yes, so i'm stealing my sister's blog and throwing in my stuff that she didn't see! ha
We left Bend at 6:30ish in the morning. So, after 3 hours of loud off-key singing with all of our AFI CDs we get into Medford around 9:30. I decorated my car with some AFI-related phrases. One of her windows read "Smith Puget for President", i wrote "A Fire Inside" on the other side, and the back window said "Despair Faction coming to a city near you! Love Like Winter Tour 2007 Medford OR"
Anyway, we pull up to the hotel and ask if we can check in and the manager tells us it'll be about 30 minutes. Keep in mind that our hotel is literally about 20 steps away from the venue and AFI's tour bus. We can see it perfectly and everyone inside from the windows and side door in the hallway of the hotel. So we decide to run on down to dutch bros. to get some coffee. As we're driving out of the parking lot, we drive right past Fritch who is talking to another guy. We get our coffee, go back to the hotel and we're kind of checking out the buses from the parking lot and this guy comes over to us and asks if we're going to the show and then he tells us that he thinks he just saw the guys go into the building. Later we found out he was their bus driver. So we check in to the hotel. The manager is like "Okay, ladies, I like AFI too and I know this is exciting but keep in mind that we have a lot of corporate people staying here." I promised him we'd be good and had noooo idea how good we were going to have to be.
Hailey (or Jane as we shall call her since there is another Haley) and my sister, Katie go out to the car to get something and a couple seconds later they come running down the hall and they're pounding on the door (good start to our behaving). We go out and they say that Jade is walking around outside the bus. So we all go down to the window at the other end of the hallway and when I get there, I see him going back onto the bus. After that we could see him in the window. So we go back out to her car (which is only about 20 feet away from their bus) and we're getting some stuff *cough*lingering*cough*. After a few minutes we decide to go back in and so we go in the side door where you can see the bus from and as soon as we get inside, Jade comes out again and goes into the venue.
(Some of these events may be out of order. I'm trying to remember. haha) Katie had heard a lot of stories about the guys being spotted at Starbucks before the shows and there was a Starbucks in the Fred Meyer right across the street. So we drive across the street and go into Fred Meyer to get some food for later that night. We walk out of Fred Meyer and to Starbucks and guess who's sitting in there? Jade! He's just sitting at a table by himself with a coffee cup and he had an Ipod or something. I'm not quite sure because we didn't want to stare. He kind of glanced at us through the window but he looked like he was concentrating on the wall or something. So we keep calm and go in anyway and order our drinks and when I turn around, he's up and headed out the door and across the street back to the venue. (After this we had the joke that we were stalking him and everywhere we'd go he'd be there. It's a long story but quite funny. lol).
After that we were going to meet my aunt and cousin at Senor Sams for burritos. So we go to the hotel first to drop off the food from Fred Meyer and as we're standing by my jeep, we see Smith coming from the tour bus over to the hotel. He sees us and sees the window that says "Smith Puget for President" and smiles at us before going in. We get our things and go into the hotel and he's standing at the front desk checking in. We say hi to him and he says "Hi ladies." We were on the first floor just around the corner from the front desk. So we drop off our stuff in the room and we're talking about going to lunch later that afternoon with my aunt and cousin. As we're walking out, Katie was talking about where we were going and as we come around the corner into the lobby she says "Senor Sams is just around the corner" and Smith is still standing there and as we walk by he's like "Yeah, its RIGHT around the corner" and we turn around he just looks up and smiles at us. So I ask "So how is this" indicating his cast. He's like "it's getting better". Hailey asks him "so what happened?" He says "i broke my collarbone" she asked "how" and he said "skateboaring". i asked him "you didn't skate into grass again did you?" and he replies "no! haha" we said a couple other things that i can't remember right now and then left. After that we decide to head out to go talk to some of the people in line. There weren't very many but we talked to them for a bit before leaving.
We get back to the hotel and Katie met up with Angela who she'd talked to on myspace before. She, Haley, and Katie are standing RIGHT outside the hotel doors and she's telling us about the concert and meet and greet in Chico the night before. So we get to the subject about how buff Davey is and we end up talking about that for quite some time. So finally Haley says she's going to go finish her makeup and right when she turns around, the doors open up and Davey walks out. He has his hood up and his head down (I guess hoping they wouldn't notice him but it's kind of hard not too) so they're all just standing there in shock and not speaking (which I'm sure wasn't at all obvious) as he drags his huge silver suitcase (probably a makeup case) across the parking lot and to the venue. So Haley goes inside to tell me and Jane who they just saw as Angela and Katie discuss the fact that he was probably standing inside the doors waiting for them to either stop talking about how buff he was or waiting for them to leave before he decided to just make a run for it. Lol. So her and Katie talked for a bit more and Katie look over towards the buses and sees Adam walking towards the hotel. So as he walks by them he kind of smiles but doesn't really look like he wants to stop and chat. (I'm in the hotel room this entire time 
)
By then, it was time for us to go meet my aunt Janet and cousin Holly for lunch. We go to Senor Sam's and get some delicious burritos which none of us could eat because we were so nervous. While we're at lunch, Angela texts Katire and tells her she just saw Davey and Smith at Starbucks. She ended up at the crosswalk with them and Smith and Jade's dad before passing them. (HAHA Way to go Angela. EXCUSE ME!)
