Sunday, November 24, 2013

Winter will be white, Music

Music has been my best friend these past few months. Through all of the stress that is college it has helped me decompress and remember to take a breath or two. I have been extremely fortunate to see some amazing musicians perform this fall and am looking forward to seeing some more during winter quarter. So many good albums have come out this past year and I must share them with you! Also none of this will come as a surprise since I have talked about almost all of these bands in previous posts...

1. Vessel - twenty one pilots


Tyler and Josh totally rocked this album and seeing them live a few weeks ago was just the icing on the cake. Josh is such an incredible drummer and with the combination of that and Tyler's compelling lyrics, the entire album is a must listen to. In concert, their performance was so whole heartily done and more genuine than any show I have been to. It was pretty cool getting to meet Tyler too, it would be weird to say things like, yeah he was a really nice guy because I don't really know anything about him but I can tell he puts everything he has into his music and I can really appreciate that.

2. Oak Island - Our Last Night


Also got to see these guys in concert, so amazing live as well. It was unfortunate that their set only lasted about a half hour and for most of the set we were weaving up to the front and slightly distracted but that didn't stop me from screaming every lyric at the top of my lungs. Their new album is pretty amazing and even though it is quite short with only seven songs, the instrumentals and vocals are beautiful. Matt and Trevor's voices go so well together and even though the lyrics are fairly simple, they always but so much effort into their music and they were way better live than on any of their recorded music.

3. Sempiternal - Bring me the Horizon


This is my most recent new found love, Taylor and I just bought tickets for their show in March. Tay has been looking forward to the day that Bring me the Horizon comes to the States since she was just a teen babe. And honestly, I am so looking forward to this show as well. Before I bought my ticket I had heard a few of their songs but since then I have checked out their most recent album and, boy, is it gold. On youtube they have the full album for our listening joys. I have listened to it a good five or six times through and have appreciated every moment of it. The thing I love about heavier music is the heavier use of bass and more intricate instrument usage in general. It is actually really soothing to me, which might be strange. I plan on taking some time to listen to their older stuff in the near future. Also Oli Sykes (lead singer) just came out with a winter collection and I may or may not blow the bank on it.

4. Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die! - Panic! at the Disco



This is Panic!'s newest album and way different from their many different sounds. The band has undergone quite a few rearrangements of new members and the different sound in the music totally reflects this. This album is much more dance-y than their usual but it totally works with Brendon's voice. They are coming next year and it is sold out but I'm holding out for stubhub prices to drop right before the show (rumor says that that almost always happens, people trying to get rid of their tickets) and since none of them have been selling, I'm confident they will start dropping soon. Been waiting to see them since I was a young babe and if this night comes true it shall be a beautiful night.

Those are the albums I am currently listening to for fall and going into winter, once I find some more gems I won't hesitate to share! I am also so looking forward to Thanksgiving, I get to go up north and visit all of my friends from far away places as well as my friends from not so far away places! Including a few friends I haven't seen in over a year! I have been a bit sick all quarter and this is unfortunate but I am so looking forward to some time off of school, only have classes tomorrow for the rest of the week, oh the joys of the holidays!

~~~

Some people lose themselves at one point or another
and when you find yourself again, you will be a different person, 
everything will be different and that is ok. 
It is ok to be sad and you have every right to feel sad 
but also know that you don't have to feel sad forever, 
that is a burden no one was meant to bare

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Our Last Night Concert


Photo taken from Trevor Wentworth's Instagram, I am in this picture somewhere but I'm not even going to try and look..

So this concert definitely happened last Saturday but I have been going very nonstop on life and today is my breathing day! And the concert was quite amazing. It was at Showbox SoDo and it was my first time going there it it was a quite sick venue. Unlike the twenty one pilots concert we decided to go after the doors opened to avoid waiting in a terribly cold line. Despite the fact that we were at probably the very back of the line, we made it up to the second row during Our Last Nights set. I definitely thought I was going to die multiple times, especially when two people elbowed me in the face from either side and my head bent almost completely backwards and I just about broke it, BUT IT WAS WORTH IT

In short, Our Last Night's set was amazing and they are so incredible live and it was all things good and no things bad. Well bad in one aspect, and that is that it was only a half an hour set. I knew all the words to all of the songs they played and they played all of my favorite songs by them and that was quite nice. I am so holding out for them to play with warped tour.

Also Issues played next and I wasn't quite invested in them but they were also really good live. Got pretty up close with Tyler Carter and that was nice. After being elbowed on every part of our bodies Taylor and I called it quits on the front and chilled in the back for Breathe Carolina and Sleeping with Sirens sets. Kellin Quinn talked way too much, like much more talking than playing which was dumb but this really tall friend we made asked me if I wanted to go on his shoulder, and for the very brief moments I was on his shoulders it was really cool, the best view, especially because he was a good 6'2" at least. Then a security person told me to get down, BUT IT WAS WORTH IT.

All in all it was a great concert and even though we got quite beaten up it was still so amazing and I look forward to seeing them again in the future. Below are some more photos from the show taken by the wonderful Karen Ready. After the show I found her website and I am so digging her work.



