More About the Jonas Brothers

I had no intention of actually attending this Jonas Brothers concert Monday night at the Honda Center. When my younger daughter said she didn't care about going, we decided to sell one pair of our floor seats and let the older one invite a friend. I was going to take the girls to the show, and stay in the car and read while they enjoyed the concert. Then my buyers, three of them, all flaked out, and I was stuck with four floor seats. So we decided to use them.

When we arrived, we got a bit of a surprise regarding our seat location. We were in the 12th row of the front left section, but the floor seats actually began with row 10. It turned out that Disney Channel was filming a 3-D Jonas Brothers concert movie to be aired in January, and to make it more interesting, they took out the first nine rows, moved everyone else back a few feet, and filled the area around the stage, including a long catwalk that stuck out of the middle, with teenage girls. According to a security guard I talked to between the opening act and the Jonas Brothers, the general admission stage area was filled with paid extras. Hundreds of little girls making scale. It made sense. Disney could completely control the behavior of the fans seen in most of the footage, making it safe for the band to use the catwalk, to spray foam on them, and to interact with them. The pit area had lots of grownups with bullhorns, a lot of water buckets and cups and other things one might need in a workplace. All the girls up front seemed to have cameras and glowing lightsticks, and they were all very well behaved. Yes, they were definitely planted.

The big, big, big downside of all of this was that people who had floor seats in the first nine rows got screwed. They showed up, made their way to the floor, and were handed new tickets, generally in the 200 sections. According to the same security guard and his buddy, they were all pissed off beyond belief. They thought they were getting punked. Some raised a pretty big fuss, but apparently, the language right on the ticket says they can screw you over like this.

Still, imagine if you had dropped a ton of cash on 2nd row floor tickets to see the band that my daughters think to be "way, way bigger" than Hannah Montana, only to arrive and be sent to mid-section loge level seating. Sure, they offered you the $40 or so in price difference between what you bought and what they charged for tickets in the crappy section where you got redirected, but big deal. You expected to be in the first few rows. Suddenly, you are in lousy seats way off to the side. You'd be pissed, too.

We, however, were not pissed. It was abundantly clear, once we were down there, that being in the 12th row would have meant my younger kid wouldn't have seen a damn thing, but now that row 12 was row 3, she could see quite well, and eventually, they let her hang out in the front row, where she could see even better. As the band got ready to take the stage, the big screens kept flashing text messages that girls could send in from their cell phones. A bunch of them said things like "OMG OMG, Scream your head off if you love Joe!!!!" And then the place would get crazy loud. Dudes with boxes and boxes of various kinds of glowsticks came around passing them out like free Halloween candy, but mostly just for the kids on the floor or near the floor in the 200 level. Right before the lights went back out, Taylor Swift walked in front of us, and all the girls freaked out. She's rumored to be dating one of the band members. Then the lights went out and the band started playing. To my surprise, I recognized the song. Something about the way they roll. They had at least twelve other musicians up there with them, too.

This is as good a close up as I could get.

The band could come way out into the audience with that catwalk. Essentially, it took up what was supposed to be the best seats in the house. Front and center. While it probably made for good TV, I thought it was kind of a chickenshit move that must have come from a Disney suit. I couldn't imagine U2 or Depeche Mode or the Rolling Stones pulling that kind of crap on their best fans.

In addition to the presence of many, many video cameras, obscuring people's views, hovering over the fans like creepy robots, one of the oddities that came with the filming was that there were several interruptions in the show. They played three or four songs, then it all came to a stop. The band left. Costumes were changed. The band spokeshole took the stage and tried to get everyone to scream louded than last night's crowd. Sometimes, they played video clips while we waited. The gaps were short, no more than a few minutes. But they were many.

During one of the breaks, we were entertained by two more songs from the opening act, Demi Lovato. She's in something called Camp Rock on the Disney Channel. She performed well and I enjoyed the songs, even though I'd never heard them before.

One of the video breaks told the story of how the youngest one, Nick, found out last year that he has Type 1 diabetes. That was a bummer. Then he came out and played piano, performing a song that he wrote about the experience. It was a little over the top, but pretty good, frankly, for a teenager writing and playing his own material and trying to perform it inspiringly.

At one point, the band did something that absolutely confirmed for me that the girls in the pit were performers. They brought out hoses, and started shooting foam all over the pit area. It'll probably look cool on the 3-D screen. After a few bursts, just about all of the girls ended up covered with white spots of foam. If they were just concertgoers, I suspect that they would have been all, "OMG. OMFG. WTF? I'm covered in like foam, all over my brand new dress." But they all took it in stride. Such professionals.

Some of them even went out and got towels (see the one with a towel around her neck, heading back into the pit?), so no one slipped on the floor. And lots of them who got foamed in the face had headed over to the water coolers for relief from a styrofoam cup.

They had a lot of microphones in the audience, recording the sounds noise. For some of the sing-a-long parts, they shoved it right in the grill of the girl in front of me. They didn't point it at parents. If they had, I'd have clammed up. I sang like the house was mine when it happened to me in the front row at Depeche Mode, but last night, honestly, I only recognized about five of the songs, and I only knew the words to one of them. This is the photo of the guy who mostly handled the noise around our area. I like this shot. It almost looks like he's holding up a miniature Jonas Brother with his mic.

