Connect2r

I the Mighty is one of my favorite bands, both as musicians and as people. I’ve now seen them 18 times in the past two years and I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of them. I’m sure they’ve already gotten sick of my face by now, but whatever.

They’re not super huge yet, but I’m sure one day they will be, and I’m glad to have jumped on board while they were still small scale enough that I can jump onstage with them and it not be a big deal.

This was only their second headlining tour ever, both of which were for their second full length album on Equal Vision Records, Connector. They had Picturesque, Artifex Pereo, and Dayshell as support.

Unfortunately I had two other tours happening at the same time, so I was only able to pull off two shows this time around, but I went for VIP for both. VIP entailed early entry for an acoustic set, I the Migh-tea (literally, tea), a poster, T-shirt, and guitar picks, on top of a ticket into the show. And it was cheaper than pit tickets for Green Day.

This is why I like non-famous bands.

Naturally, my California-dwelling ass had to go to shows in Seattle and New Orleans. Because of course I did.

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Seattle

The first stop of their tour was also the first stop of my tour: El Corazón in Seattle. I’d never been to Seattle before, and Coheed and Cambria was playing two days later, so it worked out super nicely.

There’s a bar attached to the venue, connected through a little hallway. I was at the bar with my friend Zane (who lives in Mississippi) and his friend Patric (who’s a Seattle local, but not a concert fiend) when we heard soundcheck.

Cue me and Zane dancing in the hallway while Patric laughs at us because he doesn’t get it yet. Oh just you wait.

Our other friends Jordan and Hannah were supposed to be there too, but they were driving from Texas and encountered some car trouble on the way, so we weren’t sure when they’d make it there.

Eventually it was time for the VIP acoustic session, and we were still minus Jordannah.

But the band noticed me.

Brent (frontman): “What the fuck?!”
Ian (guitarist): “Where do you live?!”
Chris (bassist): “You’re just everywhere, all the time.”
Blake (drummer): The only one who does not question me, just gives me a hug. “It’s good to see you!”

I think Brent’s wtf face while talking to another fan across the room was my favorite.

The acoustic set was amazing, of course. They played two old songs because they couldn’t play them onstage: “I the Mighty Defeatist,” which is the song that gave them their name, and “Hearts & Spades,” which is the song that gave them their logo. They also played a new song off Connector, “Slow Dancing Forever,” which I think for some reason is the rest of the world’s favorite song of theirs.

Dat’s my head.

They answered a few questions from fans between songs too. I wish I could tell you what was asked, but I have no idea.

After the acoustic set, we left the venue to get pizza. So we missed all three opening bands and got back just in time for our boys. I’m a pretty terrible music writer if I can’t tell you anything about any of the opening bands, but whatever.

After seeing them on the last Coheed and Cambria tour 7 times and the Pierce the Veil tour twice, it was weird seeing them open with a song other than “Lady of Death.” They instead opened with “The Hound and the Fox.”

Yet when they got to “Lady of Death” in the middle of the set, they still opened it with that amazing intro.

“She was screaming at the sky!”

They made the show super interactive and fun. They had a lot of little surprises planned.

     

Their tour manager Bear came onstage to play guitar for “Speak to Me” so Brent could run around.

When technical difficulties came about because they blew the power (too much rocking is a thing apparently), Brent came out with an acoustic guitar and covered Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So.” Super intimate moment with the crowd. Loved it.

The whole band came out into the middle of the crowd for a drum circle in the middle of “Failures.” That was probably my favorite part of the whole show.

They also had these little egg shakers that they passed out to the crowd so we could shake them along to the beginning of “The Lying Eyes of Miss Erray” I believe. We pulled them out whenever it felt appropriate, so my timing might be a bit off, but that sounds like a good time for egg shakers, right?

I kept the shaker along with all my other VIP merch from the night.

Here’s video of that song. I was totally wrong. That’s not when we got the shakers. I have no idea when we got them.

And then there was all the usual Lindsay-nonsense. I started a lot of the moshing, and I crowdsurfed and stagedived more than necessary for one human.

My first stagedive was during “Psychomachia,” and I somehow wound up floating around the crowd on my stomach.

The second was during “The Dreamer,” the last song before the encore. This was fun. My feet kinda fell out from under me right when I was supposed to be jumping, so it ended up being more of a stage-trust fall. It was really bad.

But the crowd didn’t let me down! Somehow I still surfed for quite a bit longer than I would’ve expected to after that fail of a dive.

I was slowly brought down into the arms of my friend Jordan after that dive. Jordannah made it! Right in the middle of all the craziness of moshing and rocking out, Zane and I are hugging Jordan and Hannah, a little mini reunion right there in the midst of madness. It’s the best.

