Las Vegas and When We Were Young
A weekend away in Vegas for the biggest emo festival ever!
(If you want to just read about the festival, scroll down until you see all blue. Likewise, if you don't want to read all the nitty gritty details about the bands and what songs they played, feel free to skim over the part in blue.)
We left after work on Friday evening and other than one pee break we went straight to Vegas, arriving just before 10pm. We checked into our hotel and they gave us a free bottle of wine to take up with us! We had a glass as we looked at the view out of our window. We could see the large observation wheel and some of the other hotels and casinos lit up (and the gas station and car park across the road). We considered going out to explore that night, but we had lots of time for that later.
Saturday
On Saturday morning we had a lie in as we knew it would be a late night. We found a place for breakfast, which turned out to be attached to a casino, and then started our journey along the strip. We were across the road from Caesars Palace, and it was huge! It just kept going, with statues, buildings and a whole Colosseum where Adele plays on the weekends.
The first one we went into was the Venetian. It was built to look like a street in Venice, and did look very cool. It even had a canal running outside. We went inside and were amazed! The ceiling was covered in a huge classical Italian style painting.
There were hotel rooms off to one side and the casino to the other which you could just walk through like it was an extension of the shopping mall. All of the casinos were like this, which was nice as there were free toilets everywhere and you barely had to go outside if you didn't want to.
Our next stop was a quick stop into the Circus casino. This had the same casino and hotel set up (and had people smoking in the casino which is maybe legal there?) but instead of designer shops, this one had a whole theme park inside with several rides! They also had an area which offered free circus shows every hour, but we'd just missed one and didn't want to wait for the next one.
Outside of the circus casino, we passed the festival grounds which we had Sunday tickets for, but we couldn't hear any music. We thought this was weird, and after overhearing a conversation we checked online, and the Saturday festival had been cancelled! It was due to the high winds alert in effect, and to be fair it was very very windy that day, almost blowing me into the road at times. Everyone with Saturday tickets got a refund, but there were a lot of sad emos walking around that day, as people had come from all over the country and further.
Our next stop was the Strat Tower, the largest free standing observation tower in the world, coming in taller than the Space Needle, the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty. In the lift on the way up we were warned that it would sway slightly because of the wind, and we would feel like we were drunk. We got the top and saw what they meant! You couldn't see it sway, but you could definitely feel it and felt like you were moving, but the tower was staying still. It was very bizarre and made us feel a little travel sick.
But the views were great, even though it was a cloudy day. We could see the surrounding mountains, the sprawling city outside the strip, and the sad empty festival grounds.
We took the monorail back to where we'd started in the morning, next to the Flamingo Casino. The monorail stations were all attached to casinos, so rather than getting off into the street, you got off and were right next to casinos or restaurants. We got out and went to go and find the Flamingo habitat. They had a small garden with ponds and real flamingos living next to the pool!
Outside of the casino, there was a stretch of shops away from the main strip, which felt a lot like the shop area of Universal Studios, lots of bright colours, very new and clean looking, and well put together. It really did feel like the city was one giant resort.
Our last stop was to go and visit the inside of Caesars Palace. There were so many giant Roman statues outside, and when we got inside it was another upscale shopping mall with more giant statues.
There were signs for some fountains, so we followed these to see what we could find. Neptune's Fountain was a water feature which started at the top of the escalator, and ended in a waterfall over a statue of Neptune.
We carried on and found the Fountain of the Gods, which was huge and had several statues of different Roman Gods and winged horses (still inside the shopping mall).
After that, we took a random direction and found ourselves at a different fountain, backed by screens alternately showing fish and adverts. Around the back were real fish tanks, with fish, small sharks and even a small ray.
A sign at the front said that the Atlantis show started on the hour every hour, and we only had a few minutes to go, so we waited. It was a lot of smoke, lights, water jets, and even some flames, as animatronics told the story of the fall of Atlantis.
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After this, we went back to the hotel to get changed into some warmer clothes as the sun set. We found a little place in a food court that did falafel, onion rings and fries which was good and filled us up. We got some big drinks and took these with us as we explored even more of the strip.
We wanted to watch the famous Bellagio fountain show, but because of the wind they had cancelled them for the night. Instead, we walked over to the Paris Casino which had a whole Eiffel Tower outside. The inside was like the Venetian and Caesars with a fake ceiling and Eiffel Tower legs poking through.
We went a little further to see the New York area, which was lit up like Times Square and even had a Statue of Liberty replica.
We didn't go inside here, but got the monorail back to the centre of the strip and went to see if a Volcano display was going ahead. There was a little display with lights and jets of water coming out of a volcano structure, but I think it had been shortened because of the wind.
After that (and walking 15 miles), we went back to hotel ready for the next day!
When We Were Young
Luckily, by Sunday the winds had died down and in the morning we took the monorail with a lot of other people wearing black. We got to the entrance of the festival grounds and tried to find the end of the queue. It turned out to be about a 15 minute walk down the road! But when we joined it moved pretty quickly.
