NEEDTOBREATHE and a monsoon!!!

My heart is happy. Very very happy. I got to go see one of my favorite bands, NEEDTOBREATHE, last night at the 9:30Club in D.C.

Ho-lla!!!

It.was.awesome. There is nothing like live music in my opinion. But, before I can jump into the details of the concert, I must first go back and start at the beginning....it was one heck of a memorable night.....

Okay. We were going to dinner and then heading to a nightclub to watch my favorite music people, so there was very careful wardrobe consideration in preparation for this night. In all fairness, there is almost always careful wardrobe consideration when going out...but even more so for this night. We have been looking forward to this concert since before we even moved here. And when I say "we", I mean me and Holly "we". Isaak was being a good sport and came along because he loves me. :~)

Anyways, planned out my outfit just so. Wore a lace maxi dress with a sheer white button up shirt over top.  Flip flops for comfort since we'd be standing for so long. Curled my hair just so. Did my make-up just so. Feelin' really good. Isaak took a shower....he's much lower maintenance then me. (all our getting ready effort would really pay off later. )

And we were off!

Me, Isaak, Lindsay, Jake and Holly started the night off down on U-Street at Shaw's Tavern. Great little bar/lounge/restaurant all rolled up into one! Super fun. Me and Isaak took the metro there. Which, has become one of our favorite things to do in this city, no joke. We are all about ridin' the metro. We take it everywhere. Love it. Made the night that much better just for having taken it.

We're enjoying ourselves. Eatin'. Talking complete randomness like always. Laughing. Having a good time.

Gettin' our senior poses on! All that's missing is a creepy photographer, pearls, and a black draped over faux dress. Tee hee! 

However....while we were enjoying ourselves inside, dining on weird looking mushrooms that look like shredded chicken and funky looking squash that we didn't know was squash....it started raining outside.

Yeah. So...this was not some little sprinkle either.

I'm talking a full blown downpour was happenin' outside!

And then, realization sets in.

We have to walk five blocks to get to the club.  

"Ugh, shoot. I didn't bring an umbrella," I say....with dread.

"I did! I brought two!" Holly responds enthusiastically, very proud that she was the only smart person who thought to bring umbrellas...and she was.

So, we gear up to leave. We try to lie to ourselves saying that it probably looks worst outside than it really is......

Uuuum. Nope. It was as bad as it looked. Actually, it was worse, because we had to walk in it.

But it's gonna be okay. We're hard core! We can walk five blocks in the rain and wind!! Yeah! We'll walk fast, get to the club and go inside and get dry...no biggie. What's a little rain......

And then, we turn the corner. We're feeling sweet relief for the warm club to come....until we see five cop cars with their lights on circled around the club, and everybody waiting outside....in.the.rain.

And then that sinking feeling returns.  There was some kind of incident in the club, and we're gonna have to hang out in the rain for a bit longer. But we give ourselves another pep talk, it's all good, I'm sure they'll let us in soon.

Uh huh. Well....we didn't exactly get in as quickly as we thought we would.

And those umbrellas....they came in handy. We were super grateful for them right about now, even more so than just on our walk. And they worked really well, they did.

Until, they stopped working really well.

An umbrella isn't much good if the wind is so strong it inverts it. And it's so windy outside it just blows the rain sideways into your face. Or you're wet from the waist down from sloshing through three inches of puddles in the gutters as you cross the street, because it didn't occur to you to dress in attire suitable for a monsoon.

I mean, really, an umbrella can only do so much before it just becomes useless...and starts working against you. Like, when all five of us tried to huddle under an umbrella made for 1. That no worky so well.

And, because five people are huddled under an umbrella made for 1, you can't fit as much of your body underneath as you would like. I mean, there's only so much room. So, we kinda had to be choosie about what parts we wanted to keep dry. And those parts that didn't make the cut we had to expel out from underneath the umbrella and expose to the skies torment.

But then the umbrella got in on the action and started dripping down our backs and arms relentlessly, giving us a double dose of wetness.

Good times.....good times. 

We were troopers though. Ain't no monsoon gonna rain on our parade! Oh no! We made the best of our very intimate time together underneath the umbrella and played MASH from junior high, I-spy, and just, ya know, had the usual conversations that you have while standing outside in a torrential downpour... 
"how bout that weather?" 
"move the umbrella a little this way, no wait, back an inch, now over this way" 
"we're moving, everyone shuffle." 
"thank you for not sneezing in my face".

It wasn't so bad. It was actually a lot of fun. If, you don't count getting rained on for an hour.

An hooooooooourrrrrrrrrr. As in sixty minutes. Outside. In the rain. Before they let anyone in. But we sucked it up and made the best of it because that's how dedicated we are!!

All three layers of Isaak's clothes were soaked through. But, after an hour, everyone was wet, so we just had to laugh at ourselves...and each other. :~)

Soaked but still smiling!

Oh. What's that you see Lindsay?? Two shirtless dudes standing next to you plastered up against the brick wall trying to scale it like Spiderman?? Okay. Um, FYI, you have not been bitten by a radioactive spider, and you do not possess wall scaling abilities. I'm just sayin'.

We finally made it in! Hooray! A group shot of our wet selves from inside the club.

When it finally started the music was even sweeter for what we stood through just to listen to it.

We thought it would be fun to stay down on the floor for the show, and it was a great experience, but, note to self, at a whopping 5'1'' when you opt to stand on the floor and not the balcony to get the full feel of the concert with all the energy the crowd brings.... your face will be at arm pit height to every guy standing an inch in front of you. If that's not really your thing, the balcony may be better suited for you.

And I may not have had a whole view of the stage because of my disadvantage in the height department, but I had a pretty clear view of the exact spot that the lead singer sang. So it was all good. All, good. 

The music was incredible. NeedToBreathe is fantastic. I really appreciate musicians that go to extra lengths to make their music interesting. Who incorporate different instruments, play with different tempos, have creative lyrics. Are willing to still play intimate venues even after making it big. Don't compromise their morals just because they've tasted fame. 

They were completely worth waiting outside for an hour in the rain. They were totally worth being packed together like matchsticks down on the floor. They were worth gettin' whipped in the face by the girl next to me flinging her hair everywhere. Totally worth the armpit eye view. Yes it was. Worth it all. The company was pretty awesome too. 

This definitely goes down as one of my most memorable nights, ever.

"....We’re off to new lands, so hold on to my hands..." -"More Time" lyrics, NeedToBreathe