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Saturday, July 25th: The day I was blown away like never before.

It all started sometime before the end of school. I was looking over the website of my favorite band, Billy Talent, when I thought 'Hey, why don't I check the tour dates. I wish they would tour in America for once.' So...I went to the tab and scurried my eyes down the list when BAM! I saw it...Billy Talent was coming to the United States of America. After several excited squeals and dances, I looked for the date they were closest to me. That day was July 25th, when they came to Philadelphia's Festival Pier. It wasn't long after that I had tickets for the show. (Big ups to Live Nation!)

Since that day, the play count for all Billy Talent songs on my iPod must have shot up by at least 70, for all 59 songs, too! That's right, I have every single song ever released by Billy Talent on my iPod (except for Watoosh!...I didn't really care for their style when they were known as Pezz). Now at first I had only their first CD "Billy Talent", second "II", and their live CD/DVD "666" (6 shows in 3 cities; not to be confused with the number of the beast. Come on now, everyone knows they were raised Christian! Don't worry, it doesn't come out in their songs.). However, it was only a short while after getting the tickets that I caught wind of news in regards to their third CD "III". It was originally supposed to come out July 14th (just in time for the concert!) and it was released as planned...except for America. It got delayed til September 22nd (5 days before my b-day). No clue as to why, yet.

Anyway, it turns out that Billy Talent was not headlining for the show. It was actually Rise Against as the main band, with Billy Talent and the infamous punk band Rancid as tour guests. But it still played in my favor seeing as how I love all three of those bands.

So the day finally arrived yesterday. I was pumped for this thing. I was sporting my Billy Talent tee purchased off their website which actually sold their merchandise at the time. Can't find it now since they redesigned the site, but you can see it here: http://www.interpunk.com/item.cfm?Item=152253&
Me and a couple of other kids drove down to the pier and got there at 5:15. We paid for parking and got in line by 5:25. While in line, from talking to fellow punks we found out that the lineup would be Billy Talent, then Rancid, and finally Rise Against. It appears that not many people knew who Billy Talent are. It didn't surprise me, because that is one of the main reasons they rarely, if ever, tour in the States.

The gates opened at 6 and everyone poured into the lot trying to get the best view they can for the stage. I stopped at the stand on the way in to buy yet another BT tee. I even threw it on over the one I was wearing. We checked out the area but by 6:45 we were right up near the stage. I awaited anxiously for my heroes to take the stage. Finally, at around 7:10, Ian D'sa comes waltzing out on stage playing an open chord on his guitar. The crowd cheered unsure of whether the act was going to be good or not. I, on the other hand, already knew they were going to blow everyone the ******** away as usual. Eventually Aaron took his place on drums and Jon sauntered his way on the stage picking up his Stingray bass. In the middle of the intro, the lead singer Ben comes running, neigh, SPRINTING out onto stage, just in time for the first scream. They opened the show with Devil In A Midnight Mass. Right from the get-go, you could see the veins in Ben's neck, well atleast I could from where I was standing (which was probably 10-15 feet away). It was stunning and marvelous to these mystical figures I've only seen through video and headphones in the flesh parading around on stage for once.

They powered through DIAMM, and the band paused for a moment to do their little diddy. From what I remember, it went like this:

Ben opened up with his signature,
"WE ARE BILLY TALENT FROM ONTARIO, CANADA!"
Crowd kinda looks at each other with a weak cheer
Ben looks into the crowd and sorta half-frowns/half-laughs. "I love hearing the mixed reaction when I say Canada..."
Some guy from the crowd: "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOOT?!"
Another heckler: "YEAH! BLAME CANADA!"
Ben: "Oh right, blame Canada. BLAME CANADA FOR GOOD BEER AND HOT WOMEN MY FRIEND!"
Crowd cheers
Ben: "None of which of ever talk to me..."
Crowd laughs for a second
Ben: "I've only slept with one girl...but damn was she good!"
Continues laughing
Ben: "Yeah I always get dudes saying like 'I LOVE YOU!'" :/ *shrug* [Swear to god he said that XD]
Crowd snickers
Heckler(s): "I LOVE YOU BEN!"

That was pretty much the gist of it, but hey I'm doing this from memory! They moved onto This Suffering and then The Ex. At the end of that the guy in front of me screamed to play Beach Balls but they went into Try Honesty. Ben stopped to talk about their new record which he said was coming out, but he forgot to mention that IT SHOULD'VE ALREADY COME OUT! But after he was done talking I yelled, "PLAY YOUR NEW s**t!" I got the guys to yell with me "DEVIL ON MY SHOULDER!". They actually played Devil On My Shoulder as the next song, but I think it was on their set list anyway, because they played Saint Veronika next. And then they played Fallen Leaves. They finished with Red Flag, which is their tradition in all their shows.

It was an amazing show from them, even though you could tell they were pretty unknown. I think me and two other random guys standing next to me (the Beach Balls guy and some other dude) were the only people who knew all the lyrics to every song. I kinda felt kinda bad for 'em. I mean yeah they're big everywhere else but seriously...these guys are playing their hardest and trying to give the crowd a good show and half of the ******** in the crowd weren't paying attention. I felt like screaming, "COME ON YOU DOUCHE BAGS! MOSH OR SOMETHING! THIS IS WHY THEY DON'T COME HERE!" Of course the crowd went insane for Rancid (moshing [some of which I was in], crowd surfing, throwing beer [funny story about how that started, I'll tell it next time]), and some people even left when they were over. Rise Against was the real show, but I don't feel like writing about it now, maybe some other time. They were amazing, though, too. Their songs have to be the best to mosh to. Nothing goes better with anti-"terrible government killing America" punk than pushing kids around in a giant circle, amirite?

*looks at what I typed* Ho' s**t I rambled. 4:43 am already? I gotta sleep now. =0

-Sean a.k.a. garendoor