After lunch we're on our way back to the hotel when my cousin calls and tells me she just saw Jade walking across the street again to Starbucks. So we get to the hotel and do our makeup. Katie, Angela and Hailey go inside but Jane and I walk over to where we spot Davey, Adam and Smith standing by the busses. Since she doesn't get to meet them later we walk over there. we go towards Davey first but he's busy talking with some fans so we walk over to Adam. He smiles and goes "Oh, so I'm your fall back huh?! You can't get to Davey so you have to come to me?" we start laughing and defending ourselves. He starts laughing and telling us he's joking. He was sweet. He set his beer bottle down and signed her cd insert. She explained to him why she wasn't Despair Faction and he said it would be back up soon. he told her she had to join when it was up. I say "yeah cause Despair Faction rocks!" Adam laughs and says "YEAH!" very enthusiastically. we say bye to him and i tell him i'll see him later in the meet and greet.
We have to be at the venue by 3 for the meet and greet (Psh, yeah right. More like 5:30). So we have about 50 minutes before then. We run over to Fred Meyer and pick up some flowers for the guys. We see Adam over by the bus again when we get back to the hotel. We went with Jane to give Adam his flowers since she wouldn't see him later. The security guard stopped us before we got to him but we just told him we wanted to give Adam flowers real fast. And he's like "That Adam?" motioning to Adam Carson. We really wanted to just be like "Uhh... no... the OTHER Adam." So he let us go over and give him the flowers real fast.
We go back to the hotel to fix up our hair and spruce up before going and standing in line. The wonderful Lindsay was in line right in front of us and we met and decided we'd all hang out together. YAY! I'm glad we did. We're trying to figure out when the meet n' greet is going to be and where we're supposed to go when we see Fritch over at the front of the line talking to someone. Now, we had heard a story about Fritch making a girl cry and Katie was slightly afraid of him. So Katie finally gets Lindsay to ask him about the meet n' greet if she goes with her. He tells them that he doesn't know really know anything about it and that we just need to watch for Smith.
As we're waiting in line, Haley and Katie decide to run back to the hotel to get something. As they go into the hotel, Fritch is standing outside there. He smiles at them but he's texting on his phone or something. So as they're coming out, they see that my jeep window is down. So they come back to the line to ask me where my keys are and I said they're in the hotel. So they go BACK to the hotel and Fritch smiles at them again and as they come out he's like "Are you lurking?" Katie said no and Haley says yes. Then Katie told him they just had to roll up our car window. So they walk past him again to put the keys back in the room after taking care of the window and as they come out he laughs and says "You guys are fucking funny." So after that Katie decided that she loves Fritch.
They got back to the line with us and it starts raining and hailing but we really didn't care. Finally, around 5ish we see some movement over by the front doors and realize there's a seperate section where the meet n greet people are waiting. As we get over there, we see Smith standing in the door with the list and he's getting people's names. So we get in line and get our wristbands for the meet and greet. WHOO!
Katie asked Smith how long it's going to be and he says about another hour. So about an hour later, they let us in. As we walk into the area where the guys are (which is right by the stage where they would later perform) they're all standing around talking to each other. When they saw us coming in, they all seperated.
So we decide to go up to Jade first because Angela said he usually leaves first (which was the case). So I go up to him with my Love Like Winter vinyl and asked him to sign in. He's like "Hey, I didn't get one of these!" so i tell him to go to hot topic because that's where I got mine. And he's like "Maybe I'll just take this one." And acts like he's going to steal it. So he signs it and gives it back and I give him the orange flowers we got for him and he's like "which ones are mine?" cause i had a couple colors with me. i had him the orange ones and he says "Thanks! They're orange!" haha. i ask "is that a good color?" and he replied "yeah!" So we got pictures with him, thanked him, and moved on to Adam.
