The Maine Presents Pioneer :)

Oh my gosh! I love these guys to death. They're amazing, awesome, down-to-earth, chill, and...so many other positive adjectives, anything that you could come up with. I found out about these guys during the summer of '10 and I've been a loyal, honest fan ever since. I was immediately hooked because of John Ohh's voice. Seriously. Then I spent a lot of time looking them up online, trying to find out more about them. In doing so, I found out that they were on their very first headlining tour during July of 2010. I was so mad that I found out about them a little late because I wanted so badly to go see them. And of course, their first stop was San Francisco. I was even more mad. That whole summer I couldn't stop listening to them! When October rolled around, I found out that they were going to tour with Never Shout Never in their Harmony Tour and so I got my tickets, asap! That was my first time ever seeing them. It was awesome although I felt out of my element a bit because 3/4 of the fans were there for NSN. Anyway, it was still an awesome experience! Then about eight months later (I totally counted on my fingers just now), I found out that they were going to tour again. This time with the awesome band, Augustana. I was stoked because it was going to be during the summertime and you know why that's awesome...because I don't have to worry about missing school, lol! Within those eight months, I converted my oldest sister and her husband to a MAINEiac too, haha, so they were my ride to SF to see The Maine and Augustana together. THAT concert blew my mind; it was totally out of this world.

The audience, the bands, everything was charged with so much energy, it was insane. A good insane, of course. Augustana is mind-blowing live. Dan Layus has such a beautiful voice! I was completely and utterly starstruck. Aaah, I almost forgot to mention, this time around, I got to meet 3/5 of The Maine. *gasp* I know! For this concert, we spent the night in SF because the night before the concert, we attended this book signing with Maggie Stiefvater, Libba Bray, and Meg Cabot. That morning we all woke up around 9-10 and shortly after I got up, I received a tweet from Pat saying that they were going to be at the Mancave Memorabilia at noon. I did a double take at the time and realized we had two hours to get ready. Ha, you should have seen us! We got ready in record time and we showed up to the Mancave Memorabilia thirty minutes before noon. I was so anxious and excited and nervous all at once to meet them.

Never in a million years did I think I was going to get to meet my most favorite band on earth. I thought it was going to be the whole band but only John Ohh, Jared, and Garrett showed up. I was bummed that Kenny and Pat weren't there but all that mattered to me was that John was there. Haha, clearly I'm a John Ohh chick. ;) They came out and did a little Q&A with the fans there and it was super intimate. There were probably only like thirty fans present which was nice. OMG, my fangirl moment coming up. During the Q&A, John was talking and then he was looking out at the crowd and we (me and him) were only like five feet apart and then we locked eyes for a good thirty seconds and *fans self* I'm pretty sure my heart died and it came back after our eye contact was broken. It was...definitely the best moment of my life. After the Q&A, the three of them did a little meet and greet with all the fans and oh boy, was I nervous or what?! I stood in line by myself because out of the four of us there, I was the craziest and the most MAINE addicted. My sister went and got all of my stuff out of the car for them to sign and when it was my turn to go up, I didn't know what to say at all. Looking back, I could have said a whole bunch of stuff but in the moment, I was just overwhelmed that I was even in their prescence. It happens all the time. I just stood their and commented on their height because I was a freakin' midget standing next to them. I mean, look at the picture: ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓

Of course, I got a solo shot with John, which if you follow me on twittah, it's been my profile picture ever since then.

OMG, you don't know how ecstatic I was that he wrapped his arms around me. I was dying! Look at my smile - I don't think I've ever been any happier in life! Afterwards, we left the Mancave and we went wandering around SF until the concert started. Like all concerts, they go by waaaaaay too fast. I was on a high for the rest of....the week that followed. Then, two nights ago, I went and saw them again on their Pioneer tour. This tour was my favorite but not my favorite either. We didn't leave to SF until 4 in the afternoon; we arrived in SF at 5:15 and we headed straight to The Bottom of the Hill. The line was long already, some people were there since 2 in the afternoon. It was freezing and really dark already because of the time change and stuff. Anyway, by 6:40-7:00 we made our way in and man, that venue was so tiny. We went and stood to the far right of the stage, close to where Jared was. They came out and played all the songs from Pioneer and it was really quiet at first because we didn't know 7 out of the 9 songs, haha! Then they had a little intermission where they played this video that showed how far The Maine has come. :) When they came back out they played a bunch of their older songs that we knew and the energy was crazy! And they were just so chill and relaxed. It was very low-key and...nice. After the concert ended, my sisters, my brother-in-law, and I headed to the bathroom and little did we know, in doing that, we ended up at the front of the line to meet the guys, which rocked. Before the concert, I made this super sparkly t-shirt that said The Maine, on the front, in glitter, and on the back it said, Pioneer, their M logo, and 11-20-11, all in glitter. Then I went back with puff paint and wrote their lyrics all over the shirt. Anyway, when I went up to meet them, they were all amused by my shirt, haha! John signed my poster and said, "You're sparkling!" <3

I haven't taken a picture of the shirt yet but when I do, I'll come back and add it to this post. If you guys have ever been to one of their concerts, before John starts singing, he always gives us a little background about the song and now looking back on the whole night, I got a sad vibe from the guys. I felt that they were extremely thankful for all the fans and Colby (the co-producer of Pioneer) but...there was an underlying sad feeling to everything. My brother-in-law, my sister, and I talked and talked and talked about it and we felt like The Maine has been through so much and their fan base is huge but not as huge as other bands like Boys Like Girls, or 3Oh!3, or you know, those big time bands and that's sort of why they changed their sound this time around. John also mentioned that their previous record label, Warner Bros didn't sign them for Pioneer, hence Colby, and I just felt so sad for the guys. I wanted to give all of them a ginourmous hug. I want to buy a hundred copies of Pioneer to support them. I hope that whatever hardships they come across that they don't ever give up because I will be dead without them. No joke. I was talking to my sister about it and I got all choked up already. Seriously, they can't stop doing what they're doing. I'll die. I will follow The Maine wherever they go, to the end of the world.

If you want to check out my videos from the tour, you can find all the ones we recorded here: my TUMBLR. <3 But I'll post my two most favorite here.

The Maine - Rock 'n Roll



The Maine - Misery
  I didn't record this next video. I knew of the song but I didn't know the lyrics and stuff but now, after that night, I'm so addicted.

The Maine - Ho Ho Hopefully