"MARS300"
7.12.2011
I woke up on the morning of the 7th with a smile. I was on a high from last night’s show and I knew tonight was going to be even better. I dressed, ate a bowl of cereal and gathered my things and headed to Hammerstein to find Georgie who was already there waiting for me. I jumped in line and said Good Morning to the Echelon already around then tried to find some comfort. It was raining more today and it was colder than the day before, but today I was more adequately prepared; 3 layers of clothing and an umbrella for a start! I laid down a trash bag on the wet concrete, then a towel and proceeded to sit with Georgie, now huddled into me under my umbrella. The wait was on again.
I tried desperately to keep my posters for tonight dry (VyRT / Home is where they understand you) as we waiting in the worsening weather but that was the least of my problems. My makeshift “stay dry” floor had failed me and now, my jeans, sneakers and socks were soaked through. I was absolutely freezing and uncomfortable and I actually contemplated walking home and changing but I toughened up and put up with it. I knew it would be worth the wait.
As we were sitting there, me closest to the barrier and the pedestrian traffic passing by, I happened to look up right as Tomo walked by the line. “Hi Tomo” I said quietly staring up at him. He bent down slightly as he walked to peer under my umbrella and he grinned to me and waved. Nobody else seemed to notice him and I was just really happy that I’d seen him. He came back about 15 minutes later, this time, everyone noticing him and cheering as he passed by.
Once again, at around 4pm the line divided into GA and Golden Tickets. Today I was really close to the front of the group and I was ridiculously excited. As we stood there for around 2 hours, the darkness fell over the city and temperature dropped colder and colder. To put this into perspective, I live in a tropical climate in Brisbane so temperatures this cold are F-R-E-E-Z-I-N-G to me! I was physically shaking as I stood there, my clothes damp, my pants and shoes still soaked right the way through and my bare hands feeling completely numb. I owe a huge Thankyou to the lovely guy standing in front of me in line; a local New York Echelon, who gave me his gloves to wear. I apologize for not remembering his name, but if you read this – THANKYOU SO MUCH!
When we were finally allowed inside we gathered our stuff and proceeded past bag check and into check in. As Kit checked us in with Sarah, I darted over to the Merch stand and picked up a MARS300 shirt and a few MARS300 wristbands. I quickly caught up to Kit and we headed downstairs into the M&G room. Today we had to leave our stuff outside before heading into the room. I ended up forgetting everything I had to do and made about 20 trips back to my bag. I pulled off my shirt and slipped on the one I’d made for tonight’s show (Cubbins) I activated my glow bracelets and put them on, organized my posters and sorted out my camera in preparation for the show. Another amazingly wonderful Echelon in front of us, after finding out just how wet my shoes/socks/pants were gave me a pair of socks – DRY ONES – to change into. I can’t tell you how much of a difference that made to my well-being! Again, if you are reading this – THANKYOU!!!!
Once again, we could hear Jared upstairs doing sound check of some sort. This was actually when he was out on the stage with the #VyRT camera crew singing for the Echelon watching via the stream. A fantastically kind person lent me her ipad so I could log into Twitter. “Golden Ticketer’s downstairs listening to Jared doing sound check” I tweeted.
When it was finally time to go inside, we headed upstairs and Kit, Brandy and I kept our fingers crossed for the same position we’d been in last night. I was sure someone would take it after I had raved about how great that spot was, but somehow, we managed to get the spot again. Front, centre at the end of Jared’s catwalk. Kit helped me tie my posters onto the barrier and I found a little nook to stash my Australian flag. Georgie was GA tonight so while I desperately HOPED I could keep the spot beside me (on the other side of the GT yellow line) I was doubtful. As the GA people started rolling in, my stomach was flipping every time I didn’t see Georgie. “Hurry Up!” I remember saying to myself under my breath hoping she would be there soon before this little spot on the barrier was taken. When I eventually spotted Georgie, I threw my arms up and waved at her, desperately wanting her to RUN to me. I saw other people coming toward the opening but she ran and made it to me. As soon as she had her hands on the barrier she burst into tears. “I can’t believe it” she said to me in disbelief that I’d managed to keep the spot for her right beside me. We hugged and jumped around excitedly. The Aussies were together on the front barrier AGAIN: D
Brandy tapped us all on the shoulder after a little while and held her phone out. She was on her twitter and I could see tweets from just a few minutes earlier from the Echelon back home in Australia. “I THINK I CAN SEE SUGAR!!!” they were writing as the watched #VyRT. I welled up instantly in happiness just knowing that they were there with me. More and more came through as the Aussies recognized me and Kit, we got Brandy to tweet out that it was us.
