Soooo, Travis last night.

Oh man, where do I start.



Getting There

...was a BITCH. It started raining the minute mum dropped us off by the bus. Sigh. Stupid Travis. Anyway, tonyboney and I met up with my other friend and we trudged down to Kool Haus. Now, we all assumed that it'd be maybe 1/2, 3/4 full? Uhm NO. Apparently Toronto has fucking MISSED Travis, because it was PACKED.

The sun was out downtown by the time we got there...



...but it got overcast as concert time drew closer. Geeeeze. Anyways...


The Audience

... were the best people EVER. They were all major fans (we're talking I-have-the-DVDs-fans here) and they were SO NICE. The Travis!concert!veterans showed us the ropes kid, showed us theeeee ropes, and even let us edge in front of them. They told us what to expect and how great it'd be, and we whiled the time away by singing and dancing. FUN. (No, seriously.)

During the actual gig, the crowd sang along with every. Single. Song. From "Battleships" to "Why Does It Always Rain On Me?" they knew every word. Fran said he was impressed. XD

They sang, they danced, they screamed, they ROCKED. Thanks to an enthusiastic crowd, this was the greatest gig ever.

Opening Act

John Paul White. He was actually really good, and he's got the cutest guitarist accent EVER. From Aluhbamaaah.

Oh, and the guitarist is hot. And named Whitney. Tee hee.



Don't Call Me Whitney, Bobby. Hello? Anyone get that little Islands joke? *sighs*




Jack Sparrow John Paul White




Uhhh, both of them.


TRAVIS

... rocked the house (which admittedly rocked them right back. GO TORONTO!!). We were standing in front of Dougie. The tales of the hips? UNDERSTATED, okay? There was many a O_o, shriek, swoon (real ones on my part), and just exasperated sighs because he's such a FLIRT. Always posing all sexily with his bass as soon as someone raises a camera. Tsk. Heeeeee. Haha, Carly and Niala and I were having such a blast dancing madly and shrieking "DOUGAAAAAY!" when we could. He loved it when the audience screamed his n-- called out to him. O_O Would either smile, wave, or hump his bass harder. Lucky bass.

Oh, and every time he'd look directly at me, I'd be looking elsewhere, because God hates me. At one point Carly had to jab me in the back to get my attention; while I flailed about, trying to understand what she was trying to get across, apparently Dougie and she were having a wee laugh because he knew she was trying to get me to look at him because he had been looking at me *GASPS FOR AIR* and apparently this happened like THREE TIMES or more because GOD HATES ME did I mention that *GASP THUD*

*is dragged away by English profs and beaten for run-on sentence from hell*

So most of my pictures are of Dougie, because he's Dougie he was the one closest to us. *shrug*

Fran was brilliant and flaily; chatted with the audience a bunch, which was BRILLIANT, and... well, damn, we all know he's fantastic, what is there to say?

Neil smiled a lot, even when Fran leapt on his drumkit to flail about a bit more. What? He ... drums. He drums brilliantly, but he doesn't really talk, sooo...

Poor Klaus. As some of you might have heard, Fran has taken to instructing audiences to point at Klaus and chant "KLAUS! KLAUS! KLAUS!" (ad infinitum) at him during his piano solo in "Good Feeling." And then he poked fun at him, made him speak Swedish for us, and sang "I've got a Klaus feeling" at the end. Thumbs up.

Andy was too damn far for me to see much of what he was doing, but he was fucking fantastic. Leapt into the crowd for his wank solo in "All I Wanna Do Is Rock," leapt about for "Turn," etc etc. Oh, and he wiggled his eyebrows at our section. *shrill giggle* And winked. Shy, my ARSE.

"Flowers in the Window" was ... well, wow. The rest of the band sings with Fran (he's the only one with an instrument for this song). At one point, Fran took his hands off the guitar and Dougie and Andy reached around him... Dougie used one hand to strum the rhythm, and Andy formed the chords.