~~~

Many more shows coming up in winter and spring including Panic! and Bring me the Horizon and I plan on going bankrupt buying all of the tickets...

Friday, November 15, 2013

Etty Hillesum

"It is possible to suffer with dignity and without. I mean: most of us in the West don't understand the art of suffering and experience a thousand fears instead. We cease to be alive, being full of fear, bitterness, hatred, and despair. God knows, it's only too easy to understand why. But... I am in Poland every day, on the battlefields, if that is what one can call them. I often see visions of poisonous green smoke; I am with the hungry, with the ill-treated and the dying, every day, but I am also with the jasmine and with that piece of the sky beyond my window; there is room for everything in a single life... I sometimes bow my head under the great burden that weighs down on me, but even as I bow my head I also feel the need, almost mechanically, to fold my hands. And so I can sit for hours and know everything and bear anything and grow stronger in the bearing of it, and at the same time feel sure that life is beautiful and worth living and meaningful. Despite everything."

-- Etty Hillesum, written in Holland one year before her death in Auschwitz, 1942.

I was just reading for my Theology class and this quote really resonated with me. As I grow older I am finding it harder and harder to believe that from all the suck that happens, I grow stronger. I feel like that might be something I tell myself and that other people might see in me, but I always feel the same. I feel so sempiternal. I bet I will start to notice soon, if Etty was alive today I know I would have a huge friend-crush on her.

Something beautiful from this past weekend, Taken at the parliament building in Victoria BC by a good friend of mine, Scott Young.


I tried to make a new playlist but 8tracks won't let me make one with more than two songs by one artist, and the playlist consists of four twenty one pilots songs here it is below with links, it is my fall playlist that I have been nonstop listening to.

1. Oh, Ms. Believer twenty one pilots
2. Kiss Me Ed Sheeran
3. Screen twenty one pilots
4. This is Gospel Panic! at the Disco
5. Addict with a Pen twenty one pilots
6. Vegas Lights Panic! at the Disco
7. Global Concepts Robert DeLong
8. Fake You Out twenty one pilots

~~~

Any Seattleites out there, Robert and Panic! are playing this upcoming January, just saying.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

twenty one pilots Concert |-/


Last night was the long awaited twenty one pilots concert. It was everything I hoped it was going to be, nothing more or less but just exactly what I wanted to happen. I am not suffering too greatly from post concert depression and I think it is because I am not obsessed with Tyler and Josh as people I just really really enjoy their music and I can listen to it anywhere but the best part of going to the concert was just being in the same room with so many people that knew all the lyrics and all the claps and all the beats and all the everything.

They were such great performers and the entire show was flawless, the stage setup, the transitions, the talky part, and even when they performed on the crowd (actually on the crowd, we literally help up a drum set for Josh). It was so well done and just everything about it was enjoyable and alive. I am in a really weird mood at the moment and I think that is definitely evident in this post..

Also we got to meet Tyler and one of his friends which was pretty cool. We just introduced ourselves and had a pretty regular conversation, I let him know he had a date with us later in the evening (the concert of course) and, well, the date went really well. And I was one of the only people who brought a mask, which I thought was weird, and when I wore it around before the concert everyone was like, "woah she has one of the masks like the band," and I just was just shakin' my head.

I honestly don't have too much to say, I plan on writing a very lengthy journal entry about the concert later today because well, I am still a teenage girl. And lately I have had the extreme sense of longing, just missing a lot of different people and struggling with trying not to fall into habits that took over me last year. It is so hard to fight something inside yourself. It is so hard for me and I wish it wasn't. But I guess all that matters is that I am fighting and I am confident I can win the battle.

It is so cool to see people achieve their goals but sometimes it is a harsh reminder that I am far away from achieving any of mine, stay strong, carry on, thats just what I gotta do.

Pictures from the concert/before below!

Like I said, we were literally holding Josh up :) Picture taken by Taylor Burmer.

Taylor and I in line for the show 

~~~

Are brains are sick but that's ok.