Guest Post: My daughter, Melody, wanted to share our trip to Charlottesville, VA, last year to see her favorite band, twenty one pilots. Here's her story...
January 22nd, 2017. What a day that was!
I barely got any sleep the night before, I was so excited; I woke up at about 4:30am and couldn't fall back asleep because I was seeing my favorite band live! In 17 hours!
We don't really remember what we had for breakfast (we either ate at home or had Chick-Fil-A). In the car we were rocking out to songs ranging from Owner of a Lonely Heart by Yes to Holding On To You by twenty one pilots, of course! We headed into the mountains of Virginia, hoping to get into Shenandoah National Park to get a stamp for our National Park passports.
We made a pit stop at Luray Caverns. After having a hot dog, a hamburger, and some fries for lunch, we went to have our tour through the caverns. The lady that took our pictures beforehand noticed my twenty one pilots shirt and we had a nice conversation about them before the tour began.
We left Luray around 2pm and got to Charlottesville at about 3:30. I wanted to drive past the arena before we went to our hotel and there were already a ton of people in line. We took a few minutes trying to find the hotel, and within the first 5 minutes I managed to injure myself (whoops).
Around 5, we left the hotel. I was dead set on being at the arena when the doors opened at 6 and we were running really late. We believed that we would have plenty of time to go get a nice big dinner, but that was not the case. We drove around for 20 minutes trying to find a place to eat. I started to panic after our second lap around town, so we decided to just stop at a McDonald's (as we were eating, it started raining, and two girls literally slipped into the restaurant, which was one of the funniest things I saw all night).
I was so scared that we weren't going to make it by the time the doors opened, and it didn't help when we got stuck in rain/concert traffic. My dad found a back way in on our GPS that took us all around the Virginia University campus. We finally got parked at 5:59 (I'm using pictures on my phone as references) and began walking towards the venue. We had to go back to the car for something - I think we somehow managed to leave the tickets in the car! We got in line behind these really lovely people. One lady came up and decided that since her husband was already inside, she could cut everyone in line and squeeze in front. The lady in front of us had a good little chat with my dad about that.
It was so crowded inside. There was barely any walking room, so we decided to check our seats before braving the merch line. They were pretty decent; we had a side view of the stage on the second level with no one in front of us.
There were about four different merch lines. I got in one and my dad got in another and we texted each other to see whose line moved the fastest. I overheard someone saying that there were more lines downstairs, so we decided to risk it. We spent about 5 minutes trying to find the other line. We finally got in one that I don't think even was a real line. We got our shirts and, because I was living off of a hot dog and some chicken nuggets, went to get some drinks and a bag of Cheetos. We got back to our seats at 6:57; the show started at 7.
Judah & the Lion was first; I had listened to a few of their songs prior, and they were really good. Jon Bellion went next, and I'd only heard one of his songs before. He was good. Twenty one pilots was next, at 9.
The concert was absolutely amazing. Hearing those songs live and hearing other people sing those lyrics was something I won't be forgetting in a hurry. Tyler and Josh sure do put on one heck of a show.
The concert ended with Trees, as it has for the past 8 years. We got back to the hotel at about 11:30. I stayed up watching my videos and being sad that it was over.
The next day it was storming. We went to a small diner just off the main road, where I continued to watch my videos and be sad. We drove by the arena one more time and decided to stop at Barnes & Noble on our way out. I got a magazine with Josh's face on the cover and had another good conversation with the lady behind the register. She said that she had no idea that they were there the night before and was sad that she missed the show.
The drive home was fun but sad. We stopped for lunch at Mellow Mushroom and got enough pizza for dinner when we got home. I saw quite a few people with twenty one pilots shirts on the drive home, which was pretty neat.
We got home at around 6pm. And that's where it ends :)
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