And Fran? Uhhh... how to explain; he was pretty much seductively caressing their faces and cracking up. All of them were. WE, however, were like *GAPE*

Wow.

"Why Does It Always Rain On Me?" had every single jaded Torontonian singing and pogo-ing along. Greatest moment ever. Fran didn't even need to sing the last verse; the band just turned their mics towards us. (And apparently they were taking a time lapse video of us; it'll be on MySpace soon. *EXCITED*)

PICTURES!



DOUGIE!




Dougie(tm): Sexy Even With Red-Eye.




Franny.




The band (sans Andy, who was off somewhere to the right flailing about).




Dougie. His hips don't lie? Sorry.




Andy! Only picture I managed to get of him because I'm hella short.




Dougie.




Fran.

"Are those guys tellin' you not to film us? *gestures to security guards* You know what? Film us if you want to... it's our fault for not puttin' out a DVD in so long."
All: WHOOOOOOOOOOOO!



*THUD*

Fran, playing '20.'




After
Niala had to leave before they came outside. T____T

WHITNEY (the guy who played with John Paul White)

We randomly saw him at the merch table and asked for pictures; he joked about charging us for it. Hahaha.



I'd put Niala's picture with him here, but you don't know her. So no.

JOHN PAUL WHITE
We saw him outside taking pictures with some other folk, so we decided to ask for some as well. He's very nice! Had on a Ziggy Marley shirt, so I mentioned that I was Jamaican and we chatted for a wee bit.



NEIL

Jo - I asked for a hug (one of the only two people) and got a great one! (Poss. a kiss on the cheek; my mind's a BLANK.) And then he signed my hoodie, posed for a picture ... which got fucked up, cursed my camera ("In the old days, film cameras wairked be'er than this digital shite..." [me: I can't afford film, mister!]), posed for another one. WARM FUZZIES. Goooosh, his voice is so deep. And that accent. Phooar.



The fucked up one! Ha.




Hooray. *SNUGGLE*


Carly - GODDAMN IT MAN. She's prolly gonna bitch about it in her journal, but I felt like I had to yell at her to get her to approach Neil. So I did. Yelled, shoved, all that good stuff. But you know what? It succeeded. She got a hug-kiss, a siggy, and a picture (which she'll be uploading soon; it's not on my camera.)


Cue a loooooong wait... (I actually considered just going home) and then the other three sort of came out at the same time and were mobbed. The more polite folk (Carly, myself, and a handful of others) hung back, not wanting to overwhelm them.

I very nearly ran away when Dougie came over, though. Tsk. Guh. Ch.

Aaaaanyways... heh.

Dougie

I'm pretty sure he recognised us from the crowd (let's be honest, I'm hard to miss at rock concerts), because he looked right at us and smiled. "By the way, NICE shirts, ladies."

Ohhh, yeah. We made shirts for the gig; Carly's said "HOW TERRIBLY ROCK & ROLL" and mine said "ALL I WANNA DO IS ROCK." *thumbs up*

Jo - I randomly decided to give him my Ziggy Stardust pin because I thought he'd appreciate it. Talk about appreciation; he freaked RIGHT out and pinned it on right there. I've never seen a guy go fangirly so fast in my life and it was BRILLIANT. As I always am when I'm terrified, I was jokingly snarky and told him that I thought I deserved a hug, a siggy, and a picture. He agreed rather enthusiastically.

The Hug(tm) was more of a glomp. A very long glomp. I was being crushed, but WHO KEHHS CARES? It's DOUGIE. It was BRILLIANT. omg i felt his boy-bits omg omg omg omg

Cue more gushing about the pin ("This is a fuckin' PEACH" / "This has made my entire night"), nearly strangling me while he signed my hoodie ("Am I stranglin' you?" Me: "I don't mind; not a bad way to go."), and crushed me in another entwining hug for a rather lovely picture. ^_^



If you look closely, you can see MY Bowie pin on HIS jacket. I miss my pin.

