Hayley Williams – Paramore
When I first heard of the Monumentour with headliners Paramore and Fall Out Boy, I jumped at the chance to buy tickets. The earliest I could buy them was in January, and I saw there were Meet and Greet VIP passes available, so I splurged to finally have a chance to meet the members of Paramore.
Thankfully the tour was coming to Oklahoma City, so I snapped up tickets for August 10th at the Zoo Amphitheatre. Months passed and I forgot about the tour until I received info via e-mail about how to attend the Meet and Greet.
The Venue
Zoo Amphiteatre in Oklahoma City
The Zoo Amphitheatre is rather large and parking is plentiful (if you are willing to walk). There is a non-VIP General Admission area, and then there is a VIP General Admission area at the very front of the stage (the two areas are separated by a small fence).
The staff were incredibly friendly and water was reasonably priced (at about $4 per bottle). The security guards eventually took all our water bottles away in exchange for cups due to safety issues. Apparently hurling a full water bottle into the crowd causes injuries. Who knew?
There were plenty of restrooms and kiosks in which to purchase water, beer, liquor, or food.
The Meet and Greet
Ronald with Members of Paramore
I’ve been following Paramore since their Riot! album came out. I first heard of them via the game Rock Band in which they had the track, “That’s What You Get.”
I didn’t get a chance to see the band in concert before they split, but I did watch a live DVD recording of a Chicago performance.
Finally, the band was pieced back together, they released their self-titled album, and went on tour across the world. I was in Oslo at the time, and when I saw that the band was coming to Oslo, I bought tickets and went to their concert.
When I left Oslo to come back to the states, I saw that they were again on a cross-country tour and were going to stop in Austin, TX. I bought tickets to that show and attended.
However, this time around, I was able to buy Meet and Greet passes so I would have to chance to quickly chat with the band, get a few things signed, and take a quick picture.
The members of Paramore were extremely nice and thanked me for coming to see them despite the dreadful heat.
The Heat
Zoo Amphitheatre
What I didn’t count on when I purchased the tickets in January was the heat. August in Oklahoma City is pretty hot, and on this day, it reached 95 degrees fahrenheit. Oklahoma City is known for its windy days, but on this day there were barely any clouds in the sky and the wind was not blowing at all.
We baked. A girl in front of me passed out from heat exhaustion before any of the bands got a chance to play. She was carried by the security team over to medical. I hope she recovered enough to see the concert.
Spraying the Crowd
Thankfully the security team had hoses and would periodically spray the crowd with water to cool us down. The team would also fill our cups with water via the hoses. Eventually we at the front acted as proxies for people needing water. People would pass cups to us, we’d get them filled with water, and pass the cups back. Basically at that point, nobody gave a shit about passing germs. We were all incredibly thirsty.
Ronald Drenched with Water
I even had the security guards spray me down twice because I was so hot.
New Politics
Lead Singer of New Politics
After waiting for hours in the heat and getting periodically sprayed with water, the first band came out. It was a band based out of Denmark called New Politics.
The sound was admittedly awful and I couldn’t really hear the vocalist. However, the lead singer had a tremendous stage presence and did some amazing stunts on stage (e.g., hand stands, break dancing, back flips).
I’m definitely going to check out tracks for the band because the parts I could hear were extremely good.
Paramore
Hayley Williams of Paramore
Shortly after New Politics wrapped up, Paramore came to the stage. It seemed that a lot of the people in the audience were strictly there for Fall Out Boy, but everywhere around me people was singing along to the Paramore songs.
Hayley Williams always puts on a good show, allows the crowd to sing along, and (true to form) brought up a young girl named Peyton to sing along to Misery Business.
Fall Out Boy
Member of Fall Out Boy in the Crowd
Once Paramore finished, the crowd got a bit feisty and started pushing hard towards the front. During New Politics and Paramore, there was a lot of room at the front. With Fall Out Boy, you could barely move.
Finally Fall Out Boy came out and gave a great performance. The one thing I didn’t like was the lights, which were constantly blinding me and were very distracting. Also the fire was a bit much, especially the heat it gave off (we were all really dreadfully hot by this point).
Conclusion
Fall Out Boy
You can check out all of the photos we took at my Flickr Account. Feel free to do with them as you wish.
I got to meet the members of my favorite band, got to see a cool opening act, and got to experience what a Fall Out Boy concert was like.
However, a day later, I’m pretty sunburnt, incredibly sore, and just want to sleep for like the next two years. But I’d do it again tomorrow if I could!
If you have your own Monumentour experience in Oklahoma City, feel free to share in the comments below.
Article originally published: Monumentour in Oklahoma City – Zoo Amphitheatre