Adam was really sweet and signed my Love Like Winter vinyl and also mentioned how it was cool and he didn't get one either. i said "yeah, Jade tried to steal it" and he replied "well it's not a bad idea!" haha i had the flowers and he kind of looks at them. i tell him "you got your flowers early!" and he smiles "oh yeah! thanks." Then we got the pictures with him and moved on to Hunter.
Hunter was by far the coolest person I've ever met in my life. We give him some flowers and he's like "Thanks! These are cool. I want to make a garden out of them. There's only one problem." And he holds the flowers up in front of us like he's all mad and he's like "They're broken! You cut the ends off!!" hahah. So Katie hands him her cover with him on it and ask him if he'd sign his face for her. He looks at her and he's like "You'd be disappointed if I signed it somewhere else wouldn't you?" and she said yeah and so he laughs and signs his forehead. So he's staring at it and he's like "Wow, look at how the 'R' contours perfectly with my skull." And she says "Yeah, you could totally get that tattooed on your head." And he's like "Yeah. And that squiggly 'H', that's never going to happen again." So Katie point to the 'E' which looked like an 'I' and says "And what's that?" and he's like "Well, thats an E. You see the slight curvatures on the top and bottom?" So he was hilarious. Then I go up to him and have him sign my LLW vinyl. He signs it and slashes right across Jade and he says "wow, that looks depressing, i'm never doing that again. look how sad it is!" and i go "You took out Jade!" and he's like "Eh, A little ink won't hurt him." So by this time Smith is telling everyone to wrap it up because we've gotta go. So I go to take a picture with him and Katie has the camera. She's kind of close and he's like "Whoa whoa whoa! Back up! You're awfully close!" So Katie takes a few steps back and he's like "Okay, okay, right there!" Then Katie takes the picture and he's like "To be that close, it's like macro!" So Smith is still telling people to hurry up so Katie runs over to Davey to get in line so he doesn't leave before we get a picture with him. But while Katie was over there, Hunter keeps talking to me and about macro pictures. he says "you take macro pictures when you photograph action figures like Mr. Wolfie!" and he pulls a werewolf action figure out of his pocket. i start laughing and ask "you keep a werewolf in your pocket?!" and he replies "Yeah! Mr. Wolfie goes everywhere with me!". Finally the chatty bass player says bye to me and i join Katie over next to Davey.
So I get up to Davey and OMG i was shaking and nervous. lol So i gave him the flowers which he loved then showed him the graphic. he LOVED it. and he loved the fact that i put Smith up in the corner. he says "he's like our higher power." and i said "well he IS the 5th member of AFI" davey laughed and said "he is!" he asked me if he could take it out later to look at it after i told him about parts of it getting cut off. i told him yes and then got the picture with him. he was soooo sweet and so polite.
So while Haley and Lindsay were getting pictures with Davey, Katie and I ran over to Smith to get his autograph and pictures. Well on the way to Medford, we drew some crazy little stick figure drawings of some of Smith's greatest moments. Such as him getting hit by a car, him getting a broom thrown at him, him with the snakes in the tree, and him flipping off babies. These were like the most basic stick figure drawings ever. So tell him that we know how people like to draw them really great pictures so we thought we'd give it a shot. I went through each one as he looked through them and explained what they were. He loved them. He was laughing as he went through all of them and he would get to the next one and be like "Oh yeah!" like he forgot it happened to him. haha. So he said thanks and we went out into the middle section between outside and the actual concert area. Haley and Katie decide to make a run for the hotel to put our stuff away and we run back and get back into the little waiting area where the meet and greet people are waiting to get let in before the rest of the crowd. We stood in there for probably a half of an hour before they started searching us. Two guys tried to sneak in with us but they had to go back out because they didn't have wristbands. Douchebags.
Anyways, Katie didn't want to go up to the front because of my experience near the front at the 30STM concert. But Haley, Lindsay, and I convinced her to go up there and she was sooo glad she did. They let us in before the rest of the crowd and we get right up at the barricade directly in front of Jade. Oh, and as we were walking in, we passed the merch booth and Fritch was watching everyone go in and he saw Katie and got this HUGE smile on his face and waved really big and Katie waved back. So yeah, Fritch and her are bffs according to her now. LOL
Now, I'm tired, so I'm going to skip over the two opening bands. They were Viva Hate and Love Equals Death and they were both awesome. So I actually wasn't getting THAT squished up front, just hit by people being pulled out of the audience by security.
