Hehoff turns 25

On July 4th, I turned 25 and got exactly what I wanted for my birthday.
The fourth offered me my second opportunity to catch the Scream the Prayer tour. This time it was at a venue called the Emerson Theater in Indianapolis. So after leaving my mom and Anna to do some shopping at the outlets, I headed up to Indy. On the way to the show, I actually received a call from Jana, wishing me happy birthday. That was kind of nice. So thanks Jana.
The Emerson Theater turned out to be a rather interesting venue. The outside looked ancient and worn, and the inside was super dark. The whole floor of the place sloped down toward the stage, and portions of the ceiling looked as though they might fall at any moment. Acoustically it wasn't that impressive, but it was certainly unique.
The local acts were kind of annoying. I got the distinct impression that one band used to be "Christian" but had completely changed directions. The vocalist for that particular group was rather vulgar and rather disillusioned with Christianity.
Corpus Christi didn't play this show. I'm not sure why. I saw all their band members around, and they had their merch booth set up.
A Plea for Purging was then the first national act. They were again decent. I'm just not sure they have perfected the art of song writing as much as just that of throwing riffs together.
For Today was next. They are just too preachy.
Agraceful is annoying. The lead guitar player broke a string during the first song and then had is whole guitar quit working. He ended up borrowing a guitar from another band to finish the set.
Gwen Stacy is actually local to Indianapolis which meant they had a lot of local fans, but there was a group of kids right next to me who were obviously drunk and found it necessary to spend the whole set flipping off the band.
For some reason these same kids who hated Gwen Stacy loved Oh, Sleeper. I don't know why. Oh, Sleeper was pretty decent this time. I'm not sure what the difference was, but they just put on a better show than they did in Louisville.
Project 86 followed Oh, Sleeper. The center stage monitor broke somehow between sets, and about fifteen minutes was lost replacing it. This saddened me since it both delayed and shortened Project's set. When they did finally take the stage, I discovered that the same kids next to me also hated Project 86. Fortunately, I managed to forget them as I lost myself in Project's set. Project played roughly the same set they did in Louisville, though they were forced to cut out one of the songs off their new album because of the time crunch. As usual they were awesome. I made sure I had myself planted right against the stage, so whenever Andrew was looking for someone to sing the words, I was right there ready to scream. When it came time for their last song, Andrew announced that if we could demonstrate we knew the words we might get a chance to come on stage. I had known this might happen before hand and was hoping desperately for the chance. So "Spy Hunter" started and I made it obvious I knew every word. About halfway through the song, Andrew came over, grabbed my hand, and pulled me onstage. He beckoned me over to a mic, and I started singing along. Unfortunately, I also managed to unplug the mic. When he realized this had happened, he handed me his mic, and I got to finish the song all on my lonesome. Best moment of my life (not of course including any and all moments with my wife;)).
Sleeping Giant followed Project 86. They were awful. I had never heard them before and really wanted to like them, but I just couldn't. The lead singer literally spent half of their set trying to get the audience to sing along to the most retarded lyrics. There was nothing at all meritorious about that awful awful set.
The Chariot on the other hand completely dominated. They completely out did their set in Louisville. They spent far less time making random noises and much more time making massive walls of hardcore music. They concluded their set by having every member of the band grab a drum and beat it to oblivion, and then every member (plus several from other bands) jumped off the stage all at once and flattened the crowd. The crowd called insistantly for another song, and the drummer had to come out and explain that there was no way they could because of all the damage they had done to the set and equipment.
Fortunately, The Chariot was also the last band to play. Haste the Day was not there, and thus I didn't have to sit through another boring set.
After the show, I managed to talk to Andrew for several minutes about everything from getting to perform on stage to the books he is currently writing to the magazines and such with which he is involved. I told him that he had given me exactly what I wanted for my birthday. That night Project 86 even twittered, thanking me by name for performing with them. Yeah, I'm a rockstar (or so my wife says).
I drove home with the thrill of the evening coinciding with fireworks shooting off all around me. It was a good night.