LeakyCon Part 2

Friday:
I have no idea where this even came from, but I woke up Friday morning with the throat sorest, nose runniest, balloon headedest cold ever. Well okay, I'm pretty sure I caught it from Alex, but I have never had a cold hit me that quickly with no warning ever before. I was so, so disappointed but my plan was to ignore it and pretend I didn't actually have a cold at all, which worked for a few days at least.

Anyway I woke up on Friday to a pounding head and a frantic text messages from Lauren saying "We're doing a youth Wizard Rock panel right now and hardly any bands showed up - can you come?"
So of course I showered in record time, threw on clothes, downed a cough drop, grabbed Colin because he was the only one awake, and rushed down to the Mezzanine level to join in. I'll admit it - I rarely make it to much programming. There are always so many other fun things to do or people to hang out (or sleep to be had ^^), but I am really glad I made it to this one. We sat in a row in front of a room of about 20 or so, and the bands who did show up were Lauren and Nina, Adam from the Mudbloods, Stacy from Swish and Flick, and Victoria and Georgia from RiddleTM. Basically the people in the audience (mostly younger, so perhaps not around for the bulk of the evolution of wizard rock) asked us questions about how we started our bands, how we deal with negative feedback, what our favorite books were, and how our 7th book experience was both in playing shows and actually readng the book. It was really fun to discuss this with young people, knowing they're either just really curious or considering trying to jump in it themselves.
It was also fun to have Colin there, as this was his first conference and it was nice for him to a have a bit of deep, heart to heart wizard rock discussion. :)

After this we met up with Eia and Liz and together with Colin, Lauren and Nina we went out for lunch at this cute Italian place where I had the most fantastic meatball sandwich of all time.

Shortly after that went back to the room and dragged Alex out of bed because I knew he'd want to go to the Nerdfighter Nosh even if he'd had his legs blown off in the war. We found out he loves wheelchairs anyway, so I dont think that would be so bad actually.
Anyway, we got to the Nosh and grabbed some seats, some brownies, and Alex and I ran off to find Maureen Johnson who had emailed me the night before to inform me that what started as a joke to crash Leaky had somehow in a very short time turned into her realizing she could actually attend, so there she was. Direct train from NYC. We put our hands over her eyes from behind and she just froze up. "I don't know what to do," she said in her crazy Maureen voice. "Do I stop eating? Do I carry on?"
I had never met Maureen before and was really excited to get to hang with her in Boston. She sat with us for the Nosh while we watched John and Hank be nerds onstage. They were talking a bit about the big events in nerdfighter history, and then Hank played a medly of some notable Project For Awesome videos. There were ones to be expected like Julia Nunes and Whatthebuck, but then at the end, they finished the video with clips from the video that Liz and I made! I was surprised and a little embarrassed... I'm used to seeing my videos in a little 600x400 screen... a giant projector is a bit much for me. :)

After the nerdfighter thing we walked out of the ballroom and almost immediately walked right into Sam. We weren't expecting to just run into each other that way, so we had a big loud obnoxious Seattle house reunion right there in the hall. We hadn't seen each other since she left in December, so it had been awhile. We went to Starbucks (for old time's sake or something) and then found this little foodcourt where pretty much everyone got orange chicken (how can you not like orange chicken?) and rushed back to the hotel for the announcing of the Wickrocklopedia Awards. It was kind of fun, because usually they just post them online, but instead all the bands were squeezed into this long narrow room together, making it feel like some kind of big awards ceremony or something. Well, except for the fact that I was sitting on the floor in the back eating chinese food with wooden chopsticks.
Ministry of Magic and RiddleTM kind of swept the awards, but I recieved best Collab song with Ministry for "Goodbye Privet Drive" and Eia won best exotic instrument with her tap shoes (YES) so we walked away pretty satisfied. Losing best female vocals to Victoria and Georgia is something I can deal with. ^^

The wizard rock show this night was Rock Night, and I think this is going to have to go on my permanent list of best wizard rock shows ever. High on the list, anyway. The people who played this night were Tonks and the Aurors, Gred and Forge, The Whomping Willows, and Harry and the Potters. Steph and Jarrod (the first two bands) are super talented and fun, and any show with Matt playing with a full band and then ending with Harry and the Potters is... just the way wizard rock is supposed to be. It was wonderful.

Eia and I danced to "Ginny Gets Around" by Gred and Forge (which is actually featured in John's new video) and we just ran around and danced and had a general awesome time. I mostly enjoyed this night so much because I got to experience it through Alex and Colin's eyes. This was not only their first con, but Alex's first wizard rock experience ever, and though Colin has seen us play in Seattle, he's never seen Harry and the Potters. So while I've seen Matt, Paul, and Joe perform tons of times, but it was really, really fun watching them knowing that people I'd brought along to share this part of my life with were having an experience I'd maybe even started to take for granted.

Matt had Lauren onstage for all sorts of cute collaby songs that made me want to go home and write more music with Alex, which we've already started talking about and planning out. Harry and the Potters inspired many emotional huggy cirles with the Weapon (naturally) and then had everyone bandwise come onstage for the last song which was "Dumbledore", and John, Hank and Katherine came onstage in wizard jump suits and fish masks and I couldn't stop laughing at how wonderful my life is and how all the things I love to do were literally meshing together in front of my very eyes on that stage.

It was a very, very great day, but when we got back to the hotel I felt completely destroyed because for the first time in the whole day I remembered I was sick and it all came crashing down on me. Everyone else went out to party for a bit, but I knew I had to wake up early for a Fair Fortune rehearsal before our performance, so I went to bed "early" (if you can call 2 AM early).

Part 3 coming later!