Outasight at The Roxy

Show: Outasight, The Ready Set, 2AM Club

Venue: The Roxy- Los Angeles

Date: 3/8/13

Show #9

A few weeks ago I went to see Outasight and The Ready Set play at The Roxy here in Los Angeles. I had been actively checking Outasight's Facebook page for the last year or so, patiently waiting for him to make an appearance in so cal. Day after day, still no dates added. It was beyond frustrating when I'd see dates added that were no where on the west coast. I was determined he just hated California, then FINALLY the day came, and The Roxy popped up as a date on his tour to support his debut full length album, Nights Like These! I also might add that I skipped out on going to the massive Swedish House Mafia farewell tour stop here in LA that same night to go to this instead, and it was very, very worth it.

I didn't get to the venue until a little after 9pm and I ended up catching the end of 2AM Club. They kind of sound like Shwayze and The Ready Set meets LMFAO, or in other words, feel good party music. Their big song is called "Too Fucked Up to Call" and damn is it catchy. Watch their video, and try not to have it in your head for the next 3 days.

I ended up meeting one of the lead singers after the show:

Next up was The Ready Set. All I really knew about The Ready Set going in to the show was that I'm obsessed with their song "Give Me Your Hand" and I was pretty stoked to see them perform it live. Unfortunately, the only 2 songs I really enjoyed was that one and "Love Like Woe", the other song I knew going in to it. The rest of their set was sort of...ehh. I think if I listened to them enough they could grow on me but for a first go around I wasn't that impressed.

Sorry for the shakiness, but I was getting my jump on during "Give Me Your Hand"!

Finally it was time for Outasight! If you're not familiar with Outasight he's known for his hit "Tonight is the Night", which many of you probably know from being featured in the huge Pepsi commercial which included Ray Charles, Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey and Britney Spears. This commercial basically launched his career. 

Anyways, I quickly became infatuated with the song and everything else I could get my hands on by him. I then found out he's a NY Giants fan (as am I) and that just sealed the deal for me, I was in love. Naturally I had to wear my Giants shirt to the show. I even waved my Giants lanyard around during the show which caught his eye and gave me a smile and a nod, which made me gush like a school girl. My full on school girl freak out came when he was performing "Night's Like These" and all the sudden bent down and put his head up to mine (literally) and I died a little. Watch the video of it here! It happens around 1:16.

The show was a non-stop party full of jumping, dancing and singing along. If you ever get the chance to see Outasight, I highly recommend it! Even if you don't know any of his songs you can't help but dance to it.

After the show I waited around a bit to see if I could catch him leaving the venue, and while I was waiting, these 2 guys came up and started talking to me who were apparently in the first band of the night, Kelsi Luck. They were passing out free song cards and talking a mile a minute and were just very entertaining so I had to get a pic with them.

There was no sign of Rich (Outasight's real name) so I decided to call it a night and leave. As I pull up to a red light next to The Roxy, I look to my left and I see him outside taking pictures with fans! I pulled over immediately (parked in the red) and ran over there. He was walking away and the guard wouldn't let me past him so I yelled "Rich!" and he turned around and came back, yay! I told him how long I had waited to see him come to Cali and he apologized for it taking so long and told me he'd be back again over the summer for Warped Tour, which I now have to go to. All in all, a fantastic night and I can't wait to see him again! 

Twenty One Pilots at The Troubadour

Show: Twenty One Pilots

Venue: Troubadour, Los Angeles

Date: 2/20/13

Show #8

Last night I went to see a band called Twenty One Pilots at The Troubadour. Never heard of them? Well learn their name, because they're going to be big. Twenty One Pilots are a pop/rock/punk/rap duo from Ohio currently signed to Fueled by Ramen. A friend had told me about these guys a few months ago and from the moment I watched their video for "Guns for Hands" (which is an awesome video!) I've had their album Vessel on loop and knew I had to see them live.

I missed the first opening band the Echo Smiths, but made it in time to see another buzzworthy band called New Politics from Denmark. They're known for their latest single "Harlem" which just got picked up by KROQ.

The lead singer had moves like (no, not Jagger) Tyson Ritter from the All American Rejects, and the drummer looks like Adam Levine, so in addition to their fun upbeat songs, they're also easy on the eyes. Also, the lead singer is quite the break dancer!

After New Politics came Twenty One Pilots. This was one of those shows you get a special feeling about and by the end you find yourself asking the question "Holy shit, what did I just witness?". This was their first time playing in Los Angeles, and they made it quite obvious this was show was a big deal for them. All the record exec big wigs were sitting in the balcony watching the show and crowd reaction with great intent. I'm proud to say I don't think the crowd could have been any better or more responsive and totally shattered the LA crowd stereotype all bands dread. When we were asked to jump, we jumped, when we were asked to scream, we wailed and when we were asked to go nuts, we lost it and given the amazing show we were all witnessing, it was easy.