As we stood there waiting, MARS music videos played throughout the theatre. The Echelon all united and started singing. I had goosebumps as we sang loudly to The Kill, Closer To The Edge, From Yesterday, A Beautiful Lie and Kings And Queens. We hoped MARS could hear us backstage and since we’ve seen #VyRT, we know they did!
Semi-precious Weapons came on stage for about half an hour and entertained us before as usual, the lights went down and Shannon’s drumming of 'Escape' sent shivers down our spines.
Well, you all saw the show through #VyRT so I won’t repeat everything that happened. I can tell you that the show from where I was standing was absolutely INCREDIBLE and when I got on Twitter and saw the Aussie Echelon had tweeted me saying they saw us waving the Aussie flag around through the stream, I instantly welled up. One of the things I had promised them was that I would try my best to get the Aussie flag on there for them to see and I had done it. I was absolutely over the moon.
As everyone knows, there was an incident at the start of Kings and Queens that stopped the stream. It was scary as it happened right in front of me and Brandy, Kit and myself desperately tried to get Jared’s attention after the girl had been laying on the floor not moving for a solid five minutes. He did of course, finally realize we weren't just waving to him and he came down then stopped the show. It was a scary 20 or so minutes, but we all know in the end the girl was fine so all was ok. I was crying uncontrollably, just completely freaked out at the whole thing and I actually don’t really remember Kings and Queens that well. I remember feeling sad knowing it was the last time I’d see it performed in this type of show and I remember trying to sing along, but choking on the words as tears ran down my face at the same time.
With Kings and Queens now over, Shannon came down the catwalk to throw his drumsticks to the crowd, he threw one my direction and I caught it perfectly in my left hand. My heart flipped, I was stupidly excited but I quickly realized someone else also had hold of it. My instinct, in all honesty was that this person was going to have to saw off my arm to get it from me. As I looked down, I’ve seen the hand and travelled up the arm and looked over and realized it was Kit who also had her hand around it. My heart sank and I sighed to myself, then let go. Considering Shan is her idol I couldn’t deny her of having it, though I’m pretty devastated I couldn’t finish off my MARS gear trifecta (I have Tomo’s pick that he gave to me and signed in Taipei and 5 of Jared’s picks, 2 of which are signed, so Shannon’s signed stick would have completed the set). Knowing there wasn’t another chance to get one just made it more disappointing but I guess you can’t win them all.
Now with everything over and as people walked away and I could move, I put my head down on my arms on the barrier and just sobbed. Immediately, the beautiful Echelon, many of which I had never even met before, were hugging me and trying to make me feel better. I was still rattled from the incident, upset that the show was over and I guess just knowing I wouldn’t see that again hurt like hell. I remember one blonde girl who I’d never met who came up and hugged me and said she was just grateful that I had cared and done everything in my power to get help for my fallen Eche sister. I hadn’t even thought about it in that way and it made me cry even more but I remember her words now and Thank her dearly for what she said. After a bunch of other people came up and consoled me, Kit grabbed me and with my eyes absolutely stinging from my mascara, led me pretty much blindly out of the room and to the stairs. We went to the bathrooms to fix ourselves up, I remember looking in the mirror and thinking how much I didn’t want to look like that for my photo with the guys. I almost lost my camera because I was in such a state but luckily a fantastic Eche came running after me with it. We went back to the M&G room and found our stuff. Kit brought me water and popcorn since I’d barely eaten all day and I immediately rummaged for my makeup supplies in my bag. I fixed myself up and awaited the guys.
Feeling a lot better having taken a moment to breathe, I ran down and talked to some of the crew, handing The Hive’s Triad to Dai and speaking briefly with the lovely girls about how I’d made them and they were going to be supporting a charity.