Carly - Her own words here - "Hugged me violently, signed my bag, picture." O_O

Andy

Carly - Again, I had to all but scream at her to get her to move. I SWEAR... anyway. Fran was kind of drifting off to one side (towards the bus), so I was in a bit of a hurry! Anyways, I went up to Andy and said "Lemme just say it FOR her; she's a really big fan. You're like her... rock god."
Him: :D Thank you very much!

(She's dictating it to me now.)

He had his bag... it looked like he was in a hurry, so I just went up to him and asked for a hug. And then I sort of started to turn away, but then he asked if I wanted a picture... we posed, and the camera fucked up... so I got to hug him an extra minute while the girl tried the camera. I asked him to sign my bag; he took such a long time being all proper and stuff. (His IS the best-looking autograph...) These two other girls came up and asked me to take a picture of them with him... he borrowed my pen again. HEEEE.

I said "Thank you" quite violent-- I mean enthusiastically, and he beamed again.

(End dictation!)

Just before I walked away, Carly called attention to our awesomeness shirts, and Andy mentioned that he had one similar to Carly's (and that he still has it).
Me: *grin* Because CARLY sure didn't know that. *giggles and runs off*

Oh... what else, what else... I pointed at my shirt (AIWDIR, remember) and thanked him for playing it.

Jo - Got a fantastic hug (and a cheek-bump-type-kiss!), picture, siggy. And he actually asked for my name. THUMBS UP! I thanked him for coming to Toronto in mid-hug, and he thanked us for coming out!

...I shan't write more, as it's Carly's time to shine. XD



I think I completely tore up my throat when I screamed "AN-DAAAAAAY!" in the gig. Owwww.


Fran

Jo - I'm getting WELL tired, so I'll do this quickly. Fran came out (we were almost the only people left) and kinda looked questioningly at me like... you want a picture or...? I just stared dumbly back for a bit.
Fran: Hulloooo. :)
Me: Hi.
Carly: Hiiii...
All: *stare at each other*
Fran: *raises eyebrows*
Me: UHM, right! I know you guys must be in a hurry --
Fran: *scoff* Nahhh, it's no problem...
Me: --but can... I have a hug please?
Fran: Of course! *BEARHUG*
Me: Heeee... *cough* Can you maybe sign my hoodie, please?
Fran: Sure... :)
Me: *frown* I can't think of anything even vaguely interesting to say right now, I'm sorry. =(
Fran: XD That's all right! *to Carly* Could you do me a favour?
Carly: *BEAM* Sure!
Fran: Could you hold this...? *hands part of my hoodie... hood*
Me: Uhm, can I have a picture too?
Fran: Sure! *POSE*



That man is disturbingly adorable. GOD.

Me: I heard you talking to someone earlier about a Canadian tour...?
Fran: Yeah, we were thinkin' to do a proper Canadian tour.
Me: *clasps hands and looks pathetic* PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do.
Carly: Why didn't you come to North Carolina...?
Fran: We've been there loads of times! 4 or 5!
(somewhere during all this is Carly's autograph and picture)
Me: You've GOT to come back again, please.
Fran: I'll have to talk to my manager...
Me: Bah, I'm sure you've got loads of sway!

And then we left. On the way to a taxi, Carly yelled "BYE!" at Fran and he waved at us. I waved back.

The end.

... for all that, I can't even remember the setlist. I just know they started with 'Selfish Jean' and ended with 'Why Does It Always Rain On Me?' with loads of arm-flailingly good... goodness... in-between.

--J.

OH, and I forgot another bit of the Toronto gig! I wasn't really listening, as I was quelling my urge to run away from Dougie in terror, but...

Fan: I saw [something something] in Glasgow...
Dougie: Ahhh, must have been in pieces... *pause* the fuck out.
All: *GROAN*
Me: That was horrible. XD

--J.