They actually did something I have ALWAYS wanted to see a band do, and that's make fun of how everyone pretends to say this is their last song, when we all know they're going to come out and do an encore. Lead singer Tyler did just that. He said "I'm going to say this is our last song, you're going to say aww, boo! But we all know that's not true, and you'll all cheer and scream for one more song, and we'll play another one." In fact, when the cheering started for one more song, they didn't even leave the stage, and instead assisted in cheering for one more song, which they then of course did, and ended with "Guns for Hands". I thought it was funny that even after all of that, everyone still stuck around staring at the stage waiting for another song, as if to have a real encore, but that didn't happen.

One of my favorite songs of theirs is actually a slower number called "Car Radio", which I recorded:

Semi-Automatic

I can't wait for these guys to come back to LA (which I'm going to predict their next show will be at a much bigger venue... maybe the Wiltern?). Until then, go get their album Vessel!

Ed Sheeran at Nokia Theatre

Show: Ed Sheeran 

Venue: Nokia Theatre

Date: 2/17/13

Show #7

Last week I went to see an artist who has quickly become one of my favorite acts to see live, Ed Sheeran. If you're not familiar with Ed Sheeran, he's an immensely talented singer/songwriter from the UK, most recently known for his Grammy nominated song "The A Team". I hate categorizing someone as amazing as Ed as just a singer/songwriter because he's so much more than that, but you have to listen for yourself to believe it. I personally fell in love with him for his song "Kiss Me" which came on my Pandora station last year and I've been hooked ever since.

At first glance, Ed Sheeran looks like a punk, high school drop out, probably because he was! He actually dropped out of school at the age of 16 and spent time moving from city to city performing at open mic nights until moving to LA and found someone willing to take a chance on him, and the rest is history. He's now 22 (as of the date of this show actually) and is just getting started.

Last Sunday was a big show for Sheeran as not only was it his 22nd birthday, it was the last show of the tour and his biggest headlining US show to date. His BFF Taylor Swift even tweeted Ed to wish a happy birthday to one of her "favorite humans" and good luck at the show.

Opening the show for him was another an Irish singer/songwriter named Foy Vance. I had heard of Foy only because of the last time I saw Ed at The Wiltern in October, he raved about how big of a fan of his he was, and that he would be joining him on his next tour. I had meant to look him up after that but forgot, and now I'm wishing I had. Like Ed, Foy Vance is a one man band. All he needs on stage is his guitar and a loop pedal. At one point he actually used a violin bow on his guitar! It was my first time seeing an opening act get a standing ovation, from a room full of teenage girls nonetheless!

Here are a few videos I recorded of Foy:

Next up was a pop/rap duo from the UK called the Rizzle Kicks. I had such a great time with these guys! It was a nonstop party from beginning to end. The highlight being when they performed their hit song "Mama do the hump" which is catchy as hell!

Finally it was time for Ed to take the stage. Earlier in the day he tweeted asking everyone coming to the show to dress up

Ed ended up coming out in a pirate costume, which I thought he was change or at least take his hat off after a few songs, but he kept it on the whole time.

Foy Vance joined Ed on stage for my favorite song, "Kiss Me"

Ed worked in 2pac to his song "Grade 8" and it was bad ass. This video also showcases what I mean when I say he's a one man band. He has his guitar rigged to provide a bass beat when he strikes it. Also watch for his rap break around 3:09.

The Rizzle Kicks and Foy Vance joined ed on stage for part of "You Need Me, I Don't Need You":

Moral of the story is, go see Ed Sheeran if you ever get the chance! You will be glad you did!

Ryan Cabrera, Tyler Hilton and Teddy Geiger at The Roxy

Show: Ryan Cabrera, Tyler Hilton and Teddy Geiger

Venue: The Roxy- Los Angeles, CA

Date: 1/19/13

Show #3

Yes, you read that correctly. The show I went to Saturday night could have easily been mistaken for a a dream team of a show in 2005, but in fact, I got to flash back to my senior year in high school and see 3 singer/song writer heartthrobs from yesteryear. All of which might I add, only got better with age.

I've been a Ryan Cabrera fan longer than I can remember and always go see him every chance I get. This may have been my 8th or 9th time seeing him. Here are a few pictures I got with him over the years.

