Waterparks @ Anaheim! (mirror from site)

Hello! I got back from Anaheim this morning (when I had first started typing this blog post on May the 1st) with data and Bel! It was a super fun trip, seeing Waterparks live for the first time, as well as going to the Homestuck Café. We even got to hang out with another online friend while down there after the café. Some annoying things happened at the hotel (like a kid pulling a fire alarm twice for no reason 🙃), but that also, overall, was okay, since it only happened twice. Didn't get to eat hotel breakfast like I wanted to because of the kids, either. I didn't really take into consideration that Disney Families™ would be there too when booking our hotel.😅

Waterparks at House of Blues Anaheim

The Waterparks concert was AMAZING!!! This is my first concert since going to see Hilary Duff as a kid, and I had such a blast. Honestly, I came out of it feeling like a changed person. First off, we upgraded our seats before we left so we wouldn't have to wait in line and wouldn't have to stand since I have back issues. Security for that was kind of a pain in the ass, though. We had no obvious notice of how bags worked for concerts, like rules and shit, so we brought our usual day bags and had to go back to the hotel to get rid of them. Security assumed we came here by our own car when in reality we walked from our hotel to there in the first place. We didn't want to waste time walking back and fourth, so we Lyfted from the venue to our hotel and back. While at the hotel, data tripped and scraped it's knee... so we blamed it on the security guard. Also, Ed Sheeran taunted him in the car with this song the moment we got into the Lyft to go back to the venue, and quickly became a meme between the three of us for the rest of the trip.

When we came back to go into the quick access/VIP room after all that, we almost got sent back again because apparently Bel was wearing something too spiky.😒 Why didn't they say something before the first trip, and why would it matter if we're just relaxing in those seats??? But luckily, they said they'd just hold on to it and we can pick it up after the concert, so that's what we did.

After all of that though, we got inside to our mezzanine seats. The VIP area was awesome, and I kind of regret not using it to our advantage more than we did. Even the preshow artists were good, too! I'm happy to have some new artists, Daisy Grenade and Hunny, to listen to out of this experience.

After Daisy Grenade played, we went to the merch area to pick up some merch, and sadly had missed out on the Anaheim Exclusive Hoodie.😔 We did get hella other merch though, so it'll be okay. We also decided to just blame it on the security guard--who we also decided had Ed Sheeran as an alter ego, and thus the meme grew. While we were at the merch stand, Hunny had started playing, so we returned to our seats, merchandise in tow.

After Hunny, there was an intermission where they prepared the stage for Waterparks, and we got super excited to see what was being unveiled; framed screens and Otto's drum set.

And then, after 30 minutes or so, the concert started.

I got a little mad because they were starting it off with some ambiance and a completely black stage--which the floor crowd promptly ruined by shining ALL of their phone lights at the stage. Come on guys, let the band have their cool entrance.
The first song was ST*RFUCKER (⚠️ EYE STRAIN/FLASHING VIDEO WARNING??), and it was super sick!! It's one of my favorites on their newest album, so of course the live performance did it justice.

I honestly wanted to make a compilation of all the songs I recorded for this blog and put it here, as well as Awsten being his batshit (affectionate) self, but it would honestly take too much energy for what it's worth right now. I may link to it here in the future, though, so this blog will get its own little addendum some day.

Also, I am so glad that we upgraded our tickets to those seats because I didn't realize that there would be mosh pits. 🫢 As someone who has chronic back issues, I probably would have imploded if I was on the ground floor with those. They were super cool to witness from up above, though. And during heavier songs, like RITUAL (⚠️ EYE STRAIN/FLASHING VIDEO WARNING RELIGIOUS TRAUMA IMPLIED?), they were super nuts.
Again, I wanted to embed some videos here too, but I don't even know if I got video of them.😅

Eventually we got to the final song, which was A NIGHT OUT ON EARTH (⚠️ EYE STRAIN/FLASHING VIDEO WARNING), and is another one of my favorite songs from the new album. It was an amazing performance as well!
After that song, it grew dark and silent, and seemed like it was genuinely over.
The crowd chanted for an encore... and it was delivered.

It started with REALSUPERDARK (⚠️ I THINK YOU GET THE GIST NOW, PARX LIKES EYESTRAIN & FLASHING VIDEOS LATELY), then went into Turbulent (finally, no flash warning, its just the album art)... with one of the sickest transitions between songs. He gets down on the floor at the end of REALSUPERDARK, it grows silent, then you hear the quieter synths from the end of Turbulent. After a few moments of complete darkness, Awsten yells, "Anaheim....... ANAHEIM!!!"--then the intense bass and guitar punches in from the song--"MOVE THAT FUCKING PIT APART FOR ME RIGHT NOW!!"--there are sirens--"BY THE TIME I GET UP THERE'D BETTER BE AN OPENING!!! (DON'T FUCK THIS UP?)!"
And the song begins.
The pit is open, the crowd is singing along extremely loudly, and the energy is fire. That was the craziest I saw the pit get that night, but luckily it wasn't so crazy it hurt someone.

I think there were one or two more songs after that, before they finally ended with Funeral Grey--so a happier, less intense song to end on. Once they were done, my brain felt rewired in a good way. When they finally left the stage, this appeared on the screens:

The concert ended and I left feeling like a changed person. It was amazing, and I really want to see Waterparks live again. Hell, I'd buy tickets for the last USA showings in LA if I knew I'd have the money to go back down there for it. I am now pretty obsessed with the band, its like they filled the niche that Twenty One Pilots did in high school (no offense to TØP fans, but they kind of fell off for me when Heathens came out 😵).

We left the venue energized, took photos with our merch, wrote on some walls with chalk, and went to our hotel to rest for the next day; going to the Homestuck Cafe.

I will leave the Homestuck Cafe for another blog post potentially, because I really can't type anymore right now. Plus, this blog is already an over-a-month long WIP due to depressive episodes, work making me tired, and just a whole lot of weird brain problems.

Thanks for reading, though! And seriously. Go listen to Waterparks!

(Original on kotatsu.me)