A Fire Inside. (beware it's long, but has some great stories)

When A.F.I came out with their new c.d., we knew they would go on tour and come to S.L.C., so we had to get tickets...

We had a whole plan for the day (only having one car makes it tricky sometimes) And despite our best efforts our plans were falling apart. Leaving us three options. I would have to miss the concert, we would both miss the concert or arrive really late and hope to catch some of it. None of those options sounded fun to me....

I was talking to my friend Lexi about it and she came to our rescue! With out her we would have had to make one of those decisions. So thanks to Lexi we were able to both go on time and see the whole show.

We went with Rich (Lexi's husband), grabbed some food first and headed over. The line was insanely long, but luckily Rich's brother was already in line more than halfway up! Still by the time we got in there was no where to stand. You couldn't even get up to the bar area, it was packed everywhere. We ended up finding a place on top of a stand so we could see above the crowd, only there was a big pillar obstructing our view of half the stage :( I went to the merch booth and got some cute pins for my "Concert purse" and a cute patch and stickers...and then we waited. It was fun to meet Rich's brother and his cute girly friend. I really liked her and it was fun to have another girl there so I wasn't the only one. The opening band was annoying more than anything. Dave thought they were TERRIBLE and Rich liked some of the songs....It was pretty funny to look around at the crowd and then at us. We definitely didn't "belong". It was FULL of people dressed in all black, with mohawks, crazy hair, crazy clothes, and dirty nasty mouths. If I didn't love A.F.I so much I would have left at this point.

After the opening band finished it felt like FOREVER for them to set up and be ready. Dave and Rich tried a couple of time to get up in the crowd towards the front with no success, while his brother, friend, and I saved our places. Finally A.F.I. came on stage. Davey was wearing this weird silver suit and looked all clean cut. We couldn't hear the vocals at all, but the music was good, and we could tell what songs they were, so we were singing along. We still couldn't hear him when he was just talking to the crowd so the crew decided to try and find another spot. I stayed to hold our's in case they didn't luck out.

Dave came back to get me and we pushed our way through and got to a better spot. Yea, we could actually hear Davey singing now. And he is AMAZING. A little dramatic, but amazing. Amanda (I think that is her name) had found a good spot standing on these tall "cages"...so I went to join her, but these scary looking girls who were already up there gave me the "don't even think about it" stare while shaking their heads "no". I didn't really want to test them, so I went back and stood with Dave. By this point Rich had disappeared to the front of the crowd, hopefully having a good time.

We weren't elevated anymore, but there was a break in the crowd and we had a good shot of the stage. I was a little disappointed by the set list. It was mostly new stuff. Which I still love their new songs. But I only remember them playing 1 old song, and that is not near enough. At least what they played was amazing.

Dave and I were rolling our eyes a couple of times at Davey because he is a drama queen. But it was entertaining. It was pretty funny after a couple of songs he ran off stage and disappeared for a few minuets. Jade had to stall, which he did well, and then Davey came back in different clothes. He said that he had a wardrobe malfunction and that it was cold enough without having that. (meaning he tore his pants? Thats what I took from it) I can see how that would happen though, they go CRAZY on stage. It's very fun to watch. All in all it was a good show, but not my favorite.

My favorite A.F.I. show is still when I went with Nicole (Dave's sister) who was friends with Davey, so I got to meet him before the show. And then during the show he walked on the crowd to the table we were sitting at, stood on the table and sang to us for about half a song. Now that was incredible, and since this was over 8 years ago all their songs were the "old stuff" so I definitely loved that set list.

Anyway. We had a blast and I'm saving the best story for last...when the show ended we couldn't seem to communicate well and lost Rich. We were waiting for him outside when this crazy fight broke out in front of us. A lady was attacking a girl, they we full on fighting. Pulling hair, biting, sliding on the snow and ice and of course hitting. There wasn't any security there so Dave went and broke it up. He was trying to pull the younger girl off the crazy lady, but the crazy lady had her leg firmly in her mouth, biting down. After a few attempts and really foul language Dave had pulled this girl out of crazy lady's clutches. We stayed for a second to make sure she was all right when crazy lady started attacking the other girls friend. Same fight with a different person. It was all so weird. I've never been to a fight this close where I was actually scared of getting involved, for all I knew she was going to attack me next!!!

Well Dave intervened again with the help of this girl's husband. But crazy lady was relentless. It took a little longer to pull them apart and more biting, hitting, and pulling was going on. Dave and the wife got free but the husband was still going at it. I've never seen a man hit a woman. And I'm not sure how I felt about it even though the woman was attacking his wife and obviously crazy. He pulled her by her hair and threw her up against a car screaming to get the *bleep* off his wife. Good protector, but was his force necessary? I'm not sure, but probably. By this point a security guy came over and was pulling the husband off crazy lady and luckily it all died down. Crazy lady and her daughter (by the looks of it) went off in one direction and the rest of us in another.

The girls that were attacked we kind of freaking out, so Dave went to see if they were ok. I think they were kind of in shock. After asking the "wife" if she was ok she said, "No, I'm not okay, she *bleeping* bit me" and continued to pull her pants all the way off and tried to show us her inner thigh. We figured we could leave. After all the fight was done, and she did have her husband. We didn't particularly want to see all that we saw of her, so we left. Crazy. Weird. Night.

We finally got a hold of Rich, met up with him, and left. Sharing stories in the car.