We got out of store & hit the road, the 4 of us headed towards the venue. We happily listened to good tunes while we drove. We got lost on the way there & ended up going in circles for a while. Finally we got into the festival to meet with the rest of our group & from the get go everything was messed up. There had been a bomb threat at the University near by so things got bumped back. Little did we know what a catastrophe of a day it was going to be. There was supposed to be a special meet & greet set up specifically for us. That fell thru. They told us that it would be taken care of & to patiently wait. Our VIP privileges were nothing short of a joke. Not to harp on the negativity, but there was nothing really special about our insanely expensive tickets that we paid for. Nothing was set up or ready for us when they let us in. We got let into the area where there were a couple rows of folding chairs set up. The stage was far away from us & separated by everyone with a moat. We all made jokes about how there was probably alligators in the water. With our VIP privileges we were supposed to get free drinks & food. Myself & another nationer wandered up to the tent where there was a set up & we were told to go to another tent which had nothing. Then we were told that we could go to the other tent because we wanted to talk to someone at this point. We then went to another tent to go talk to someone of some sort of management to maybe get something done. But we just got a run around which made us both angsty. And then we ran into the AWOL Merch booth. Poor Mike, their merch guy, had to listen to us both rant & rave about the stupidity of the day. They finally set up the booth & we were able to get drinks but nothing was iced & everything was warm. The pizza was good though. That was about the only good thing. We kept watch of the AWOL bus so we didn't have to pay attention to the awful acts that were on the stage. Drew & Kenny made appearances off & on. And at one point we noticed Kenny & Aaron skateboarding. At one point we also saw a mod of fuzzy boot wearing, scantily clothed girls get on & off the bus. We sat thru an entire day of waiting. Then it looked like the drums & guitars were getting adjusted but then they disappeared. And more hip hop/rap artists performed. More people filled in & we were up against a barricade closer while the sun began to set. Someone came out & told us that we could go over & have the meet & greet with the guys- along with a bunch of other people. When we went over there we were shifted around & then told that it was not happening again as the guys had to get ready to get on the stage. At this point many of us were beyond pissed. We gave up our spots in the front to then be told to go back. Someone in the group yelled at the guy who kept having us go back & forth. We were able to pretty much get back to the spot we were in just shifted over a little. We were still grumbling a little from having to go back & forth. As soon as Megalithic music started, all that melted away.
And when Aaron came out on stage he threw a kiss to our direction & put up his fingers in an A. They started playing & the wait all day for them was so worth it. The energy & intensity that is usually there came off of them even though they were so far away with the moat in between. The people behind us were chanting "Sail" the whole time which was pretty annoying & our group kept looking behind us & giving them looks. We rocked out & shouted & cheered & excitedly danced. When Sail finally did come on, the crowd behind us was finally happy. And Aaron surprisingly said the "maybe I should kill myself" part of the song. We all looked at each other shocked because just earlier that morning we had been talking about how he never says it, and then he did!! As he often does, Aaron exited the stage- and on walks Zeale!! What a pleasant, unexpected surprise! We all cheered for him. At one point myself & a couple of us yelled for Drew & he must've heard it as he raised his arm & pointed right at us. Their set ended & we were told we could head over to the bus as the guys would be coming out soon after, 3 times is a charm right?
We were standing around & Zeale came over to talk with us. Kenny came off the bus & headed over to us. We handed him the flowers & card we had gotten, which had been watered & carried around all day. They were a little withered by the time we finally got them to them. He thought that was sweet of us. Eventually we were able to get Hayden's attention & had him come over to see us. Then Drew came off the bus & danced toward us with Aaron behind him. Drew headed straight over to give me a hug & Aaron hugged another nationer from our group! Kenny sauntered off the bus & him & Drew were dancing together. It was so fun & awesome to be there hanging with them after the hassle of the day. I had a wonderful chat with Drew about how awesome it is that after all this time that he still has such a musical connection with Aaron. I started off the conversation with "you know what I like?" And I think it intrigued him.
We hung out for a while and then it was time for us to disperse & head out. We were all hungry so we decided that we should head out to eat & then go over to a nationer's house for another slumber party before attempting some shuteye to then get up in the morning for one more day of epic.
Part 3, the conclusion of the Texas adventure soon to come...
To be continued...
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