This was a free show, featuring several BAMMIE (a local award) winners. I was rather skeptical of how fun it would be because (a) it was outdoors (b) it was in the most popular tourist spot in S.F., on the 4th of July. I was right to be skeptical, and there were things about the show that were less than wonderful, but MTX's set was great and all in all, I had a really good time.The worst part about the show was actually getting there. It was so crowded! You can't even comprehend how many people were there without having seen it. I was truly amazed. My friend Kelley and I arrived at around 3 (I think) and spent the next hour (yes HOUR) looking for parking! We ended up parking super super far away, in the first possible spot we found.
It was a sort of long walk, and it was uphill, so we decided to take the bus. We figured it would be faster, but boy were we wrong. I guess we should have known better than to think a motorized vehicle could go faster than we can walk! The bus moved pretty quickly at first, but it shortly came to a halt. After sitting in the stationary bus for a while, Kelley and I decided to walk after all.
Finally got to Fisherman's Wharf, but that wasn't the end of the adventure. We walked down to the pier that Joel told me the show was at, and MTX were no where to be found. We wandered around that stage for a while trying to find them. I was getting pretty frustrated, because there were just soooooo many people and it was difficult to even walk anywhere, so I asked one of the security people if MTX were there yet. She didn't know who I was talking about, and said that we must have the wrong stage. Argh! All that for nothing. She showed us on her little map where the stage was, and we headed back in the direction we came from.
On the way to the other stage, something really really scary happened (scary for me, I'm sure everyone watching found it incredibly funny). I was walking along, and what I thought to be a bush was sitting at the edge of the sidewalk. When I got within a couple feet of the "bush," it leaped at me and roared really loudly! It was at this point I realized it was really a guy hiding behind a branch. Grr. I've never been so startled in all my life. I think I swore a bunch, and everybody around me started cracking up.
Still slightly shooken up from the bush incident, Kelley and I made our way towards what we thought was the stage. When we got there I asked the security guard where MTX were, and he told us that once again we had the wrong stage. He showed us where it was again, and we were able to find it without any trouble. It turned out that we made it just in time! Within five minutes after we got there and said hi to everyone, they took the stage.
There was a big stupid barrier about 10 feet in front of the stage, which was really really annoying. At one point some people went in front of the barrier, but we were promptly removed by the security guards. It was really windy and cold, but since I was watching MTX it didn't really matter. They played a less varied set than usual, mostly playing stuff off "Love is Dead" and "Revenge..." but it was understandable. After all, those are the records they won the awards for.
We didn't stay too long after MTX finished playing. It was so cold, and there wasn't really anything exciting going on. We stayed to talk to MTX until they left, but as soon as they left so did we. There were no buses going away from the Wharf, so Kelley and I had to walk the whole way. I wouldn't have minded, except for the nasty weather. It was sort of a sad show, because it was the last show for a couple months. But despite all the negative stuff it was a really really fun show (it was MTX after all, so how could it not be?).