love that. (we the living and cavashawn in cincinnati)

Wow.
What a night.

Friday, I went to Cincinnati to see We The Living and Cavashawn play a show together. (It doesn’t really get any better than that.) It was a fairly painless trip and an utterly fantastic evening. I’m not going to write anything particularly detailed about it, but I’ll cover the basics and the hilarious moments, and put in lots of pictures.

After class Friday, I packed up and drove the 3-ish hours to Cincinnati. Usually, Amanda and I would meet at Purdue and drive in one car from here, but that didn’t make sense with the location, so we drove separately this time. I’m not really used to driving long distances by myself, and I hit bad traffic in Cincinnati, so I was incredibly tense the whole drive. I borrowed “Jeeves” from Erin again though, and he got me there with no trouble in directions. I met Amanda and her roommate Ashley at the hotel (which was actually right across the river in Covington, KY), and we got all checked in and went to the room to get ready and hang out for a bit.

[Hotel room view. Mmm, dirty river.]

We hit up Skyline Chili for dinner, I’d never had it before and it was really good. It’s a little different, there’s something like nutmeg or cinnamon in it, but it was tasty. At around 8, we drove over to The Poison Room and managed to snag one of the last available street parking spaces. We went in and talked to the Cavashawn guys for a bit, then decided to claim the corner of the bar nearest the stage. WTL showed up at some point in there as well, as did our friend Kili, who lives in Cincinnati. We know her from Lifehouse shows and had gotten her to like WTL, so she came to the show to see them play. We had a lot of fun before the first band (Steven Gregory Band) played, just hanging out, talking to the guys, etc.

[Ashley, Amanda, Me, Kili]

I’m trying to think of moments worth mentioning... Benjamin’s current response to just about anything you say is “love that.” (Matt seems to say it too... I think they got it from their manager.) It apparently also applies to situations one would not usually love, such as when Kili was talking about she’d recently been laid off and Ben replied with “Oh, love that.” Needless to say, we got a kick out it, and “love that” has been officially adopted into our vocabulary. Also, Matt had left his hairspray on the bar and I picked it up so it wouldn’t get lost. I tried to give it to him but he didn’t know what to do with it, so I ended up holding it in my purse for the duration of their set. (When did I become the person who keeps track of their hairspray?) I think Kili was on the verge of a heart attack, she was so excited to see them play. Matt also informed us that he was going to come to the front of the stage during Half the Girl, so we should grab his leg. (More on that song later...haha) JP also warned us that there would probably be serious buttcrack exposure due to the pants he was wearing. The kid suffers from “noassitis” (his words) and his pants will not stay up. Insert full moon joke here.

Anyway, I was pretty darn excited to see them play again, since we hadn’t seen an actual show since the Iowa excursion in January. I would type out the setlist, but I don’t really remember it... I think they played Atlantic, 75 and 17, London Rain, Best Laid Plans, Half the Girl, a new cover I forget the name of, Barometers, and History. Half the Girl was hysterical... right in the middle of the edge of the stage, there is this big pole that runs from the ceiling to the ground. JP is now singing the song without a guitar, so he just had the mic and was moving around the stage. At one point he came to the front and somehow ended up doing an awkward pole dance, possibly by accident, but he stepped on Amanda’s purse in the process. Things went weird from there... JP rubbed Matt’s head, Matt did indeed come to the front so we pretended to freak out as promised, and JP got down on his knees in front of us and belted out the end of the song. A picture of that would have been priceless, but we were laughing too hard to take one. The new cover sounded good, and I absolutely adore History, it was only the second time I’ve seen it live, and it’s simply wonderful. I thought the show sounded good, but none of the guys looked particularly happy about it. They said later that they’d been having a lot of trouble hearing anything on stage. Regardless, it was great seeing them play again.



We decided to stay where we were for Cavashawn. They finished setting up and went on shortly after WTL played. Wow, these guys are SO GOOD. I know I’ve said it before, but they are true performers and have a great sound and energy on stage. We spent half the time fearing that Scott was going to fall on us, he kept jumping up on the monitors at the front of the stage and they would tip a little ominously. I don’t remember their full set either, but they definitely played more songs than we saw in Chicago. I know they did Hey Hey Hey, Thrill, Madison, Just Because, Out of My Mind, Friendly Fire, How It Goes (love that one), and a few others. I think one was called Background and it was a really amazing song, I think an older one, and just Scott and Chris played it. I’d never heard it before, but I totally loved it. I had so much fun during their set, I haven’t danced around like that in ages. Their music is just amazing.



After they played, we spent the next few hours hanging around with the guys. Another band played, but I wasn’t really listening. Everyone was a little camera-happy, so we ended up with some great pictures.

[Matt and his wicked awesome tie.]

[Too many teeth.]

[Well isn't that darling.]

[Mayhem.]

[Jesse, the most smiley drummer ever.]

[Drummer love.]

[We ARE Living? Whoopsies.]

[That's classy.]

We finally said our goodbyes after they loaded out, and got back to the hotel around 2:45 a.m. We all went to bed after 3 and got up at 8:15, so that wasn’t too fun, but it was completely worth it.

I love them, I feel loved by them, and nothing else really needs to be said.
It still blows my mind to think about how I almost never knew them.
Nights like these make me realize that life is good.
They tend to make everything better.

Love that.


[Addendum: I saw WTL again tonight. That will be explained later.]