#i wrote the majority of this recap in bed while munching on chex mix

[sleepanonymous]

Did you have fun at lorna shora? 💝

I'm gonna use your ask to post my concert recap, Anon. Hope you don't mind 🖤 But yes I had an absolute blast. 100/10, I would do it all again, even the waiting around in the heat part.

Long-winded recap below the cut for anyone who cares 🖤 you do get rewarded with a low-effort meme though.

TLDR is I had an amazing night, and I'm probably getting another tattoo because of it.

Some pre-concert notes: at the suggestion of a friend, I used Waymo to get to and from my hotel in Phoenix. That was an experience. It’s nice not having a driver so I can bask in my antisocial tendencies but those cars are confident af. I guess they can technically see better/more than a human, and they're 100% focused on the road, so they also drive better than 75% of all the Uber/Lyft drivers I’ve had. 

Day of the concert, I got to the venue at 11:30 am and nobody was there except a vagrant, a plumber, and a concerned lady with the plumber. Later confirmed with the people in line that I was the first to show up and that’s kinda crazy to me? The difference in line culture between Sleep Token and Lorna Shore is insane. At noon I was told by security we couldn’t line up on the property until 4 pm (doors at 5 pm). I’m not a local, so I took that as go tf away, so I went to Mcdonalds a block away and watched Saint Maud on my phone in the middle of a lunch rush. This is how everyone needs to experience this movie btw. Definitely adds to the unsettling factor of the film.

Around 2 pm I walked back to the venue, thinking I could loiter at the pizza place next door. Instead I found a line near the back of the venue and I was number 12 (I recounted when we lined up outside the venue at 4pm and realized I was wrong when I said I was 15th). It was a high of 106F/41C and we were south facing, but my spot was thankfully under a few mesquite tree canopies. When we moved up at 4 pm I was under some misters on a patio which was a small haven since I lost my shade. I didn’t get sunburned, and barely got a tan.

I met some Sleep Token fans while in line and dying of heat stroke. We talked a bit about what it was like being on the barricade at their rituals. A couple of them had tried for tickets to the Phoenix ritual but weren’t able to get their hands on any. I was too afraid to tell them about Vessel looking at me during TNDNBTG (even though I have the video evidence from that one uploader, I’m still gaslighting myself about it lmao).

At 5 pm when doors opened, the venue separated the line into bags/no bags, so I essentially was the 3rd person inside (1st in the bag line). Snagged a spot on the barricade at center stage, slightly to stage left. Guy to my right drove over from Texas (he showed me a picture on his phone that he took of Will outside the venue like 2 hours before, literally just standing and chatting with a dude in a Spiderman outfit while the rest of us were melting in line. literal strangest thing I've ever seen in my life). The girl to my left ran some minor Instagram page, I had meant to ask for her handle but never got a chance. The dude behind me looked like a taller Jesse Pinkman sans beanie hat/baggy hoodie and he was really polite and also did his best to talk like Jesse after the comparison was made. There was also a dude and his girlfriend (he and Jesse Pinkman were pretty amazing at keeping me from getting squished 100% of the time from the pit) and the Sleep Token girlies who bought like seven shirts and somehow made it to the barricade. We all became temp besties. We also made friends with the security and helped hand out water cups during intermissions, had mosh pit practice and dance-offs, and got a crash course in the Sanguisugabogg murderball game.

Sanguisugabogg is 100% an amazing live band. I couldn’t get into them before hand, but after seeing them live I am now a casual fan. I wouldn’t mind seeing them live again. I survived the murderball game with little effort thanks to the barricade/people around me. But I did get accidentally acquainted with multiple security guy’s crotches (ducking for them to pick up crowd surfers). This actually became a theme for a bit until I figured out a wat to contort myself between the security when they jumped on the barricade. I guess two dudes got into a fight over the ball, and the band told them to take it to the sidewalk? Valid.

Kublai Khan were super fun on stage. Vocalist wore an Arizona belt buckle and he showed it off and the crowd were extra happy about it lol. Caught some neat footage at the end of Kublai’s set. I only rewatched about one minute of it to check how the audio/video settings were for later on in the night. I do know I caught footage of him looking like a disappointed dad though so that's amazing.

