So, two days ago I finally saw twenty one pilots live, for the first time in my life. And that was after actually meeting them in person and being able to give them my art. It was incredible, a memory I’ll always cherish. And because of that, I really wanted to write it all down, so I never forget it. So be prepared, this is long. But there are a lot of nice pictures inside.

As you all know, I was doing an art project to sort of herald their arrival in Rio. It started as a simple idea, a fun thing to do and I was planning much simpler art for it than I ended up doing, but I just got more and more into it, till it snowballed into something kinda big.

Of course I wanted to meet them when they came here, I think pretty much every fan wants to do that. But I’ve never been the type of fan who really puts a lot of effort into seeing my favorite artists, mostly because I think it’s usually so awkward when you do meet them. So I thought I would maybe wait for them after the show, if I had company and it felt safe (their show was in a part of the city that is kinda dangerous).

The thing is, I met some other clique members from MKBR. And they started devising plans to meet them at the airport, at the hotel, pretty much anywhere. And my project grew and grew, and I wrote so much stuff for them and the thought that they might not even see it just pained me. And then the clique managed to meet them at the airport in São Paulo, and I saw all the pictures, and I was like “I have to meet them too!”.

Unfortunately, we totally missed them when they came to Rio. There’s like hourly flights from São Paulo to Rio all day so it’s much harder to figure out the right one. We also thought they would, at least, spend one day in São Paulo after Lolla, but they came straight to Rio, so we missed them at the airport and I really thought I had lost my chance of meeting them this time.

But then I finally managed to get my book printed (another very long process full of twists and turns), in the very same day they arrived in Rio. And seeing it finally in my hands, and thinking about how much what was inside meant to me I was actually devasted because I thought that the best case scenario was “I hand it to someone on the crew at the show, and hope it gets in their hands.”

But then some people from the clique started to try and figure out which hotel they are staying at. All very hush-hush, of course, because no one wanted a crowd showing up there. The process of figuring this out was hilarious, if not a little bit creepy and, in the end, a guy from the crew posted a photo that made it pretty clear which hotel they were at, if you know Rio’s geography.

At first, I really didn’t want to go to the hotel. Going to someone’s hotel always felt kinda invasive to me. The thing is, I do always want to meet the artists I like. But I wish I could meet them as friends, or at least, something like it, and stalking out hotels just screamed fangirl to me.

But then I would look at the book in my hands… So I decided to go. Me and three more other girls. The hotel was pretty far from our house, but eventually we made it. When I woke up that day, I honestly thought it wouldn’t work. We were planning to arrive at about 11:30 am because some girls couldn’t get there any earlier, so I thought that we would probably arrive after they had gone out to do something and I would probably have to leave before they came back.

We got there, at the planned time, with absolutely no strategy, lol. We didn’t even pretend we were staying at the hotel or anything. We just wandered around in the parking lot out front till the security guy saw us and said we could sit in some flower beds in front of the hotel.

So we sat there, super quiet and anxious, barely talking, very afraid that security would kick us out. Then another fan arrived. She was 13, had come straight from school and brought half of her class with her. They started to be a little noisy, so the security guy started putting barricades around us, and we started to freak out a little bit. Freak out by phone chat, of course, because we were really trying to be quiet. Eventually, the teens really started to annoy us, so we asked them to leave since most of them weren’t fans. Thankfully they did, without any sort of stress, and we kept waiting.

A little bit after that Pam just gets up and says “I think I see Jordan”. We all freak out a little bit because we heard “Josh”, but we calm down quickly and let Pam do the talking. She screams Jordan’s name a few times (but in a very controlled manner) and he doesn’t look. Then, Josh comes out. I think we screamed his name once too but not very loud. He gets into a car and starts waving at us. Then it starts one of the weirdest scenes I’ve seen in my life: we all keep waving at Josh frantically, but in total silence and he keeps waving at us. This goes on for at least a full minute, lol.

Then Tyler comes out, and by that point we are pretty desperate so we scream his name pretty loud, but only once. He’s a bit startled by this so he turns, and then does a sign with his hand like “wait”. This fills us with hope of course, but then he goes into the car, dashing all our dreams.

The car starts moving and we think that they will maybe only like open the window as they drive by, so I frantically start trying to get my book to hand it to them, which results in me falling on my butt right in front of them as they park the car in front of us and come out.

After this point, it’s all kind of a blur. I handed my book to Josh, because that was my priority, as the girls took photos with them and asked them to sign stuff. Leen was trying to get Josh to record a video for one of her friends, but then Jordan said they only had time for a quick picture so I rushed to get pictures with both of them, and they were back into the car. You can see the very brief moment where I hand Josh the book in this video:

It was all very quick, but they were very nice and we were so happy! Like, we didn’t even had to wait for them that much at the hotel, so we could barely believe it had happened. Look at our happy faces:



One of the girls left, and I decided to stay a little longer, half because I wanted to be there if they came back, and half because it didn’t make sense for me to go home, only to have to leave again for college. So we are sitting there still stunned that it all happened and suddenly Pam starts screaming “Julia, he tweeted you, he tweeted you”. She shows me the phone and I see this:

Don’t even need to say, I almost died of happiness right then and there. My book was the whole reason I was even there in the first place, I knew I probably wouldn’t have the chance to have a long conversation with them, and even if we did have the time, I’m terrible at talking with people I don’t know, famous or otherwise. So I tried to pour as much of myself into this book as I could, after all, they put so much of themselves in their art that it was only fair for me to do the same.

