The Norva is a really nice venue. It’s right on the edge of being too big for my tastes  but pulls off the bigness nicely. There’s a second level that’s only available to VIPs that purchase a membership for a year which is kind of a cool idea if you’re seriously into music.  I didn’t move around much since we got there a little late and wanted to hold on to our place in front of the sound guy. One tip that I will pass on is that I got my tickets through Ticketmaster (discussion of which is going to come in a later post) and had them held at Will Call. So when we got there, I’m guessing there were 300 people in line but the Will Call line had maybe 5. So we got in that line and saved probably 15 minutes in line.

Framing Hanley was pretty good. I’m really only familiar with their cover of Lil Wayne’s Lollipop although I’ve heard several of their other songs. Judging from the crowd response that was the song that most people were familiar with. They went on at about 8:50 and did a set that lasted until just about 10.

Hollywood Undead came on some time after 10:30 ( I forgot to look. Shoot me). They opened, as always, with Hollywood Undead (the song). They kicked ass just like they did at the Lincoln. Maybe it was me but the energy level didn’t seem as high as it had in Raleigh even though the crowd last night was probably 5 times the size (it was a sold out show last night). It’s possible that my perception is based on the size of the Norva though since we were significantly farther from the stage than we could have been in the Lincoln. To be that far from the stage at the Lincoln, you’d have to be in the street and possibly the parking deck. The funniest moment was when they did Bitches. There was a youngish girl next to us with her dad and they both just stood there looking really uncomfortable for the whole song.

Definitely worth the trip.

UPDATE: The opening band was Sonny from Virginia Beach. As a side note, If you’re starting a band one of the things you should do is come up with a search friendly name. Names like Sonny and Bob, while witty, are not really conducive to people finding your website after they’ve seen you at a show.

Framing Hanley is setting up now. More later.

As is usual at shows like this at Lincoln Theatre, the opening acts were schizophrenic. The 1st band was Sky <something> Culture (Thanks, Lars)  from Rocky Mount. They were good but were a straight up Alternative band. The second band was Teradactal from Wilmington, NC. They were interesting…. an experimental electronica band that did kind of house dance music but stuff that didn’t last 12 hours.

One of the coolest things that happened during the night was during the set up for Hollywood Undead. I was back by the mixing board just waiting for them to come on when I turned around and realized that Charlie Scene, J-dog & Johnny 3 Tears were standing behind me. If Charlie hadn’t been talking to somebody I would have gone “OMG is that Charlie Scene?”

Cool time was had by all.