The Script Live in Manila 2013

I am writing this because I still cannot believe what happened and I may have just made it all up but no, I did not. And I apologize for my long and incredibly fangirly writing, but then again you have been forewarned by the blog title: this is somewhere I keep my thoughts, and here they are.

But if you're only interested in ughmazing concert photos (taken by my sister), click here.
Or for concert videos (taken by myself), click here. :)
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November 13, 2012

The day that tickets for the concert of The Script were released, my sister and I got ours. We were determined to get better seats this time, so we carefully strategized what seats to get so that we were actually nearer to the stage this time around, just not exactly a full frontal view.

Four and a half months of waiting before the actual concert. But that's okay, because we've already been waiting for more than a year for them to come back to Manila. Their sold-out first concert back in 2011 was my sister's grad gift for herself. It was also the first time I ever got that (read: Patron, but not the frontmost section) near the stage during a concert, although okay it was only my 2nd concert ever. But many more concerts later, and although of course I am biased for David, that concert of theirs was really one of the best events I've ever been to. EVER. The way they worked the crowd, and oh what a crowd that was! Clearly I could not pass up the chance to go through such an amazing experience one more time, no sir!

March 31, 2013

Concert day. Unlike the first time, I did not post a countdown on Facebook for a week until the actual day. I wasn't even posting or talking about it much at all. I was very much excited, yes, but I didn't want to set any expectations this time. I wanted to be surprised. I wanted to be blown away.

And that they most certainly did.

We were seated on the left side of the stage, a few rows up, but at the same perpendicular distance from the stage as VIP Row C, so not bad at all. But staying in our not-bad-seats with an oblique view some 30 feet from the center of the stage was Plan B. Plan A was to run right up to the stage barricade the first chance we could get. Haha. I sat there thinking, "Hey we got pretty good seats, this is going to be awesome," but a tiny voice was also wishfully thinking we were zero inches from the stage - or from Danny - instead. Hahaha. And so for an hour or so we sat there, polished our plans, readied our cameras (one for taking pictures, another for video coverage), and braced ourselves for what was certain to be an epic night.

And then the show was on. The light effects displayed some fiery DNA strands (at least that was what they looked like to me, lol), and a disembodied voice narrated something I couldn't decipher. :P Everyone was on their feet, everyone was screaming. The moment the opening beat for Good Ol' Days played, my sister pulled my arm and I looked up: it was time to put Plan A into action!

And so we ran down and tried to make our way through the crowd which was also of course gravitating towards Danny, Mark, and Glen onstage. We managed to reach the leftmost frontmost VIP section, but a few moments later bouncers came and bounced us back a few steps. I got a bit separated from my sister. Still I was about five feet from the corner of the stage. The only problem was the people around me were pretty tall and of course had their hands up in the air and I couldn't see anything half the time. Which means my video covering wasn't doing very well, either. And so a few songs in, rather than being nearer the stage with nothing to see but heads and arms, I stepped and up a step. Awesome view, and no people directly in front of me either, because the bouncers were reining everyone in the VIP section and keeping everyone else a good distance away.

The Script did not disappoint. They played every song with such energy, and rocked the whole place. And then of course Danny went down the stage and right up to the barricade a lot of times. He was in a sea of reaching hands for half of the concert! Haha. It was epic, epic, EPIC beyond words so I wouldn't even try to give a blow-by-blow account of every song they did.

The Easter bunnies, Pacquiao jacket, boxing gloves, and souvenir pic taking.

The drinking game and drunk-calling a girl's ex during Nothing.

EPIC.

And then after about thirteen songs, Danny walked off the stage and the lights went off, and what, is it over? No, of course not! "We want more! We want more!" There is always an encore!

The lights came back on and there was Mark rocking his guitar onstage, the intro of You Won't Feel A Thing. "Manila! Let me see your hands in the air! We want to raise the roof off the place for this one!"

Oooooohhhhh...Ooooohhhhh...

I've been kicked right down, I've been spat in the face

I've been pulled way down to the lowest place...

His voice filled the whole Araneta Coliseum, but wait, there was no one else onstage, where is Danny?! For a few confused seconds everyone around me was looking around, while those somewhere at the back in our side of the coliseum started screaming so loudly. I couldn't determine where exactly at first but then there were spotlights following him and then something in my brain clicked after a few confused moments - DANNY IS COMING FROM THE LOWER BOX!!! AND he was actually going to pass right where I was standing!

It was like a tsunami: a big wave of people coming right at me, with Danny in the middle. I took a dazed step in front of me and a bouncer immediately held up his hand and tried to keep me in place. But no, I walked down the aisle which was oddly quite clear apart from the oncoming Danny-tsunami. And then he was ten feet away and he might have looked at me, I was just right in front. And then I myself got swallowed by the wave.

I don't know how it happened or what I was thinking. Or maybe I wasn't thinking at all.

The next moment I had my left arm around Danny O'Donoghue's waist.

I am not kidding. I was maybe planning on just touching his arm or something, but the sea of people was around me and his arms where nowhere and then he was there beside me and so I reached around and half-hugged him. I actually managed to hold on for about 5 seconds before the tsunami spit me out and when I got free I looked up and I found myself right at the barricade in front of the stage! Woah, what just happened! It was really a good thing that I was tasked by my sis to take videos and it was all there and I could just play it to convince myself that I had not imagined it all. Hahaha.

Danny went back onstage and ended the song, only to follow it up with a highly energetic Hall of Fame. There was Mark slamming on his guitar three feet away. And then suddenly confetti erupted out of the machine right in front of me. The confetti just kept on coming and coming that I actually was drowning in it, hahaha.

That was supposedly their last song for the night, and they already bowed out and waved and all, but the audience won't give in, no! "WE WANT MORE! WE WANT MORE!"

We see the band members talking to the crew for a bit, and then after a few moments Mark shouts back in his mic, "YOU COULD BE A CHAMPION, YOU COULD BE A CHAMPION, COME ON, LET ME HEAR YOU MANILA!" 

A SECOND ENCORE!!! I could not believe it, hahaha. They made us chant "You could be a champion" some more and then Glen came on and got the beat back on. It was sooo awesoomeee!

Even more awesome when they ended it and then began the concert all over again - literally! It was Good Ol' Days a second time around! They ended the concert the way it started and I could not be any happier!

It could well be another couple of years until they come back for Part 3, but no matter, we will be there when they do. I feel like their first concert was just a month ago; I still could not believe this one was just a couple of nights ago, an epic, awesome, crazy, amazing night!!

On and we're arm in arm as we sing away, 'cause in the future these will be the good old days...