Blue October in Charlotte

Last weekend we attended a Blue October concert in Charlotte at Amos' Southend. We also made a couple of stops on the side.

I spent Saturday morning painting the kitchen while Mike took care of some work out in the yard. It was 3pm by the time hit the road but since it's only a two hour drive, not a big deal.

We drove straight to the Friendly's in Hendersonville (on 77 north of Charlotte). We grew up with Friendly's but there isn't one in Raleigh. We have a few within a couple of hours so we try to hit them occasionally. The food was greasy and delicious just like I remember it. Then we split a bowl full of heaven. Err, Reese's Peanut Butter Cup sundae.

From there we drove to the hotel and hung out for a bit before heading over to the concert at Amos' Southend. Then venue was pretty cool. It's definitely a concert hall. Stage at one end, lots of floor space, two bars downstairs. Upstairs there is a balcony for more viewing, as well as another bar. Thankfully, it's non-smoking.

We arrived around 8:30 and the opening act went on not long after that. To be honest, they weren't amazing and I didn't catch their name. And, not to diss them, but their performance didn't inspire me to go look it up. They weren't bad, just not... great.

Then came the longest stage turnover I have ever experienced. I've never seen such thorough testing of equipment between acts. After about 40 minutes of this, Blue October finally took the stage around 10:15. They put on a fabulous non-stop show for almost two hours, playing straight through every song on their new album, Approaching Normal. They then played about 5 or so older songs, including Hate Me which is the song most people are most likely to recognize.

The band was amazing but watching lead singer Justin perform is like watching some kind of insane trainwreck. And "perform" is definitely the right word. Totally intense. The way he throws himself in to music, it's like watching an actor on-stage. Given how dark some of the material is, I literally had nightmares that night from one of the songs.

It was after 12:30am before we made it back to our room so we took advantage of a comfy quiet hotel room and slept in Sunday morning. We left the hotel around 11am and drove to the new IKEA.

We started in the little cafe/restaurant and split Swedish meatballs, a buffalo chicken wrap, and soup. Yum! Then we spent about three hours wandering around the store. We found a few random pieces but didn't buy anything big. I was a little disappointed not to find any organizational things for the kitchen (they just didn't fit in our cabinets) but we still came back with some cool stuff.

I think it was around 5pm or so when we arrived home. Gone just over 24 hours but it was a jam-packed time and we had a blast.

Of course, then I came home to watch hockey (we won) and developed a massive migraine. All good by morning!