The following is a playlist of 3 HD videos that I shot of Angelspit at the concert. Unfortunately I can’t control the stage lighting (and I’m not gonna shine a blinding light in their faces), so they’re very dark. However, they are in HD, I was able to move around, and the sound quality is nice. I would encourage you to watch at 720p at decent volume! Click here to access the main page for this playlist.
The magnificent Emilie Autumn, along with her marvelous backing ladies known as “The Bloody Crumpets”, brought their “asylum” to the Nile Theater (Mesa, AZ) on March 4, 2011. Without a doubt, that night was one of the most incredible experiences of my life!
A Bit on Nile Theater…
The Nile Theater (not to be confused with the Underground, which is downstairs) is an intimate venue that re-opened not long ago, and has been bringing big names into downtown Mesa. In my experience at Nile thus far, they have charged surprisingly low prices (i.e. $12) for some big names, while offering a limited quantity of more expensive (around $70ish) VIP tickets for pre-show meet-and-greets for truly dedicated fans (with the means to buy them). Even if a dedicated fan can’t afford the VIP tickets, there’s a high likelihood they’ll be able to meet these big artists because it’s such an intimate venue. The Nile has also very kindly allowed media (photos and videos) at these shows I’ve attended, which I deeply appreciate. For these reasons (as well as other personal ones), I can say with a certainty that the Nile is my favorite Phoenix-area venue for the moment! (FYI, my concert count is up to 288 now, so I consider myself a reliable resource on the subject of Phoenix-area concert venues!)
I discovered Emilie Autumn quite a few years ago via Myspace. None of my friends knew about her or liked her yet, but she became one of my most revered figures, and she created a musical & artistic sanctuary for me. I had dreamed of seeing her in concert many times, and she toured in various places like South America, but I had no clue when/if she would ever come to Arizona. Only in my wildest dreams did I hope that I would not only see her perform, but also get to meet her and tell her how important she is to me, take a photo with her, shoot media while front & center at her show to cherish forever, AND experience it all with 3 of my BEST friends… and yet it happened so easily! WHAT A DREAM-COME-TRUE!
It was on December 16, 2010 that I randomly visited Nile’s website, and couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw Emilie’s picture in their list of upcoming shows. There wasn’t even a link to buy tickets to see her yet, but I knew I HAD to jump on it as quick as possible! I searched around while extremely hyper (driving my husband a little crazy, haha). I am subscribed to her newsletter but I had received no e-mail mentioning a tour, EmilieAutumn.com didn’t have the option to buy tickets either, and the events weren’t setup on Facebook yet… I almost gave up for the night, assuming they weren’t available yet; I even went to bed. However, I excitedly persevered on my mobile browser until I finally discovered the option to buy VIP tickets through The Asylum Emporium! (Had I the time to follow EA stuff all of the time, I may have thought to check that site sooner; but as my last post repeatedly mentioned, I am extremely busy!) So I ran downstairs and hopped back on the computer and secured my VIP experience; followed by a storm of Facebook sharing so my friends could nab their tickets too!
Then came the wait…………………………………………………………………………
After a few months of KILLER anticipation and much fussing over superficial preparation, the day finally arrived!
Here’s what I posted on Facebook the night before, “I feel like tomorrow’s Emilie Autumn show will be a magical night of embracing female substance, empowerment, & high quality. A lot of the most smart, talented, & beautiful women I know will be there! There’s gonna be so much love & adoration while immersed in fine music & art; I have no doubt I’ll be blissfully overwhelmed w/ awe & respect! Looking forward to sharing this experience w/ you girls! ♥” .
On March 4, my three incredible and gorgeous girlfriends (Danielle, Brianne, & Ciradessa) and I snapped photos (which are below) and excitedly gabbed in the alley outside of the Nile. Thankfully, the weather was great (apart from the wind flying up-skirt)!
Upon entry (and proof of ID) we received our commemorative “Asylum Inmate” concert laminates. It was a very short wait before we got to whip out our beautiful teacups and drink mint tea while circled around Emilie (in casual dress), who amazingly performed classical music on her Baroque violin. (To my dismay, they were all out of the “hand-blended, organic, fair trade, beautifully packaged, and insanely delicious loose-leaf” Asylum Tea, which I was looking forward to… but at least a variety of blends are supposed to be available at The Asylum Emporium here in the future.)