This was the treat of the night. To the surprise of no one who saw her walk in before the show, Taylor Swift took the stage in a "big surprise" for the movie. While I was out buying water and gatorade, plus a bag for the programs, she sang her current top ten hit, "You Shoulda Said No," which is setting some sort of record for the most top ten hits on a debut, or by a teenager, or by a woman, or something else that Taylor Swift is. It was a real deja vu moment for me, because the first and only other time I had seen her perform was in January, while I was still aching from my first surgery. Like then, I was exhausted. Spent. Sore. On drugs. But happy because of the unusually great time my girls were having. Then the funniest part of the night came. Taylor Swift left. And it got quiet. Then one of the brothers started sort of kissing the audience's butts about how great they were. How they were way better than last time. How they love coming to California, and to Orange County, how they get treated like they are home. And they got everyone screaming. He then told us that they wanted to shoot Taylor's song a second time. So even though we knew the surprise, when Taylor gets announced, we have to act surprised and go crazy. After all, it's a movie, so we gotta all be actors. So they bring her out again, and everyone acts surprised, and she sings her hit song a second time with the band. And she did it well.

The show wound down with a couple of songs I recognized from the Disney Channel, including SOS and one other I forget. They did some tricks for the camera, like playing and singing from these high rising foot platforms. I would have passed on the high platforms if I was them.

It didn't take long for the camera with video to get their amateur clips onto youtube. Who knows how long these will last, but here are a few. First, here's the dude explaining the filming of the movie and trying to get people to do what the movie people want us to do.

This view sort of shows what the stage looked like. We were three back from the mass of moshers around the extended stage.

Later, acting surprised for Taylor Swift's [second] surprise visit.

The only downsides for the night: it was hot. And there was a girl in front of us with a giant pink sign that said "backstage passes", in an failed effort to get some. She didn't hold it up all the time, but she held it up too often and too long. It could have been worse. Walking around outside, it seemed like every other girl had a sign or a painted message on her shirt. We mostly had painted shirts in front of us.

There was only one part of the show I didn't like. A brother tries to get the parents, maybe 1000 of us, probably less, to cheer. "How many parents are having a good time?" then ... almost nothing. A polite smattering of applause. "You can do better than that. How many parents are having a good time?" Weak applause again. "Oh, come on, I know you're not that old!" Old? Did that punk just call us old?

And I formed the words in my head and on my lips. Close enough that the little turd could hear me. "FUCK YOU, young man!" But the words stayed in my mouth. Too many little girls who don't need to hear that. But I thought it. Oh yes I thought it. I may be old enough to be the real dad that they never knew, but that doesn't mean I'm too old to rock, if you're rocking with my kind of stuff. Not crap like "Year 3000"

Come on guys. The Year 3000? "I've been to the year 3000. Not much has changed but they lived underwater. And your great-great-great-granddaughter is doing fine." ?? What kind of crap lyric is that? Not much has changed except this water life? Dude, living under water is major change. Substantial. And your great-great-great-granddaughter is going to be living from somewhere like 2090 to 2175. In the year 3000, her grave is going to be 800 years old and probably buried in ruins of a city with another city built over it. That's a dumb line. It's not as dumb as Sade's "Coast to coast, L.A. to Chicago," but its almost that dumb.

Getting out of the place at the end of the show was fast. After the second song of the encore, they introduced the band members, took bows and all that. It looked like a legitimate good night, rather than a faux finale, with another encore available for the begging. So when the band left, we almost literally sprinted up the stairs. By the time we got to the top, the lights were coming on. We went straight for the t-shirt stand, before the 20 person lines formed. We got shirts quickly and some other stuff and went to the car. The exit in the back corner of the lot was putting people directly onto the freeway ramp. Three cars merging, and that was it. Less than a minute from buckling up to hitting the freeway. That's how you end the night!

Thanks to my daughters who helped put together the pieces of this post.

Comments

[Sexe Amateur]

I'm curious to find out what blog system you are using? I'm experiencing some minor security problems with my latest blog and I would like to find something more safeguarded. Do you have any suggestions?

Earlier this week, Scott Stapp was arrested in an airport for apparently being really drunk. And now comes the revelation that Scott Stapp and Kid Rock have got their own cheeky internet sex tape coming out. Welcome to the big league, Mr Stapp.

[Harley]

The Jonas Brothers Rock! I saw 4 of their Concerts! Two times in Nassau Colisium, once in Madison Square Garden, and once in Jones Beach.

[Harley]

The Jonas Brothers Rock! I saw 4 of their concert tours .

The couple will fly here shortly after Christmas next week for his concert at the Pearl in the Palms on December 29 followed by her concert at Mandalay Bay on December 30. After Beyonce’ s concert there will be a red carpet opening of the sports club, which is expected to attract a huge star studded crowd.

"laugh once in a while." [rolls eyes]

Stop insulting a bunch of kids you whiney old lady.... Stop taking life to seriously and enjoy it... stop complaining and and laugh once in a while.

Stop insulting a bunch of kids you whiney old lady.... Stop taking life to seriously and enjoy it... stop complaining and and laugh once in a while.

[Dona]

How the heck did you get seats on the floor. We had great seats at the club level, but I never can get anything closer. Always get tickets when they are released at presale.
By the way, Loved the concert and loved watching my screaming girls see their favorite band!