I ran back to my spot in the line as we were told MARS were coming. I stood in line ready as the guys walked into the room and waved.
Tomo got to me first. “Are you a fan of Bart Cubbins?” I asked him directly. He gave me a slightly strange look and replied “Of course.” I pointed down at the front of my shirt then slowly turned to my right, slowly revealing the sides and then to the back. I heard Tomo laugh and he said something along the lines of “That’s hilarious” as I turned back to face him. I held out my poster for him to sign and said ‘See you tomorrow’ before he left.
Jared arrived to us next and I immediately looked him dead in the eyes with a grin and asked him the same question I’d asked Tomo. “Are you a fan of Bart Cubbins?” He looked at me and said “No” sharply. I laughed and said “Yes, you are!” and he said “He’s a bit of a prick.” With a little humour in his voice. I laughed and turned so he could see the shirt, not actually thinking to show him the front first. Kit tells me he grinned when he saw the back, but obviously I have no idea what he did since I was looking the other way. I turned back around and he now saw the front of the shirt “Ohhh… I’m pulling him” he said with a smile, now realizing Pomhawk Jared was on a bike on the front of my shirt. He made a comment or said something about my shirts because I then pointed over at Kit’s shirt that had my melting rainbow MARS300 (my Twitter avatar) on the front. “That’s mine too” I said to him. “Yeah, it’s your Twitter avatar” Jared replied without pausing. I instantly felt my heart race at that comment, suddenly realizing he’d obviously seen it, noticed it, and possibly remembered my Twitter alias/knew I was “sugaronmars” and knew that was my avatar. My stomach flipped almost instantly. I held out my poster for him to sign and he did. “Put a picture of your shirt on Twitter so I can see it” he said to me as he moved on to Kit. I smiled stupidly and said ‘Sure’.
As soon as Jared was a few people away from us Kit turned to me with a massive smile on her face. “He knows your Twitter!!” she said excitedly. I just smiled and enjoyed the feeling. I have to say, whenever any of the guys, particularly Jared, has a positive response to my stuff it really does make me feel a different kind of pride for myself than anything else does. It really does mean a lot coming from someone who I admire and respect as a creative soul so much. Total feel good moment
Shannon arrived to us last, and quite a long time after the other boys. For some reason, I actually have pretty much NO RECOLLECTION of my M&G with Shannon that night. I know I asked him the same question as the others about my shirt and he laughed but that’s honestly all I can even remember. I guess I had the dreaded “Leto-effect” where you remember NOTHING that happens again.
Once the boys were done, we waiting in line for our photo with some of our close US Echelon friends at the very back of the line.
I was second-to-last to get my photo done, now looking (and feeling) a hell of a lot better than about 2 hours ago. I decided I’d keep my Spirithood on for the picture as my hair was terrible from the rain during the day and the sweat from the mosh pit. As I walked toward the boys, I looked at Jared and asked him to give me a Bart. I then looked over at Tomo and said “Tomo, do your thing!” and then I stepped in between Jared and Shannon and grabbed Shan. “I’m hugging you today since I neglected you yesterday.” I said to him, staring right at him with a stupid grin on my face as I put my arms out. He put his arm around me and the photo was taken shortly after. I know it was before I was actually ready because I remember feeling my hood cover half of my face! After the photo was taken I gave him a little hug and he growled right in my ear. I laughed as I let go, looked back at him and said Thanks before heading off. As I moved away Tomo laughed at me “Do your thing...” he said, repeating what I’d said to him at the start of the photo shoot. I looked back at him and smiled then found the other girls and left the room.
We headed outside and were hit hard by how freezing cold and windy it was. It must have been minus 5 or so, I swear! Georgie and I decided to head around the back of the venue, braving the cold, and arrived just a few moments before Jared left. He came out and waved before saying a quick Goodbye and jumping in a taxi.
We got a taxi back to the apartment and once again, sat up until around 5am reminiscing on how amazing the show was, already freaking out that we were 2 shows down already. Tomorrow night would be the Church show and we weren’t sure what to expect but full of anticipation for what the night would hold.