Welcome To Acoustic Avenue

Yellowcard's Ocean Avenue has been one of my favorite records to sing along to while it's blasting in my car with the windows down. I've been playing that pale yellow disc since I was in middle school wearing band T-shirts and finding new friends at Warped Tour.

I heard they were on tour playing this album all the way through acoustically and hitting cities they missed while they toured years ago. Pittsburgh was on that list.

I'm sure you noticed I took a hiatus from writing and that's only because I took a hiatus from seeing bands due time and financial conflicts in the last few months. Now that everything is back in order, I can get back to my true love, experiencing and documenting live music.

I knew Yellowcard was coming at the end of January but I honestly couldn't afford the StubHub prices because tickets sold out so fast. As I'm sitting at work that same day of their show and exhausted my options of hunting Craigslist, I had one more idea. I am in charge of a twitter account for my M-F job and thought I'd send the band a tweet asking what could a broke Pittsburgh girl do to hear one of her favorite albums live...

HOW AWESOME IS THAT?! Ryan Mendez, lead guitarist, put me on the guest list to get into the concert absolutely free. Talk about playing a show for the fans. They chose Pittsburgh because they skipped this city during their previous tours and they allowed some stranger from Twitter to come to their intimate acoustic show.

The show was held at Altar Bar in the Strip District of Pittsburgh. This small venue is one of my favorites. It's a church that was converted into a concert venue and it's not the only one in Pittsburgh! Mr. Smalls in Millvale also holds holy gatherings of the music kind.

I was thrilled. I got off work. Flew home. Changed so fast I think I only put mascara on one eye. And went to the concert by myself. Unfortunately, I missed the opening act "What's Eating Gilbert." I've heard their music, however, and think they're great.

I ran in as Yellowcard was playing my favorite song "Way Away." I bolted in and started singing along at the top of my lungs when I realized how lucky I was to be there. It was PACKED. You couldn't even walk to the side to get a drink at the bar. But I didn't care. I was witnessing one of my favorite bands from growing up playing one of my favorite albums acoustic.

(awful quality but that is after I managed to squeeze by more than half the crowd so that I could see)

Hearing music acoustic in a small venue is one of the most intimate experiences for me. It's absolutely beautiful. The songs played through in accordance with the album until right about when the band was about to break for intermission and Ryan Key, lead vocals, witnessed a fight break out in the crowd. He stopped the music and basically said "How can you fight during something this peaceful?" He had the two guys removed from the show and the crowd cheered. What type of person fights in a church during an acoustic set anyway?

After the encore, Yellowcard finished the show with new songs and plugged their electric guitars back in. And I can say I was finally plugged back and recharged as well.

I'm back and this music blog is going to continue to grow as I do. Let's take this journey together.