So to know that they saw it. That they saw this thing I did in the middle of many caffeinated nights here in Rio. That they reached the last page where my contact info was and took the time to let me know they liked it means the world to me. Really! And to think that I almost gave up so many times.

Thursday was awesome, and very emotional, and this post is already gigantic, but I still have to talk about the actual show day, Wednesday!

When I woke up, I was spent. I didn’t want to get to the queue super early (people were already queuing up before 10 am) because I knew that if I did I would be dead at the show, so I took my time getting ready and arrived at the queue when it was almost 4pm. It was raining, and as soon as I got off the bus the rain got stronger, and by the time I reached the queue I was pretty wet, despite my umbrella. My feet were drenched.

At the queue, I quickly found some MKBR folks, and then the waiting started. Waiting in the pouring rain. I really love Twenty One Pilots, guys. We had some queue stress because people were cutting, but nothing out of the extraordinary. The highlight of this part came when tøp tweeted a photo of some MKBR members in the queue and Pam screamed so loud that they probably heard it inside the venue, lol.

When it was 9 pm they finally started letting people in. There was a little mishap at the line where they check your tickets, but due to my quick action (jumping over the barrier to get to the faster line), I managed to get inside quickly and get a pretty good spot in the middle of the stage.

Walk the moon played first and their show was pretty good. The crowd was mostly tøp fans, but there was a cluster of wtm fans right in front of me, so Nick, the vocalist gave us a lot of attention. I confess I was kind of saving my energy for tøp, though. I clapped and even screamed a little bit because I wanted them to feel welcomed, but I only knew one of their songs, so I didn’t really get into the show.

When tøp came on the stage though… The place went crazy, it was amazing. The place was smallish, and they were right in front of me, and I just couldn’t believe it. I think everyone was still kinda stunned when Tyler started rapping so people took a while to join in, but then we got to “Gangstas don’t cry” and people were. SO. LOUD. It sends a shiver down my spine just remembering it.

There was a huge discussion between the fandom, before the show, of whether they were gonna do a full set or not. So when I heard Migraine my heart was filled with hope, because they didn’t play that at Lolla. Also, Migraine is one of my favorite songs and hearing it live was amazing. We sounded pretty good on that one. In this video you can hear me screaming “NO” when Tyler sings “Am I the only one I know…”

The Judge was really emotional for me. The song really grew on me after I did the art for it, maybe because I had such a hard time “translating” it into art, so I heard it a lot, and I loved it live.

The place was not very big, so I was a bit afraid for Tyler, jumping everywhere, but, of course, he didn’t let anything stop him!

Unfortunately though, they did not play a full set, and skipped Doubt, The Run and Go, Goner and the medley. So when they went from Lane Boy straight to Holding on to you I was pretty crushed. Especially because Doubt is my fave Blurryface song. And I REALLY wanted to hear the old songs in the medley. But there was not much time to feel sad because Holding on To You was starting, and it’s one of my favorite songs, and I had this to look forward to:



Then at some point (can’t remember exactly when), Tyler said that even though this was their first time in Rio it was already feeling like home. So we started chanting “We love you. We love you.” Josh put a beat to it on the drums, and Tyler started dancing. In the end, he said: “This is our new song We love you. Buy it on iTunes.” It was adorable, look:

I managed to get a pretty good view of the drum platform on Ride, and it was SO COOL to see Josh playing on top of people. I do not envy those who were supporting that thing, though. It looks very heavy.

Another highlight for me, weirdly, was Tear In My Heart. I don’t really love this song, I only like it, but it was very fun live, and we chanted Jenna’s name at the end of the song. Car Radio was also beautiful! When it came to climbing part they released so much steam/smoke that you couldn’t see absolutely anything, it was all white everywhere, like you were inside a cloud. And the steam/smoke was kinda cold and refreshing, which was weird but nice because it was very hot in there, and when it cleared, Tyler was up on the balcony, and people were singing their hearts out.

And when I felt we were just getting started, Trees came on and I died inside a little, because I knew the show was ending. Trees was beautiful, though, I had really high expectations for this song live, and they were all met. The beginning felt like church, and the end a big party. It was awesome! I also got to support Tyler on this one, which was a mixed experience. On one hand, I really wanted to know what it was like, but on another hand, I have very weak arms and started to freak out a little because I was afraid I would trip and the whole thing would come tumbling down. But Jordan was there holding the fort and when I looked at him and saw that he was in control of the situation, I calmed down. It felt like Tyler was so unstable on that thing to me, but when you look at the videos he’s fine.

After that, they came back to the stage, and I got to hear them for the last time: “We are Twenty One Pilots, and so are you.” All I wanted at that point was for the whole world to rewind so I could live it all again, but alas, it was not possible. We headed outside (more like we were thrown out really, the venue wanted to close very quickly) and took an MKBR photo (missing a lot of members, sadly:

I wanted to try and stay to talk to the guys again, but people started leaving quickly so I was afraid I was gonna end up alone in this creepy neighborhood, and they were gonna come out by the back entrance, which was even more deserted, so I called my dad and went home. Huge mistake, because they did come out pretty quickly, talked to people and signed stuff. No photos, though.

In the end, even if I did miss an opportunity to talk to them a little bit more, the whole thing was amazing, and surreal, and I wish I could relive it every day. I can’t though, so that’s why I wrote all of this. If you reached the end you are my hero, because even I’m tired of me at this point, lol. I hope they come back very soon, play a FULL set, and give me the opportunity of making some new tøp memories! |-/