This past night, the "Meg & Dia" band returned to perform once again at "Chain Reaction" in Anaheim, California. I can mark this as one of the best and most memorable nights, in my following this band for about a little over two years now. Part of the reason is because the dedicated "MaD" fan base who call ourselves "boardies" (MaD message "board") were there in significant numbers to see the band. I usually go alone to concerts, but when it comes to MaD, I actually have friends that I get to meet up with. Since I've been a constant attendee to their shows here near my parts,
the band themselves (and their manager) recognizes me already, if not by name but by face, so that in itself always adds to the experience.
We were standing in line for about two hours before the doors opened, so by the time we got in, we had clear pickings to go to the front of the stage. The rest of the boardies did exactly that, but me on the otherhand, I've always rather stay near the back since I want to use my camera without worrying about having to deal with getting squeezed in. This time around I was going to try something different with my camera, in that I wasn't going to record Meg & Dia's whole set. I was going to pick and choose which songs I want on video, and this time I was going to actually take photos to the ones that I'm not recording. While wasting time, at one point while I was playing with my cellphone, Dia must have
recognized me or something when she walked by, because she surprisingly patted my
shoulder as she passed me (I was all big smiles for several minutes after that).
Starting at 8PM, "Danger Radio" performed as the opening act, and I got to admit that they did not sound bad at all. They had this danceable rock thing going, and I was really enjoying myself listening to them in their thirty minutes set. By 8:45PM, "Jonezetta" did their thirty minutes set, and I have to say that I wasn't necessarily as thrilled with their performance like I was last year when I saw them last. They did play new songs off their upcoming album, so maybe that might have contributed to my reaction to their set.
9:45PM rolls around and Meg & Dia started their performance, in what is their first sold out show of their first headlining tour. I thought they had an overall good setlist for the night, opening with "Strawberry Waltz," which is a classic from their rare "Our Home Is Gone" album (proud to have in my possession). They also played three songs from their upcoming new album that comes out early next year, and they sounded great. Ofcourse the usual tour mainstays from their album "Something Real" were in the set as well. They even had a one encore song to end the night, which is just too bad for some of the people in the audience who left prior to that. Remember people, if the venue's lights don't go back on after the "last" song, then it's not over. While I thought their performance was "epic" to say the least, Chain Reaction did have the main vocals mic volume a little lower than I preferred, which made it hard to hear Dia's singing sometimes. It was a great forty-five minutes of their eleven songs set though, plus with the bulk of the boardies up front acting all "crazy" to the band's enjoyment, it was easily a memorably enjoyable performance.
It was 10:30PM, but the night was not over yet! Before we were kicked out of the venue, the band's manager Mike Kaminsky told me to tell the rest of the boardies to make sure to stick around for "something." While we tried to stay inside Chain Reaction as long as possible, we decided to stay near their tour van in the parking lot instead. Once outside I witnessed what was the largest "meet & greet" that I've ever seen the band have to do. At first I was actually concerned about whether the band was going to do their usual spontaneous meet & greets like they do when they are the opening act in other band's tours, because this time they are the headliners, and the majority of the crowd is there to see them. It's a good thing my concerns weren't needed.
Waiting outside a good while, the crowd started dying down a little bit, and Mike K approached us and asked for five of us boardies to follow him. I was part of that group that followed him, and we approached a car near by, where it looked like somebody was playing with the stereo system. At that point I could guess what was going to happen, we were going to listen to the new album! Once we were there, Mike asked us to pick a number, so I was thinking "track number?" We chose "five" at first, but he quietly says "they did five inside already" and asked us to pick another one, which I then said "nine." We got in the car and he said that as soon as it's over, make sure to step out of the car, "oh, and don't record anything." Sure enough, we got to hear a track off their upcoming new album. It was a song that I've seen them do a live performance of on youtube though; "One Sail, One Sea" but the studio version was ofcourse better than the audio quality found on youtube. As soon as the song was over, we unfortunately had to get out of the car, and the next batch of boardies were up next. How's that for fan service?
After the crowd really started to die down even more, we boardies started to spend more time with the band. Lead guitarist Carlo was happy buzzed from drinking, and at one point he was singing a Jonas Brothers song with some of the boardies. I was talking to bass guitarist Jon for some advice and tips on how to play the bass guitar, so that was cool and informative. Jon even told me that he noticed me and the boardies in line before the show, but thought it might be weird to just all of a sudden approach us (c'mon it's not). Drummer Nick at one point was talking about being drenched in sweat and comparing it to a Carl's Jr commercial, which I thought was funny. Plus we got to meet Nick's mom, who said that we were by far the best group of fans she's ever seen, and thought that this night was the best of the tour because of our audience participation while the band was performing. Lastly, throughout all these times, it turns out that me and lots of other boardies have never gotten a group picture with the whole band together, so we did just that. We ended the night almost two hours after their set was over, saying goodbye to the band and vice versa. August 30, 2008, at the Chain Reaction in Anaheim, CA, was another great Meg & Dia experience to remember.
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