Anyways, enough reminiscing! So Saturday night, I got to The Roxy around 8:30, and there was still quite the line outside to get in. I then overheard that the show ended up selling out, which made me both excited for the guys and upset I didn't get there earlier so I could be closer to the front.  I got inside, and it was packed! I hadn't seen the Roxy that packed in a long time. I had missed the opening act but got there just in time to see Teddy Geiger take the stage! If you're not familiar with Teddy, you may have heard his song "For You I Will". It came out in 2005 and it was EVERYWHERE.

I look TERRIBLE in this picture, but here's Teddy and I at a radio station (107.9 The End, Sacramento) meet and greet in 2005. Fun fact about me.. when i'm nervous, I get red and blotchy (TMI? Maybe), and if you notice in this picture, i'm not exactly my normal pale self. You could say I was rather excited to see him!

I'll be honest, I hadn't kept up with Teddy over the years after his big hit, but seeing him Saturday night made me wish I had. He has so many other great songs. He performed a lot of stuff he said would be on his new album coming out in the next few months, all of which were great. I hope he comes back around to LA soon! I'll definitely be at any show he does back in so cal. I'd also like to say that Teddy, if you're reading this, I think you should bring Ryan Vaughn back on tour with you! You two made a great team on stage, his onstage banter was hilarious and not to mention, he's kind of adorable. But just my two cents.

It came to the last song and everyone gets excited because he hadn't done "For You I Will" yet, but then he says "Here's another new one for you..." Everyone looks around at each other with the look of "He's kidding right?" He was in fact kidding. The song began and it was the one everyone wanted to hear. Teddy looked pretty humbled by the fact everyone was singing along. All in all, Teddy was great! I'm looking forward to hearing new stuff from him soon!

"For You I Will"

Tyler joining Teddy on stage during his set for a song

Next up was Tyler Hilton. I also saw Tyler Hilton in... yes, you guessed it... 2005. I saw him with Michelle Branch on the One Tree Hill tour. If you're not familiar with his name, his claim to fame was being a part of the hit TV show One Tree Hill. I never saw an episode, but it was on for close to 9 years and has quite the cult following. At one point during the show, Tyler asked if there were any One Tree Hill fans in the audience and the whole place erupted. 

Tyler was another one I wish I had kept up with. Especially after he did this song, "Prince of Nothing Charming" and dedicated it to his girlfriend after apologizing for never being home. I died a little, it was that good.

At one point during his set, he said he wanted to bring Teddy back out to perform something they had been working on, which didn't seem out of the ordinary at all until he said that it was about to get sexy up in here, and possibly NC-17. I was immediately intrigued. Teddy came out with shades on, and they ended up performing R Kelly's Ignition remix! It was fantastic!

These guys all repeatedly said how excited they were to all finally get to tour together and described it as something they planned on just doing for fun and this definitely showed that.

Last but not least, we had Mr. Ryan Cabrera! I don't know what to say about Ryan at this point other than I think he's an amazingly talented singer/songwriter and I'll listen to and love anything he puts out. He said we could expect a new album this year!

He was the only one that night that had more than a 1 person band behind him. One of which, did background vocals, and specialized in the shaker. He actually explained how he met the shaker extraordinaire, which was a very cool story. He was at Wrigley Field in Chicago, and overheard the peanut/popcorn salesman singing to people to come get their popcorn. He said he was so impressed with his voice that he ran up to him and asked him to come to the show that night and sing background vocals. He ended up quitting his job to go on tour with Ryan! He even gave him his own shaker solo on Saturday:

One other highlight of the show was when he stopped in the middle of a song and asked the crowd for requests on what songs we'd like him to cover. He ended up doing about 3 on the fly which included One Direction, Fun and Britney Spears. Pretty cool!

He also did 2 new songs which will be on his new album:

Overall, it was a great show, and the lineup was just perfect. I'll be looking forward to new music from all three guys!

Hanson Music Video Shoot

L-R: Zac, Director Adam Neustadter?, Alex Beh, Nikki Reed, Drew Seeley, Amy Paffrath who faints in video, Taylor, Kat Dennings, Paul McDonald, Isaac

Today was so amazing, I don't even know where to begin!

Short version: Hanson put out a casting call for Los Angeles area fans to be in their new music video, I submitted, didn't get picked, but my friend did, so I knew when and where to show up, which I did, and ended up getting in anyway! The song is great (Sounds like it could be on Shout It Out), and Taylor told me that it should be released in "Uhhh...A couple months".

Long version:

On Friday, Hanson posted on Facebook that they were looking for fans in the LA area to be in their new music video, which was scheduled to shoot on Sunday. Thankfully a friend pointed it out to me and we both immediately applied, as it was a casted event. Saturday night rolled around and still no confirmation email saying I got picked. I was so anxious waiting for that email that I sat in front of my computer refreshing my inbox every few minutes. It made me feel better though that no one else on Facebook or Twitter was saying they received anything, so there was still hope.

