My girlfriend and I arrive at Wearhouse Live a few minutes before the Hush Sound took the stage. When we stepped up to the ticket booth I was informed that I would only have one ticket and a photopass. I wasn’t too worried, the show wasn’t sold out, I would just buy my girlfriend a ticket. But the folks at Wherehouse Live being the nice people they are, gave me an extra ticket so I wouldn’t have to buy one.

I get inside the venue and see that the Hush Sound has already taken stage so I push my way through a herd of teenagers giving me dirty looks for getting to the front. The Hush sound was a band that I had heard of, but never heard. The band’s simple pop songs and catchy melodies were very easy to enjoy. After I was done taking pictures I walked to the back of the venue to enjoy the rest of the band’s set.

The Hush Sounds’ gear was whisked off stage and replaced by the pop rock band Ok Go. After a few minute break, Ok Go was ready to take the stage. I have to admit. I was skeptacle at first of this band, I had heard a couple songs and wasn’t really impressed. All of my suspicions were quickly gone and I looked down to see that my foot was tapping along with the music.

The music wasn’t at all what I suspected it to be. Hearding the band’s singles don’t do them justice at all. The guys played their retro garage rock infront screens beaming with seventies floral rug and carpet patterns that oddly matched the shirts they had on.

A couple songs into the set Ok Go did something that really impressed me, giving credit to one of the greatest bands ever, the Pixies. The singer asked the young crowd who the greatest band of the past thirty years was.

Many youngsters yelled “The Beatles” and one girl yelled “OK GO”. The singer responded with “I may be a pretentious asshole, but I am not that big of a pretentious asshole. The correct answer is the pixies. Now we are going to play a Pixies’ song.” The group went on to play “Wave of Mutalation” as well as several of their own songs. During one song, the singer led a crowd sing a long to a very confused audiance which went: “It’s getting hot in here…” (insert scream here). “It’s getting hot in here…” (insert scream here).

The singer, getting annoyed by the crowd accused the fans of not listening to the radio and said “It’s not ‘It’s getting hot in here… scream’, it goes ‘It’s getting hot in here…” at which point the bass player fills in with “So take off all your clothes”. The audiance finally got the sing a long down much to the bands pleasure, and my ammusment.  The band finished the set strong and my opinion of the band had changed for the better.

And then the show got really  good. After Ok Go stopped playing their gear was taken off stage while the singer still talked to the audiance. He told stories to the audiance of days when MTV actually played music, and bands made music videos for tv, not the internet. As soon as the gear was gone and the singer was done giving the crowd of teenagers a history lesson, the entire group broke out in dance. Yes, that’s right, dance. The four grown men on stage performed a flawless dance number that was reminicscent of “something you would see on MTV back in the eighties”. He was right, and the dance was a hit. Not a person in the audiance wasn’t clapping or cheering, my self included. In fact, the dance made me wish I could trade my first three songs of photo taking for the last dance. But alas, this isn’t possible. But trust me, the image of these guys dancing will stuck in my head for a long time.

By this time in the show I am scared for Panic! at the Disco. I mean, they have to top these grown men dancing to a cd on stage. How could they beat that? Turns out they could do it rather easily. While standing infront of the barrier before the set started, I noticed that the stage set up was insane. Metal trees hung stage lights and the stage had an eerie twisted circus feel to it. As the house lights dimmed for the boys to take the stage I was deafened by the screams of two thousand screaming middle school and highschool kids. I have been going to concerts for a long time, but this was the loudest screaming I have ever heard. The boys of Panic took the stage and along side them were “dead” circus freaks. One of which introduced the band as they started playing and the screaming only got louder. The singer bounced around the stage and acted like a total showmen.

Looking around I noticed the guys were all dressed rather oddly, as you can see from the pictures. During the third song a female circus freak walked on stage carrying a tray of drinks to suddenly trip and have her top ripped off. Just as she begins to get up and dance on the singer, another girl comes out to “clean up the mess” and the first dancer rips her overalls off. The two girls start griding and dancing on the singer. Personaly, I like this kind of showmenship. But I am pretty sure that the majority of the parents in the audiance, which were quite prevelant, were shocked and irritated. No skin was really revealed and the dancers exited the stage. Such antics continued through the coreographed show including dancers tying themselves up on stage.

After a few songs the band went into intermission and the crowd was intertained by a circus freak who talked about each member of the band. He explained that each member was “insanly talented” and so on. Personaly, I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen each member jump between different intstrements like it was nothing. The boys came back out to play more songs after a quick costume change. The show went on with dancers and other freaks and weirdos coming and going from the stage. Leaving the show, I had to admit that I was impressed with all the bands on tour. You won’t find Ok Go or Panic! at the disco on my iPod, but you could probably find me at another concert by either bands.