The meet-and-greet was of typical style, in which attendees line up and are allowed to have 1 item signed, 1 photo with the musician, and keep it brief. But Emilie was so affectionate, it certainly was not easy to keep it brief! As I approached her, she expressed appreciation for my outfit. I pointed out my hand-crafted paper eyelashes to her, which she really loved and quickly insisted we get a photo of!! Then, I got my “Opheliac” (2006) album cover signed. Also, I was able to tell her what I had decided were the most important things for me to express to her in the little time we had… I told her 1) that she encompasses all that is most important to me – intelligence, talent, and quality, and 2) that she helped me when I felt alone in the world; when it seemed like I was almost the only person who cared that women are constantly degraded, suppressed, raped, etc. and I had wondered, “WHAT IS WRONG WITH EVERYONE?! ARE THEY BLIND?!” I said that no other artist I’ve known so openly and honestly addresses such subjects. She told me that they’re working to get the word out, and maybe we just need to shout louder. She embraced me and told me that she’s so proud of me, and I felt complete. I felt amazing! I never wanted to leave her! As her assistant got very annoyed at me (I’m sorry, sort of) and insisted the meet-and-greet move on, I yearningly requested 1 last thing… “May I kiss you Emilie?!”, and then Emilie Autumn. kissed. my. lips… Thrilled, I flew to the front center of the stage and spoke like a schoolgirl to the other attendees already up there, waiting to be joined by my friends!
(I know… this sounds like a complete fantasy! It was a fantasy realized! It was the IDEAL night!!!
… And no worries, the kiss is husband-approved – he understands; plus I told him I was going to be a lesbian that night in advance. :p )
The concert was, without a doubt, everything I knew it would be and more. Of course Emilie is an extremely talented singer, violinist, pianist, and performer, and she’s the best part of it all. But I also gained huge respect for her Bloody Crumpets, who not only back her up in her songs, but perform extremely talented feats in a beautifully maniacal Victorian-dustrial circus – with stilts, fire tricks, aerial acrobatics, shameless tea and muffin spitting, and so much more! They’re not just pretty faces, though they certainly know how to do aesthetic style right!
It was the most theatrical concert I’ve experienced yet. It has a very burlesque-like atmosphere, which would normally make me uncomfortable with the type of feminist I am (because with female “performers”, I know there’s often a fine line between power and objectification/abuse) but I felt completely comfortable in “The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls”. I know Emilie’s lyrics, I’ve read her book, and I’ve listened to and watched her speak about the horrors of sexual abuse and the like. This show was for the girls, and I knew exactly how much these performers are empowered, substantial, and in support of so much of what I stand for as a feminist.
Emilie Autumn completely shredded on her violin! (I definitely recommend watching my video of her violin solo, “Face the Wall”… video playlist below.) Also, Emilie changed her outfit multiple times, each one beautiful, unique, awe-inspiring, and well-done. I don’t even like sparkly outfits, which I find tacky, but Emilie knows how to make it look good.
The following is a playlist of 6 HD videos that I shot at the concert. I definitely recommend watching in full quality, fullscreen, if your computer can handle it (mine can’t, haha). Click here to access the main page for this playlist.
And this (below) is a slideshow of my photography of the Emilie Autumn concert. If you’d like, you can click here to view the fullscreen slideshow, or click here to view the thumbnail gallery with descriptions.
After the concert ended, the crew started to clean up the stage. A man picked up a muffin and got ready to toss it into the crowd. I reached up and just confidently clasped it in the air with no fumbling, it was a TOTAL ninja-muffin-catch! Quite honestly, it’s like it just flew into my hand… it was astonishing (because I’m not usually a good catcher)! It was the most delicious muffin ever… I shared it with lots of people and felt great doing so!
The girls and I were all very hungry after the show, having arrived early and not had dinner. We considered the usual late-night fare, and begrudgingly settled for Denny’s.
We very-happily discussed the concert while we hung out at Denny’s. While we talked about something trivial, Danielle suddenly stopped and barely uttered a comprehendable sentence, “Did you see… the hair?”. I looked, saw nothing, and assuming she’d just seen something stupid on TV. I said, “Danielle, I think you’re on crack!”, and Brianne and I started to muse on The Left Rights’ “I’m On Crack” video (link). Suddenly, I saw it too… across the restaurant was EMILIE’S HAIR peaking over a booth! HOOOLLYYYYYYY JESUS! We became so thrilled and excited… in fact, I’m STILL getting goosebumps all over and butterflies in my stomach just thinking about it!
