Meet market (Fall Out Boy review, part 1)

Four years ago, a friend with whom I worked at Hoole special collections library played a song for me by a little pop-punk band called Fall Out Boy, and I was hooked. I've followed them religiously since then, and though they've certainly found their way onto my concert schedule before, I'd never met them. Needless to say, when the opportunity presented itself to attend a meet & greet prior to their concert in New Orleans Sunday, I jumped at the chance.

Jason and I arrived at UNO's Lakefront Arena just before 3:30, an hour before the email providing meet & greet details said we needed to be there. The clueless arena staff caused chaos and frustration, but eventually everyone figured out that we needed to wait in one line to get our wristbands, then form another for the meet & greet. I left Jason waiting in the meet & greet spot while I went off to get our wristbands. The line moved very slowly, thanks, again, to the clueless arena staff.

Jason overheard a girl talking to her friends and learned that although her friends had passes to meet two of the opening acts (Metro Station and All Time Low), the girl had no meet & greet privileges. I had two extra, so Jason offered one to her. Our new friend turned out to be an 18-year-old high school student from Metarie. She was quite impressed with our level of dedication to the band (driving 4+ hours to see them). She also guessed that we were 25, which endeared her to me.

After waiting a total of an hour and 45 minutes from the time we arrived until the band came out, the entire meet & greet was highly structured and extremely rushed. The boys sat at a table while we came by with items to have signed. We were to slide our items to each band member without lingering and then get back in line. Once everyone had their memorabilia autographed, we were divided into groups of 6-8 fans for group pictures with the band, which will be posted on a Web site later (probably in a couple weeks). We were allowed to take no photos of our own.

Despite the rigid rules, Jason and I had some interaction with three of the guys. As we approached the table, Patrick said, "Hey, what's up!" He complimented Jason's Marvel comics shirt and said it was chaotic.

Next up was Andy. I chat with him quite a bit on Twitter, but he has 8,500 followers and answers as many of them as he can when they talk to him. So, I didn't figure he'd actually recognize me, even when I introduced myself. To my great delight, he smiled and said, "I know you!" We had a little chat about baseball, and he too complimented Jason's t-shirt before we moved on to Joe. Joe and I basically just exchanged hellos, but he and Jason had a short chat (something about Joe drinking coffee to stay awake and of course liking Jason's shirt). Pete didn't even look at us; just signed our items as we passed by.

I'd behaved rather well up to that point. I had a mere moment of visible excitement when we got close enough to the table that I could have reached out and touched Patrick, but otherwise, I hadn't gone all crazy fan girl. The second we walked away from the table, though, I started shaking.

We were through the line again in mere moments, and I managed to calm myself by the time we got back to the guys. Our group of three was combined with the group of four behind us in line for the photo. I rushed right to Andy's side, and Jason stood between Joe and me. The photographer said, "Ladies, squeeze in," and Jason said, "What about me?" Joe said something, which Jason couldn't entirely decipher, but he thinks he said, "He's cool." (These things happen so fast!)

Just like that, it was over, and we were rushed out into the house. If I hadn't had the autographed posters in my hand, I wouldn't have believed it actually happened.

We made our way through the throngs of squealing kids heading out to the floor and found our seats in the second row of the stands rimming the floor, just one section over from the stage. A mother and daughter sat behind us, and the daughter was distraught that she was not on the floor with her friends. Apparently, the friends hadn't wanted to pay for the meet & greet (that was an option, at $150 per person), so they just bought floor tickets. When the girl's mom bought her the meet & greet package, she didn't realize the tickets were not general admission. So, we came to the rescue again. It just so happened we had a pair of floor tickets we weren't using, so we let her have them. She was eternally grateful.

The stage seemed massive but cluttered with equipment for the five bands we were about to see. A banner for Hey Monday hung in back.

We had to wait 45 minutes before the first opener. While Jason played on his DSi, I amused myself people-watching and tweeting from my phone. What happened after the lights dimmed? Stay tuned. Part II is forthcoming.