heading, and toward the end, I did just stop rocking and just started staring at Simone. That woman is so amazing. She has this like golden red hair and perfect complexion. Like I have fucked up skin. I'm jealous. Plus she is like kinda tiny; I could just imagine huggling her. And I could just stare into her eyes all night...like I tried to. I couldn't hear what she was singing most of the time and I actually had trouble identifying a lot of their songs (a couple of lines gave most away though) They played Unleashed though so I was happy about that. Unleashed is like my third favorite. They played Sancta Terra is WI. That upset me. We did get Blank Infinity, which I love equally but still...ST comes right after my fav song on the album so I'm bias. It all happened so fast, I'll say again. I was just watching them, thinking about how awesome it was to see this band I've loved quite a bit for not that long of a time. For me that is usually what makes a concert--the amount seeing these people are real means to me. Seeing Simone...this woman that I dream about. I wrote a story about, okay. I love her. And there she was just singing, being adored by all the fans.

I was thinking, toward the end of the show that I want to be like Simone so much. Just imagine having all those adoring fans and living your dream. I'm hugely inspired. Simone had to start somewhere and I know it wasn't easy for her to get where she was. It gives me great hope that I can be a famous writer one day. I want to make people happy like that, make them cheer. It's a great feeling. I was so numb after we saw Epica. After it ended I just left and drove home...without my coat on. I just thought that I just saw Epica. I saw Simone. I heard their music and watched them headbang andscream for the audience to go crazy. but time passes so quickly, and I had to drive back into reality. I couldn't bring myself to listen to Epica until this morning because I didn't want to shatter this perfect image I had of them. Because despite the fact that the venue was rotten so the sound was bad and I wasn't front row, I saw perfection.

I'm rambling, but really it was a great experience. Totally worth missing class! My mom finally mastered (kinda sorta) how to make the metal horns. She was trying the whole night so she too could rock out! She made a lot of comments about how those guys were going to hurt their necks headbanging though...I'm proud. It was her second metal concert (Tarja being the first) I have some pictures, but they're cellphone and not that good. The important thing is I took them. I think I'm going to start a wall of pictures of my favorite people that I took--not that I just copied from the net. I'd have Tarja, Sharon and Simone<3 My heroes!!!