Adventures of Kimmers: Went to Hollywood for Phoenix

The first weekend of fall quarter (classes started Sept 13th) was a girls’ weekend. An amazing and fun band that I’ve recently fallen in love with (thanks for the intro Nicole!), Phoenix are touring and my friends Lauren and Lindsay (and myself as well) really wanted to see them. We knew that they were going to have a show in Santa Barbara at the bowl but it would not be a possibility for me because it was a Sunday night and I have school Monday mornings. But then we realized that Saturday night they were going to be performing at the Hollywood Bowl and that would work perfectly! So we bought tickets for the Hollywood show (first show of the tour as it turned out).

We decided that we needed to go ahead and make it a girls’ weekend since we’d all need to drive a few hours to get there. And nobody wants to drive home after a concert, especially when you’ll be driving separate ways. So we booked a hotel in Burbank near a big shopping center and located conveniently for us all.

I got down there earlier than Lauren and Lindsay on Friday night because they had league bowling. So I got to check in and take over the room for a few hours. Muhahaha. I drove down earlier in the evening because I hate driving in Los Angeles (and yes, this trip just reinforced that) and didn’t want to be trying to find the hotel too late or be driving the 5 after any possible fog rolled into the grapevine. When I got there I grabbed some dinner and then made sure that the television was functioning properly. Though don’t think that I only goofed around, I did do a smidge of homework by reading an article for my Monday class. Gotta do the work if you’re gonna have fun all weekend!

Saturday morning Lauren and I walked over Target to buy me a swimsuit since I forgot mine and then to Kispy Kreme and bought a few donuts. I love watching the donuts being made, the icing waterfall is my favorite part. Wouldn’t you love to go under it, mouth open? Yeah, me too.

(Sorry the photo’s not great, it’s from my phone)

After our donut run, and hanging out a little more chatting in our room Lauren and I wandered down to the pool area to take a little swim. Lindsay wasn’t feeling super hot so she was relaxing in the room but ended up coming down later. After spending a few hours at the pool we got ready for the concert. After a quick but yummy dinner at Sharky’s we made our way to the Hollywood Bowl, at some points moving much slower than others. It’s amazing how many cars can converge in one area at one time out of nowhere.

Once we finally got to the Bowl we bought our concert shirts (a must if you want to be sure to get the one you want and in your size) then made our way to our seats. Now, I’m going to be open and honest here, we had to ask where the heck we were going a few times. It felt like we were just walking up and around and we were sure that we’d get there someday but we wanted to be sure we didn’t go too far. I know that makes it sound like we had bad seats but in actuality, they were pretty good. Plus the jumbo screens help when you can’t see through the head of the moron in front of you who keeps raising his hand like he was hoping to be called in. Raise hand, count to two, lower hand, bob around a bit, drink more wine, repeat. One of the perks of where we were sitting would have to be the guy behind us. He had some of the best one-liners ever. When one of the opening bands took the stage: “I’m not drunk enough to ‘woo’” When an interestingly attired man was walking past our section looking for his seat: “Dude, it’s a pirate!” (Which was exactly what we were thinking) When the guitarist were playing as silhouettes within two spotlights on a white curtain: “It’s like they’re playing in giant butt-cheeks!” Yep, we were laughing pretty hard at that one. Here’s what I’m talking about:

Phoenix’s show was pretty short but we weren’t too surprised by that since they’ve only had two hit singles in the States (they’re from France) so far: 1901 and Liztomania. In fact, I’m willing to bet that you’ve heard 1901 without realizing it. Seen any Cadillac commercials recently? Yeah, that song that’s playing is probably Phoenix’s. But don’t be assuming that since the show wasn’t very long that it wasn’t good. Because it was great!! There was a lot of light work so there were a few songs that you could hardly see the band but that didn’t matter because they sounded amazing live and the lights really went well with the music. But when the lights were on the band I loved watching the drummer, he gets so into the music and plays so large that it’s fascinating to watch. You can see him a bit in this video from the show. This is also a good example of the light work.