I the Mighty’s encore was all three songs of the “Frame” trilogy in chronological (non-story) order. (Meaning, “Frame III” was on their first EP, “Frame II” on their first full-length, and “Frame I” on their second full-length.) The whole crowd ate that up. It was great.

After the show ended, Patric found the band to tell them they had a new fan. I knew it would happen. You can’t not love I the Mighty.

And then I got made fun of for my terrible stagedive attempt.

Brent: “You need to practice! That wasn’t even a stagedive.”

Meh. One day I’ll get it down. Maybe.

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New Orleans

New Orleans was never part of the plan for me. I thought Seattle was my one-and-done this tour. But Zane had some other ideas. We were drinking at the airport before we parted ways when he told me about another mutual friend Unicorn’s going-away-I the Mighty-show in New Orleans before he deployed with the Navy for seven months.

I couldn’t miss his going away show!

But I wanted to be a surprise if I was doing this. I told Zane not to tell Unicorn or anyone else going that I would be there.

Of course the day came and my surprise surprised no one. Not the crew, not the band, nothing. I suck at stagediving AND surprises I guess!

It’s NOLA, so we were all drunk before the show even started. It was a hella weird night overall, but I feel like most of it was “story for another day” kinda weird. But hey, downing a couple Hurricanes before seeing one of my favorite bands? Yes please.

Zane and I were the only ones from the whole huge crew of us who had VIP again. I couldn’t miss that VIP session. But it felt much shorter than the acoustic session in Seattle. There wasn’t really a Q&A this time around.

But my favorite was drunk Lindsay being obnoxious and Brent not caring. Right in the middle of “Hearts & Spades,” he goes, “Sing it, Lindsay!”

Funny how a few years ago that would have mortified me. I love making an idiot of myself with my favorite bands these days. Life is about a thousand times more fun that way.

We left again during the opening bands to collect the rest of our crew. The show was super small and our crew seemed to make up most of it. We were the entire pit as we tend to be when we all get together. That’s normal.

And of course we had a love pit, which is basically all of us just hugging in the middle of a concert.

The set was mostly the same as the Seattle show. I preferred the actual show in Seattle, but more of my crew being there in New Orleans with me made it better.

This time there were no power outages, so we didn’t get that acoustic “Say It Ain’t So.”

Brent wrote “Andrew’s Song” for his at-the-time ex-girlfriend Sam. It’s a beautiful song about still loving her and regretting that it didn’t work out. They’ve since gotten back together and he re-wrote the ending of the song. It made me cry the first time I heard it because it was insanely cute.

Sam was at this show (imagine drunk Lindsay screaming at her wanting a hug, the first time we officially met) so I was hoping Brent would change the words live for her. He did not change it. Disappoint.

I was super jealous of everyone at the New York show (I couldn’t believe I missed an ITM show in New York) because all of my friends there managed to get onstage and do the whole love pit thing FROM THE STAGE.

Ugh that video is so emotional. All those people hugging in the beginning, those are my friends and I love them so much. So much FOMO not being there with them for that.

Anyway, I attempted to do the same thing with my New Orleans crew.

For one, getting onstage was a bit of a struggle because people didn’t seem to understand that being “front row” at a show this small means nothing.

But we did end up all getting onstage during “The Dreamer.” And I saw tour manager Bear off to the side counting with his fingers how long we had before he’d come and push us off.

Then at the very end of the night, the last song “Frame I,” we were all in the air. I crowdsurfed toward the stage and grabbed Ian’s hand while he played guitar on top of the crowd.

The show ended and we headed off into the night. The band had to load out, so my crew went off in search of po’boys.

From there, we splintered as some of us went to karaoke and some went to bed. We didn’t really mean to go to karaoke, but as we were walking by a bar, me in my Green Day t-shirt hears Green Day coming out of the speakers. I ran in and was immediately pulled up onstage to finish the song before my friends could even make it in the bar. They were outside drinking and couldn’t bring it in. I think I might have been too, but I handed mine off to a friend before racing inside.

Eventually I got my own song. More Green Day of course.

I can’t sing for crap. I’m so glad I don’t care anymore.

Then we heard from I the Mighty and left to meet them elsewhere. This was the second time I saw Bear drunk and probably the first time I saw Brent angry.

He was ranting about how awful the sound guy at the venue was, but he didn’t go off on him publicly because it was such a good crowd.

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I really really love this band. And I can’t believe I only went to two shows on their headlining tour. Next time I’m not missing New York or San Francisco.

They’re going back to the studio soon to work on their third full-length Equal Vision release, which means they’re not touring at the moment but will be soon. Be sure to catch them when you can!

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Photo credit: Kurt Cuffy (at least some of the professional looking photos of the band live)