We didn’t know what to do! I almost darted over there, but Cira (the very proper lady she is) said to wait until after we were finished. We all got very quiet, stared, and nervously laughed. How could we possibly talk to each other normally now?! We hoped she’d be seated with her crew near us, but alas, that didn’t happen. The waitress took FOREVER to come back, and I was too excited to even finish my food… “SCREW FOOD!” But we finally got our checks and darted over to pay. As we paid, we couldn’t see Emilie anywhere, but we could see some of her crew. We loitered around a bit, and then Emilie came down the aisle from the restroom! “Emilie!”, I squeaked as I covered my mouth. The ever-so-pleasant Emilie smiled, teasingly mocked the excitement, and got close to our faces while walking by, saying in a haunting voice, “IT’S THE ASYLUM DENNY’S!” (which will now forever be it’s name, haha), and then she sat at her booth.
Again, we didn’t know what to do, and we were hoping for just a bit more. But as I inched closer to them, her assistant gave me the scariest stare of my life with a”no” head shake. As disappointing as that was, I complied. I understand they have their valid reasons, and I didn’t mean/want to be rude. As we left, Emilie spoke to us again, “Look! Iced TEA!”. We said, “BYE EMILIE! WE LOVE YOU!!!!” and she said, “I LOVE YOU TOO!!!”.
Hello friends! It’s been half a year since I’ve last graced you with my blogging presence… and of course that last post was also after a long absence. Let’s face it… I’m just too busy to keep it up regularly. I wish that weren’t the case, because I like expressing myself and keeping a record of what I’ve done. However, I would have to find a way to live without sleep and with constant energy in order to post regularly… unless of course I were to make my posts as short as Facebook status updates, which I do quite regularly to share my thoughts and media these days. I suppose for certain things that is better than nothing…?
It’s not just the fact that I don’t have time to make posts, but the back-end maintenance also requires a lot of time. I use WordPress to blog and it needs updating regularly, and things become incompatible when you spent so much time getting it to work in the first place…. GAH. I know some of my older posts have pictures in them that are too wide for the current template too.
So, what have I been so busy with? Well, I’ve been truly living my life finally for one. If we pretend whoever you are that is reading this has been reading my blog since it’s creation, you may be confused by that comment, knowing that I have lived TONS of experiences. However, I have lost 130 lbs since last April and I can assure you that I never lived life the way I am now. I am now more “me” than I’ve ever been able to be.
I started participating in a band as a junior member in the middle of November ’10 as keyboardist and backup vocalist. I hope to become an official member eventually, but I definitely have catching up to do. While maintaining my work life, relationship with my husband, a degree of my own design work, friendships, taking dance classes, and practicing the piano, I literally never have a moment where I don’t have something to do.
One thing that you can follow that I do keep updating is my sets on Flickr. As of this post, I’ve posted 19 photo sets (hundreds upon hundreds of photos) since my last post! I think all that I’ve posted in between then and now is some of my best work yet, and I haven’t blogged any of it, so I feel pretty guilty. (My last post about TBM was such a half-assed job due to illness, whereas I didn’t blog the photos and videos that I shot at The Birthday Massacre (with Aural Vampire) just a couple of months later, which are a million times better!)
Anyway… I’ll do what I can, when I can… I can’t promise regularity, but I do want to keep blogging. Last week I experienced one of the concerts of my life, Emilie Autumn; and that certainly deserves a post! You can count on that as a work-in-progress! (It would also be nice to get some newer pics of me in here to show how much I’ve improved! Of course, you can also see new pics in Photos & Art > Kat and Friends > My “Modeling”… I have reasons for not linking directly to it. I am still in the process of getting a lot of in-between photos up there, but the newest ones are up. I want to try to get the Emilie blog finished before I finish those, or I may never do the blog.) In a couple of weeks I am seeing Angelspit and if all goes according to plan, I will have better media to share than the last time I saw them. (I would also love to get new picture(s) of myself with them… I was so huge last time. That person really wasn’t me…)
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We said, “BYE EMILIE! WE LOVE YOU!!!!” and she said, “I LOVE YOU TOO!!!”.