I ended up falling asleep, but woke up that morning to a text from my friend saying she was selected. Yet, still nothing in my inbox. I couldn't bear the thought knowing Hanson was filming 10 minutes from me and not being there, so I decided to go and try my luck, hoping to get in due to no shows. And that's exactly what happened! There were only about 5 or 6 girls who showed up not having been invited, and we all got in!

Me getting my number assigned and picture taken

The shoot was at The Satellite, a small music venue in Silverlake. Call time was 11am, but my group ended up not going inside until around 2:45. There was a small group of people who were asked to get there at 8am for other shots. Then the 11am group got split up into 6 groups. I was in group 5. Once we got inside, the guys were already on the stage, messing around on their various instruments. They were all in black and white suits, and just looked amazing. I mean, I've never seen them look anything but amazing, but they looked exceptional today.

Credit: @stacepowe

The next 3 and a half hours was basically just getting filmed enjoying watching the guys, so you know, a hard days work. I was so excited to see Kat Dennings when I got inside, then found out she was in the video. Also in the video was Nikki Reed, Drew Seeley and Drake Bell. Also there, although not in the video (at least I didn't see her filmed at all), Meiko! If you saw them on their last tour, she opened for them. I became a big fan of hers after that and have seen her a few times since then. I ran into her outside and told her I was a big fan, which she seemed to enjoy, and thanked me.

Nikki played a bartender, who ends up leaving with Drew at the end of the night. Kat was with an unknown actor (former boyfriend of Jennifer Love Hewitt) named  Alex Beh. I unfortunately didn't see Drake, I believe he left before I got inside, so i'm not sure what his part in all of it was.

In between one of the takes, I was standing next to Nikki and a fan asked how she got involved with the shoot. She explained that a few years ago, the guys found out she was a fan (from a blog post of hers), and invited her out to a show. They had been friends ever since, and later found out that her very good friend Kat Dennings was also friends with the guys. The guys proceeded to ask both girls to be in the video, and both being huge Hanson fans, they were instantly on board. Just watching her talk about the guys, you could tell she was a true, genuine fan and was excited to be there. Finding out she was such a huge Hanson fan made me hate her a little less, only because I'm jealous of who she's married to (Paul McDonald... *Sigh*).

Kat was clearly very excited to be in it as well:

The song is called 'Get the Girl Back', so the story revolves around the guys in video trying to get their girls back. One of which (Alex Beh), spills a drink on his girl (Kat Dennings) and she takes off. The video even has a dance battle scene with Josh (JMac) Hanson! The song is super catchy and fun. It's along the same style as Shout It Out. They had a horn section on stage with them who call themselves the Brass Knuckles. They posted a video talking to Zac here:

 Taylor was very, very involved, and vocal throughout the shoot. He was calling out continuity issues and working on things with the director to get everything just right. Zac and Isaac didn't say much, and just left it to Taylor. Taylor took a special interest in the crowd and directed us multiple times to just go as crazy as possible, but as he said "We want you to go crazy! Well maybe not foaming at the mouth crazy, but crazy!". He was also big on making sure we had all the hand claps and rhythms down perfectly.

The highlight of the night for me was when I got selected to actually have a part! There was a scene where a fan in the crowd was to faint, and I got picked to be the girl that catches her, so I definitely will be getting some face time from that! Yay! The other highlight was when the guys came up to the front rows and shook everyone's hands, which was being filmed, and I'm hoping my shake with Taylor makes the cut! After the final shot inside, they said goodbye to all of us, and shook all our hands again. I even managed to form a sentence (which is a rare occurrence with me and Hanson), and asked Taylor when the song would be released and he responded with "Uhhh...a couple months", and kind of laughed. So basically, TBD.

Once we were done inside, we all had to lineup outside the venue for one more quick shot of all of us, as if we were going into the show. We also saw Kat, Nikki, Alex and Drew walking hand in hand as if they were leaving the venue. Taylor, Zac and Isaac even came outside to watch the final shot, even though they weren't in it. Once that was over, they invited us all to huddle around them and they graciously thanked us and said the new album would be out "soon". They gave hugs, shook hands and said goodbye to everyone. I didn't see anyone get a picture with them, since it looked like they took off pretty quickly, so I left too.

All in all, it was an amazing day! I'm so excited for the new album and of course for this video to premiere!

P.S. To all the other fans who were there, I just wanted to say, you were all so sweet as usual. I've never had a bad experience with Hanson fans, so thanks for keeping that streak going!