Where The Bright Light Broke Through

Is anyone still reading this thing, anyway?

About a month ago, rumors started going around that Hanson were going to tour with Hellogoodbye this fall. The band name was familiar but I could only think of one song I’d heard by them (and I kept thinking, “I have to be misremembering this”). So, I did some research; I borrowed their CD off my boyfriend’s brother (who was pretty meh on them and couldn’t care less if I returned it or not), gave it a listen, and I looked them up on the internet.
I took the co-headlining rumors with a very large grain of salt because they were playing the Launchpad in Albuquerque; it’s not a big venue; Hanson probably couldn’t play there. What I could find about the other venues seemed similar — small places, inexpensive tickets. They also don’t have anything like the same body of work Hanson do: they have released one CD and one EP. Hanson have way, way more than that.
And even considered as an opener, the music is very dissimilar; I didn’t enjoy either their CD nor the songs on their MySpace (which are very different from the CD but still didn’t grab me). Looking through their similar artists on last.fm, a few previous openers for Hanson appeared here and there, but they were pretty far down the list. (”Similar artists” can mean absolutely nothing, but with most bands you at least get an idea.) Hanson had mentioned several times that their tour plans kept falling through (I think one of them said somewhere that they felt like they could have announced the tour four times before and things kept coming up), so this was obviously not their first choice, but it still just seemed weird, like the fanbases probably weren’t going to match up a whole lot.
This morning, I was on my way out to my mother’s for coffee when I got the texted Twitter post, so as soon as I was back home I grabbed my computer to check Hanson.net. The rumors are true, and I’m disappointed. I’m not a fan of Hellogoodbye, and I’m worried about how much time onstage Hanson are actually going to get at each show. They’ve been forced to cut their sets short at past shows because of curfews that they apparently didn’t know about until the last minute — are they going to not play at all if the show ends up going too late? That’d be a hell of a thing, to spend $30+ on a ticket plus gas and hotel only to not see my favorite band because they had too many other bands scheduled. In fact, I’m not going to lie — if I hadn’t already made plans to go with friends to Tulsa and St. Louis, I’m not sure I’d bother going to this tour at all.

And, it’s after midnight, so happy birthday, Taylor!

RSVPing began about thirty minutes ago for the Members Only Event in Tulsa on May 16th. And Hanson.net kind of seems to have died under the onslaught. I already sent mine; I’m going to the 7:00 3:00 show. The guys also posted a From Us to You earlier mentioning that the member kit is almost done.
They also posted a FUTY for Valentine’s Day titled “All That Love Crap.” Someone asked Zac awhile back to write a song with this title, and he finally got around to it. And again, it’s a prime example of why I love this band — because they will never do a video like this and actually mean it. Taylor Hanson trying to be sexy with chocolate is such an epic fail that I had to break away from typing this post to cover my face with my hands, giggling and shuddering as I thought about it. And after seeing Zac with all that chocolate on his face, the next morning I took one glance at my Valentine’s Day chocolates from my boyfriend, shuddered, and just stuck with coffee.

Edit, 4:10 P.M. MST: The 7:00 show is already full! It’s only been an hour!

Edit #2, 5:40 P.M. MST: BOTH sessions are already full. They’re working on adding a third.

Edit #3, 10:20 P.M. MST: This is turning into a regular liveblogging session. (Maybe saying so will stop things for the day?) Hanson.net seems to have been bogged down and erroring out most of the evening — and then about half an hour ago, Zac showed up in the members online list on the forums. I have this feeling like any minute I’m going to start getting nothing but “We’re sorry but something went wrong” messages.

Why do people have to be such assholes? I’ve had way more experience with this subject than I’d like, but a case in point came Thursday. I didn’t have to be in class, but I went over to campus anyway to take care of some things. I was wearing my black hoodie, the one with the green walk guy on the front, and I thought nothing of it until I was passing the Student Union Building and heard this really horrible rendition of MMMBop from the patio on my right, the kind of rendition of MMMBop that Isaac was talking about when he said he still runs into people who can’t say it right.
This isn’t new in a lot of ways; I went to high school with people who hated the band. My journals from the time are peppered with choice comments that popped up on the subject (this was ‘97-99ish when Hanson were a lot more in the spotlight than they are now). I picked those people’s comments apart in private (it was good practice for debate), and then dismissed them. They didn’t know I liked Hanson all that much, so it wasn’t a directed dig. Over the years, I’ve seen or heard people pointing and laughing or singing prompted by my license plate, my t-shirts, had people drive by the concert line and ask, “No, really, who’s playing?” when we told them we were waiting to see Hanson, you get the idea. And I’ve been given a hard time over so many asinine things over the years starting even before Hanson that I’ve A) pretty much given up arguing with anyone about anything, and B) try to avoid bringing it on myself. I can’t stop being white or suddenly get rich, but I can try not to make an ass of myself, at least. And so, after all those years of practice, it was pretty easy to keep a straight face as I pulled on my headphones and turned on my iPod to block the girls at school out.
Afterward, I got to thinking about it (and by “thinking about” I mean “overanalyzing”); what’s the point? Obviously, they’re trying to take the piss out of me, but to what purpose? In retrospect, I’d have liked to go sit down with them and ask. At best it would have confused them and at worst, they might have thought me weird or been disappointed that they didn’t get a rise out of me. I don’t believe I’d have gotten any kind of useful answer beyond that they didn’t have any point. Or maybe they think they’re cooler than me because they can butcher the lyrics to a song my favorite band released twelve years ago? It wasn’t like I was going through the mall shouting about it; I was just passing by. Does that make them feel so much better about their lives because they mocked something that some girl that they don’t know likes?