The lines for merch were very very long all day, which was not surprising as it was actually a very cold day, so they they must have sold a lot of hoodies on top of what they would have sold anyway. I wanted to have a look, but not enough to queue for that long.
They also had some art structures up around the place. There were tentacles coming out of the turf (which blew fire at night) and a big skull and hands which also lit up when it got dark. There was also a tiny skate park (for all the sk8er bois).
Our first band was Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. After making our way in we only caught the last couple of songs, but that was ok as we didn't know many others other than Face Down which gets played on the radio a lot in LA. This stage was so packed and we were worried the whole day was going to be very very crowded, but this was the stage closest to the entrance and as people dispersed after their set it slowly got more manageable.
We then split up for a set - I went for We the Kings in the smaller tent which was very fun (they even played a quick cover of Mr Brightside) and I want to see if they're going to play locally at any point as they were my third favourite performance of the day. The crowed seemed to be having fun too and while we waited for them to start the audience started singing Mr Brightside and I Write Sins Not Tragedies. They also had a special hand sign which we all did while they played Check Yes Juliet. Mitchell went to Atreyu and I don't think he had as much fun.
We then found each other and after our food (noodles and mango sticky rice) we went to see Pvris which were great and then Jimmy Eat World which were underwhelming. The smaller stages that weren't the main stages rotated after each set like a fireplace in Scooby Doo. So one band would be playing in front while another got ready on the back half, ready to spin around when they were finished.
There had been a lot of speculation about how good this festival could be by people online (bitter people without tickets) and whether it would go ahead, but it was really well run with plenty of actual toilet blocks (with toilet paper and soap until late in the night) and big hydration stations where you could refill your water. The lines for food were longer than we wanted, but other than that it was a great festival!
We had a quick pee/water break and then went to the stage for Avril Lavigne! She was so good and started with Girlfriend, had fire shoot up during Flames, and then she had a special surprise for us. She invited All Time Low onto the stage and they sang All the Small Things together which was awesome! She ended with Sk8er Boi and I think her set was my favourite. I didn't think I would ever get to see her perform and it was amazing.
A quick run to get some fries, and then we were back at the main stage for Bring me the Horizon. Mitchell is a fan, but didn't know a lot of the songs they played, but they were fun and made sure to stop when someone near the front fainted/fell down. The crowds in America are different to back home; they don't really dance, and maybe it was different up closer to the front, but where we were there was plenty of space for everyone and they all stood very still, maybe nodding their head if they liked the song, even for the biggest bands of the day.
There were two stages side by at the front, so one could be setting up while the other played. This meant that as soon as Bring Me The Horizon were finished, Paramore could immediately start their set. They played all the best songs, starting with All I Wanted Was You and finishing with Misery Business. She also sat down in the middle of the set to give us a history lesson on Emo music and how the genre is for everyone.
As soon as she was finished, we waited about 30 seconds before it was time for My Chemical Romance! They played a lot of their songs I didn't know (ie. weren't on the Black Parade or Danger Days albums), and played the Black Parade, NaNaNaNa and Teenagers in the middle of the set so we were left wondering how they would finish. We saw quite a few people leaving after these, but most of the crowd stayed until the very end. Highlights included Gerard Way shouting to the crowd "how's it going Utah?" (We were in Nevada...) and just growling between songs. They finished with Vampire Money, shooting paper money out of a cannon and a fireworks display!
It was a magical night, and after the last set we walked back with thousands of other chilly emos. They had closed whole roads outside to let us across and it was a constant parade of black the whole mile back our to our hotel.
We reached our hotel and had a bath in our enormous tub to warm up and unwind from the day so we could go to sleep.
Monday
The next morning, we got up and checked out, but still had some final exploring to do. We went back to Bellagio Hotel first. The fountain show didn't start until the afternoon unfortunately, but we did go inside to find the garden. It was decorated for harvest, with real giant pumpkins. They all had signs saying how heavy they were and the heaviest was over 1000 pounds!
That was our final stop on the strip, so we went and got the car. As we left the city we passed a huge casino we hadn't reached which was Egyptian themed, with a Sphinx and a pyramid outside. We didn't stop, but managed to take a picture from the car.
I had wanted to stop and get a picture with the outdoor "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign, but the line was insanely long! And the sign wasn't that much bigger than the replicas in the city, one of which we'd already got a photo with. So we got a picture of the queue instead and got going.
About 20 minutes outside of Las Vegas, we stopped in the desert for the art installation called Seven Magic Mountains. This is a series of seven towers made by stacking seven huge rocks on top of one another, and painted bright colours. They were very large with each individual rock being over seven feet tall.
We got some cool pictures, and then it was on to the next stop on our roadtrip. Another hour away, we made a quick stop to take a picture with the world's tallest thermometer. It was quite cold that day (only about 20 degrees) but it has recorded some of the hottest temperatures in the country.
That was our last interesting stop of the day and we made it home at about 6pm. It was a very wild weekend and we had a great time exploring a new city and attending one of the most anticipated alternative music festivals ever!
rawr
Emily and Mitchell
XD
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