LeakyCon Part 1

LeakyCon. Where to even start.
I suppose I'll take the mildly cliché and somewhat expected chronological route.

Wednesday:
We left Seattle at 10:23 PM, already knowing we were going to hate being alive by the time we got to Boston the next morning, having to play a show that same (Thursday) evening having only gotten horribly plane-sleep and a breakfast bagel at 2 AM in Atlanta. (Speaking of things that are bad - who connects in ATLANTA to go to Boston from Seattle? Yes, it makes perfect sense to stop in the deep south when flying from the Northwest to the Northeast.)
Anyway we got to the Boston airport relatively unscathed, and Alex and I even managed to find a way in which two people can utilize two airplane seats for sleeping without feeling entirely like you're a square peg trying to fit in a round hole.

Thursday:
We arrived in Boston at 10 AM-ish, got our bags, were handsomely overcharged for our SUV taxi ($50! We went like 5 miles! I hate Boston!) and finally got to the hotel. It was right in the heart of the city, as Con hotels usually are, which means lots of overpriced food and walking long distances to find cheap chinese food and Starbucks for the addicts like Eia. Expensive weekends, wooo.

We dropped all our merch and things off in the castle (I feel like I gained a few cool points in life by now being able to say "Oh yeah, I've played a rock show in a Castle. Where have you played?"), chatted with Melissa and some other Leaky staffers, and then went to check in to our room. It was SO NICE to not cram 9+ people into our room like last year. We had four people, four beds; it was a beautiful thing. Well, until my good friend Colin got there and we agreed to let Sam crash on our floor as well. But that didn't affect my life in any negative way and I got a bed each night that didn't already have six other people in it. Thank you, Leaky.
We had the welcome feast (another reason Leaky is awesome - we didn't have to pay EXTRA to go to this). There were some speeches, and adorable group of girls did a Harry Potter themed a capella medly, and then it was time to start the wizard rock show that night - Evil Night.
The other bands were awesome; we played with Swish and Flick (funniest lyrics ever), Justin Finch Fletchly and the Sugar Quills (love him) and Draco and the Malfoys (probably the reason Brittany and I started actually trying to be a real band back in 2005, and still a huge inspiration to me).

Our show went really well. I'll admit - I was nervous. I have been doing Wizard Rock a long time, and in my 5 years of being a part of the Parselmouths, I have never played a show without Brittany. Our band is successful because of our silly anecdotes, our cute girly stage presence, and Brittany's outrageous outfits and antics. I know what Eia and Alex and I have made together in the last few months is really good and strong, but the bottom line is it's different. Instead of just replacing Brittany, we gave the band a makeover. I was afraid people would just be disappointed they didn't get to see the band they're used to.

BUT - and this is why I re-fall in love with this fandom/community every time I go to one of these events - the amount of times I heard someone say "You guys were AWESOME, I loved your stage presense and your little witty banter and what you've done with the band".... it was just amazing. Fans and other bands alike. Lauren hugged me, Nina said some really nice things - and Brian made sure to give me his vote of approval, and like I mentioned before, Brian Malfoy means a lot to me and I put a lot of stock in his opinion.
So basically, this night made me really happy. I got to see a lot of people I really like, the community accepted the new direction of the band with open arms (I should have known) and we did pretty well with merch.

Also John Green was in the audience and I am really glad he got to see me play live. Especially with Alex. We snuck up behind him later while he was filming something and he freaked out, being so happy to see us. Then he turned serious and told Alex and I that if he is going to offictae our wedding (you know, that one that is only canonical within the basis of the song "Mrs. Nerimon") that every weekend of his is booked for the next five years so he's sorry but that's how long we have to wait. Hahah. I love John.

That night I should have gone to bed early(ish) because the whole weekend was so jam packed, but I HAD to go check out the party in the Leaky suite... and ended up having a deep Lost thoerizing discussion out on the roof with all the regulars (Alex Carpenter, most of Ministry, Jace and Ed, Eia, etc.) I feel like this is what we do now instead of talking about what's going to happen in the final HP books. We talk about Lost. And Colin learned a very valuable lesson this weekend which is - NEVER go to an HP event without being completely caught up on Lost. Big mistake.

I stumbled into bed around 2 or so this night (next to Alex who had been asleep for awhile at this point as he was recovering from a cold and his first big wizard rock show that just happened to be one of the biggest ones I've ever played so I can only imagine how it felt for him). Poor guy. He did amazingly though and I'm so proud of his ability to learn our entire set in that short amount of time.

Also, here's a bit of foreshadowing -- when I was looking at Alex and feeling sorry for him, I was relishing in how glad I was that I wasn't sick, because feeling yucky like that at a conference, especially one I have been looking forward to for so long like this one, would just be terrible. Then I fell asleep.


Part 2 to follow. ^^