Admittedly, my time at the 2013 Warped Tour wasn't a bad one. My brother, who I went with, wanted to see a Japanese band that he started to like. And since he knows I like Japanese bands, he dragged me to their set. The band was Crossfaith, and while their set was amazing and I liked watching the band play.....I still have yet to put their album on my computer. [I'm such a lazy person sometimes.]
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| Hiroki of Crossfaith Warped tour 2013 |
So the rest of the time after Crossfaith was a little iffy, because as I said-I had gone there for one band and they dropped out. So I was just hanging around, watching Vegans run about handing out pamphlets and listening to some of the bands that were playing.
Fast forward three years later, and I got tickets to Warped Tour again JUST to see Coldrain. [I kept thinking with my luck, they'll have to drop out for whatever reason. I have a mindset like this ever since the first Warped, orz]
However, luck was on my side and they played their SLC date. Having already seen them before, I knew that the show [despite being thirty minutes] was going to be amazing. And it was! Since this is their first Warped Tour, I can only hope this opens so many more doors for them to possibly headline their own tour in the States.
My brother and I got to the place early, because I told him if we miss Coldrain because of him sleeping in-he will go to sleep permanently. [Just kidding just kidding!] It ended up that we were right in coming early, as Coldrain was second to play after Cruel Hand.
When we arrived, I immediately got maps and located the stage|the merch tent. I found the Hopeless Records tent first though, and he led me back to the stage where the merch was. The girl who was selling merch was really pretty, and really cool|nice. When I bought two shirts, she gave me a pair of chopsticks.
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| Two shirts I bought+the complimentary chopsticks. Both shirts cost 25 dollars each. |
My brother really wanted to see this band that was playing early, but I decided to just hang around the Monster South stage until Coldrain came on. Cruel Hand played before them, they took forever getting set up and getting on stage though. I remember while waiting for them, I knelt down because my stomach was hurting [stupid Chicken Teriyaki!] and I almost fainted cause I saw Sugi through the gates.
There was also Yoko, but before I could snag a photo for my friend-he looked my way and I got shy and went back to watching Cruel Hand set up.
Cruel hand came on, played their set and the only thing I have to say about them is that they're very interesting and people look stupid when they mosh sometimes. The lead singer jumped off stage during the last song, and the crowd nearly hurt the two girls in front [who were also waiting for Coldrain].
Then it was time. I managed to snag the middle, right in front of Masato. :D
I kept sending pictures of the two to Reida, but when I tried to snag one final photo of Ryo for her-Yoko was like 'lol nope' and walked in front of Ryo as I was taking the picture.
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| He knew what he was doing. |
They disappeared a little while the band next to us played, and after that it was their turn and the members came out accordingly with Masato coming on last. I can't really explain the feelings when I finally saw Masato though, as he's my favorite out of the group [along with Katsuma *A*].
I had the setlist saved on my phone-but since it's destroyed I'll have to do this from memory.
The first song they played for sure was the Revelation, I believe after that it was Wrong, Runaway, The War is On, No Escape and then Gone was the last song they played. I believe that was all, as they usually only play 6 songs during a 30 minute set.
Before I get to the member's actions [and my mind is already foggy], I'll have to say I was a TAD bit disappointed I didn't get to hear EVOLVE again live. I fucking love that song, BUT I did hear it back in November so.....
So since I'm a lazy fuck, I'll just put their actions in a bullet list as opposed to writing it all down in a couple of paragraphs.
- Ryo moves around a lot, and he makes the most interesting faces. [He's basically a walking meme, just like Reita.]
- Ryo also raised his fist a lot and pounded his chest. He wore a bandana over his mouth the first half of the set, but took it off the last.
- Also about Ryo, his sound system might have been off during the War is On because he was playing around with something and he looked perplexed. He talked to Katsuma quietly, and Katsuma made a :O face at him. But they continued on with the show, so it either got fixed or I might have been overthinking and nothing was wrong at all.]
- Sugi and Ryo showed love to Katsuma a lot actually, they were facing him quite a lot.
- Katsuma, my sweet Katsuma, I'm sorry I didn't pay much attention to what he was doing. He was playing drums as always, always killing it.
- I didn't really notice anything Sugi was doing either, but I did catch his guitar pic. [Well I reached out for it, and the guard gave it to me. Which caused one of the girls next to me to glare at me....]
- Masato moved about the stage a lot, but he was in the middle for most of the show. He demanded we jump a lot.
- He sort of did this rap thing at the end of Runaway, like did the hand movements like a rapper would. He sort of reminded me of Ruki LOL
- Masato and Yoko were smiling a LOT. [I think Sugi was too, but again I wasn't paying attention.]
The Meet and Greet
So once again I am lazy, and will put things in a bullet point because I'm really tired. I'm going to try and edit this once I'm not as tired, but it might not happen either. So first things first, I am a very awkward person to begin with and I already sort of embarrassed myself in front of Masato before-so I was hoping maybe he wouldn't remember me much.- After a couple of minutes of panicking, trying to find a line for the meet+greet I found it. Met and talked to another fan in front of me. [She was the nicest fan there, god bless her.]
- I looked over and Masato looked at me, but he didn't really smile-I just took it as he was preoccupied. Though this sort of made me nervous.
- My brother had to buy me the Revelation so they could sign it, as I had nothing for them to sign at the beginning. [The album itself was 10 dollars, I needed the Physical copy anyways.]
- When I turned the corner and it was almost my turn, Katsuma noticed me and smiled a little while saying 'hi'.
- When it was my turn, Masato actually said hi to me-but I was too shy to say hi back really. So I just smiled at him.
- After that I did muster up the courage to tell them I had seen them back in November, but he didn't hear me at first and leaned in to hear better and he smiled at me.
- They signed the album for me, but I was just going to leave. However I took one final look at Katsuma and asked him for a hug. He obliged, then Masato was sort of like 'hey' so I hugged him too. Then I sort of was like 'might as well hug the rest of them' and went to Ryo and hugged them and such. I noted that Sugi was like not for human contact? But he hugged me anyways? And Yoko hugged me last, and he had a smile on his face [a smile of an angel...]. I pulled away from him and he said "Have a good day!!"
THEY WERE ALSO NICE ENOUGH TO LET ME TAKE A PHOTO WITH THEM.
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| Katsuma, Masato [ugh, me] RxYxO, Sugi, and Yoko |
After that I hung around while my brother checked out different bands, I wanted to make sure he at least got his money's worth. He really likes Chelsea Grin and he got to see them. We did go see Yellowcard and they played a few older songs, but also announced they were disbanding so.....
The last show I wanted to see was Against the Current and of course they played last. And that was it!
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| Chrissy of Against the Current |
Overall this experience was far better than 2013, let's hope to more years of Warped Tour with Coldrain!
OR
Coldrain headlining their own tour in the U.S.!
One can only hope!