White Chapel was fucking LOUD yo. Sound Guys cranked the volume to 11 for them and Lorna. But I can now confirm that baby Ves’s piano improv from a couple weeks ago did have heavier breakdowns. This band was one of my last ex’s favorite bands (apparently he lives in Phx now, so there’s a good chance he was in the pit) and he was almost spot on in mimicking Phil’s vocals, so I haven’t really listened to them for 9+ years. Surprisingly I was familiar with about half their set, so I had a great time with that, despite the ex thing.

I am proud to say that I am the lucky survivor of four crowd surfers over my head at once. Security were amazing at handling that influx in such a small space/time span. It’s my fault for getting kicked in the face because I didn’t duck in time for one, (I was filming lol) but I didn’t get a bruise/swollen lip. Morning after edit: I actually have a lot of bruises but they’re on my arms from the barricade and not getting kicked in the face. I filmed White Chapel’s new song plus a couple others, I have no idea how well they turned out yet. Also there are three guitarists?! Things I did not know about the band.

Phil spoke the least out of all four frontmen. He introduced the new song, I think he asked us to open a circle pit once, thanked us at the end, and that was about it.

Lorna Shore came on really fucking quickly after White Chapel. Like 20ish minutes, I think? It was 9:20 pm on the dot. Those roadies were busting their asses. Idk what was up but it got really hot inside when Lorna took the stage, even with being on the barricade. I recorded five Lorna songs: Welcome Back, The Pain Remains Trilogy, and To the Hellfire.

At one point Will said something about being too dry from the desert heat (he was the only person to mention the heat) and I thankfully stopped myself from blurting out “bitch where?!” because I was currently drenched in sweat. I know he was talking about the 106F high plus the 9% humidity, but still.

Okay can we talk about Adam De Micco now? I need to talk about Adam De Micco. More specifically Adam eye contact. There was so much Adam eye contact. Like, bro was making eye contact with everyone on the barricade, so it wasn’t a special occurrence… but oh my god when I tell you there was eye contact there was eye contact.

Quick fact about me: I have this thing about smiling at strangers when I catch them looking at me (because I have chronic rbf, sometimes accidentally zone out and end up looking in the general direction of people, and asking “why are you looking at me?!” while possibly looking pissed off is generally too hostile for everyday occurrences).

So. Eye contact. The first time I realized he was looking at me and not around me, I internally panicked and automatically smiled at him. Thing is, it wasn’t one off. This man was staring into the souls of every person on the barricade. But because of my panic smile we’d just hold eye contact until he had to look down at his frets or I panicked and looked at Will or Austin. At one point, he and Andrew switched stage positions and Adam would still *hold eye contact me* from the other side of the stage. It got to the point where I was convinced maybe I had a busted lip from the crowd surfer incident or my makeup was fucked from the heat. Everything was fine when I got back to my hotel? Eyeshadow, eyeliner, and eyebrows hadn’t budged at all and my lips were a little faded but not bad. My hair wasn’t even as crazy as I thought. So does Adam just do that? I didn’t catch a glance from any of the rest of the band, or any of the guys in White Chapel, I think I remember the Kublai Vocalist or guitarist looking somewhere in my direction, and the Sanguisugabogg Vocalist was literally chatting with everyone between songs. But Adam took it upon himself to make me and everyone else on the barricade feel perceived, like it was his life mission or something.

I feel like… because Vessel looked at me once during TNDNBTG back in May and I got a tattoo because of it, that I now owe Adam a tattoo too? I am 100% overthinking this. But I’m also not even joking, I’ve been thinking about getting his sigil tattooed somewhere since I left the venue. I also followed him on Insta before I was out the doors. Anyway, emotional support from Will Ramos has ended. My new emotional support person is Adam De Micco. Yes, because of excessive eye contact.

Evening after addendum: Mother Token face reveal on Lorna’s Instagram. I’m tiny and I’m the only person paying attention to Moke, but at least I’m not sobbing like I was for Adam Rossi’s Euclid sneak-shot. Also yeah, the more I think about it, the more I'm probably gonna get that sigil tattooed (ref 👇). Might have to wait until after Xmas though, with the way money is flowing right now.