So after a loooooooooooong wait, AFI finally comes on. And they were absolutely amazing. I don't remember every detail at the moment, it'll all come back to me later. I just remember the curtain dropping halfway through Prelude and I was just in complete shock. They were so animated at that concert and they kept interacting with each other on stage. At one point, Jade did the thing where he runs his guitar across the speaker, only I guess he thought it'd be cool to try it on Davey's arm. So he runs over and runs his guitar across Davey's arm, Davey jumps back and he's laughing but I see him mouth "Ow! That fucking hurt!" and he's shaking his arm and laughing and Adam was laughing at them. Then at one point he was singing and lost him mic and he was mouthing to the audience that he dropped it off the stage or something. (we later found out in Mark's (Master of Buzznet and Davey's buddy) tour log that Davey was mouthing to Mark to pick up the mic and sing, haha) Then during another song he swung his mic stand and the mic flew off. And Jade's guitar stopped working halfway through Girls Not Grey but he grabbed his other one really fast. It seems like his guitar stops working at every show. haha.
So during Death of Seasons, i was frozen in shock as davey sang the final lines. It was amazing. during a couple songs Davey made eye contact with the front row. it's amazing when he looks right at you while he's singing. his intensity on stage is pretty overwhelming. And then they covered Blur's Song 2 and it was probably the highlight of that concert. It was soooo much fun and everyone was singing along and they energy level skyrocketed at that point. I just wish that song was longer. So anyway, the concert was amazing. Love Like Winter came too soon and we knew it was almost over. It went by so fast.
So they come back for the encore and Davey's crowd walk was flawless during God Called In Sick Today.
After the concert we go buy some stuff from the merch booth. we found out at the hotel that Viva Hate was staying in the room next to us.
So the next morning, we're all up by 8 and we all decide to meet for breakfast at 8:30. We get breakfast, talk to the hotel manager who wanted to know how the concert was. It turns out he was basically telling us we had to be good because AFI was staying there.
The 6 of us decide to walk across the street to Starbucks, you know, just in case 
We order our drinks and some of us are sitting at a table and the rest of us are standing around it. Well I point out this older couple that are about to come in and they're both wearing AFI sweatshirts. They come in and see us and say hi and ask if we went to the show. We say yeah and the lady is like "Oh yeah, we're Jade's aunt and uncle." They told us they came to the concert and got to visit with him and Smith for awhile. (I was wearing a Smith shirt at the time. haha). And we mentioned Smith's broken collarbone and his aunt is like "It's pretty usual for him to have something broken on him. That's our Smith." They were really nice. We also saw Jade and Smith's dad at the concert.
A while later we go back to the hotel and Lindsay had to leave.
:( We all got pictures together first though. So we go back to our rooms and Haley and Katie go out to the vending machine and it wouldn't take her quarters. So she's like talking about how the stupid vending machine won't take her white trash quarters as Geoff from Viva Hate (formerly of AFI) walks by them. He smiles and says hello before going in the room next to ours.
Oh, and before Lindsay left, she texted us and told us that she heard some of the maids saying that AFI hadn't checked out yet and that they were on the 2nd floor somewhere. Haley and Katie went out to my car to put stuff away and she sets off the alarm. So basically, if Davey wasn't awake before, she probably woke him up (Seeing as how Angela heard it from her room). We decided to wait until the very last minute to check out to see if maybe the guys would be checking out at the same time. So at like 5 till 12 we go and check out and we're out by the Jeep and all of a sudden Haley was like "I need to tell you guys something when we get in the car." and we ask her what and shes just like "Get in the car!" So we all get in and she said that she was just looking up at the hotel and on the second floor, she saw Davey standing in the window in a white wifebeater tank and it looked like he had just woken up and he shut the drapes really fast. It turns out his room was one room away from Angela's.
Anyway, Jane went back into the hotel to use the restroom and Haley, Katie, and I were sitting on the couches in the lobby waiting for her. Well two of the guys from Viva Hate come to the lobby to get coffee. One of them was Geoff and he smiled at us and I'm not sure which one the other one was. But they mentioned something to each other about my Smith shirt and smile at me. Then the one guy comes over to the couches and sets his suitcase right next to Katie and says hi and then listens as Haley has a very interesting epiphany about dippin' dots and why do we eat them now if they're the ice cream of the future. And the guy was laughing so hard at her. And when Geoff was done getting coffee, they said goodbye to us and left. As we were headed to the mall, we saw the guys from Viva Hate and Love Equals Death all outside of Shari's. That was the last time we saw any of the guys from the bands. (And we tried hard to see AFI one last time but they must have been hiding out in their hotel.)
So the concert went perfectly and everything was.... well, perfect!
I'll have to agree with katie on this on:
And to Lindsay, Angela, Haley, Hailey (Jane), and Katie... "DAMNIT!" *throws an apple* HAHA. That will live on forever. You girls are awesome! Thanks for making the trip so much better! DF for LYFE. lol