Crystal Castles

At around 4pm on Wednesday I received a text message from my friend Jacob reading "come to crystal castles tonight! it's at 730 at the masquerade1 do iiiittt" Knowing fully that at that point I had already been up since 4 that morning and had to be at work at 5 the next morning I decided to take the only logical path and respond inquiring where I would meet him before the show.

I decided to try out my new Nikon L35 af point and shoot camera during the show so I grabbed that and left for the nearest supermarket to see if ticketbastard™ was still selling tickets. They weren't. I continued onward anyway in hopes that I could buy one at the door or be "that guy" in front of the venue asking if people had extra.

An hour later I arrived downtown, parked my car at the sketchy kroger across the street to skip paying for parking and crossed north avenue to the Masquerade. After inquiring with a cheery man in an outfit marked "STAFF" I learned that I could still buy a ticket from the venue.
Jacob arrived a few minutes after me and we chatted with others around us whilst waiting to get inside.

The opening band was Bear in Heaven, which I will confess that I felt like their music was familiar but had no idea who they were until I saw the merch stand that had a copy of their album. Bear in Heaven played a pretty good set that I took no pictures of and then we waited for Crystal Castles to come out.

About two hours later, after much shouting from the crowd to hurry up and get on stage, the band appeared and immediately began attacking our ears with "Fainting Spells"
The rest of the show was made of lots of crowd rushes and near trampling deaths (Jacob and I actually pulled a girl who fell out from underneath someone) punctuated by crazy-fun dancing. I'd do a breakdown of their setlist but I'm terrible at that and I don't remember the order in which they played the songs, which were all very enjoyable to hear live.

An hour and a half after the show began, it ended; and exhausted, we left to go get beverages at the kroger along with about a quarter of the people who went to the show, ticking off the employees working there.
I got home by about 1:30 completely worn out, passed out for 2 hours or so and then left for work.

It was definitely the best imaginable way to kick off a fall which is filled with awesome concerts. The lack of sleep was worth every bit of it.

more pictures from the show @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/lastkids/