Jun 19 2025

Loving and Losing Tour

Category: music

Ahhhh, let me just preface this by saying that it was one of best (non-Kpop related) nights I’ve had in a good long while. OK so last Friday night was the Loving and Losing tour at Thunderbird Cafe – Honey Revenge was headlining and while they are great and I have followed them on Instagram for a few years now, it was the opening band – nightlife – that I was there for first and foremost. If you read this post from last week, you know that I was having extreme FOMO because this show was sold out and I so desperately wanted to be there. nightlife hooked me up by putting me (and a +1, sorry Henry, you almost had an out but I have no other friends to take with me lol) on their guest list and I am forever grateful about this.

Doors hadn’t opened yet when we arrived, so I did have some mild panic standing in line, hoping that my name actually WAS on the list! Thank god they confirmed with me prior to this that my name is Erin KELLY not APPLEDALE which is how I’m known on Instagram haha. I feel like this happened to me once before where I was on a list for something as Erin Appledale and it was Big Confusion. Then there was the time where Debby’s niece’s boyfriend’s band was playing at the Four Chord Festival several years ago (god, more than a several years ago at this point) and put me on the list but THEY HADN’T PUT ME ON EARLY ENOUGH so I was arguing with the guy at the door and he was making smug, “MMM, SURE you are” faces at me so I had to frantically message Debby on Facebook (OK then yeah, this was like 10 years ago then lol) and she had to call her niece and then finally I was on the list but whew, I was sweating.

I was very worried that this was going to happen again and was glad that the people behind us in line were older and seemed cool in case this ended up perpetuating A SCENE.

But I was on the list and we got our wristbands with no issue!

We got cozy in the downstairs bar while waiting for the show to start. I was loving the vibes already. Laid back, cool, chill, varied crowd of all ages. Henry might not have been the oldest person there, even. I felt very comfortable and giddy. Just like, myself again. I can’t explain it but this night was starting out so perfectly.

Around 6:50, I left Henry to go out to the main floor for nightlife. I didn’t want to be sitting in a bar cave, drinking beer while watching them. Especially not after they did me a solid – I wanted to be out there and up in it. So I staked out a good spot near the right side of the stage.

Um. You guys. I can’t articulate well enough how energized and full of life this band made me that night. I was so stoked from start to finish!

AND THE SAXOPHONE!!

Oh Jesus Christ. This band. I am so thankful for that fateful afternoon when they came on my Spotify. I am obsessed. This was such a feel good set, my face hurt from smiling!

I did get to talk to Hansel at the end of the night and he was so great. I thanked him profusely for helping me get there, it’s been a very long time since I felt that drawn to a non-Kpop band where I felt like I could die if I didn’t find a way to their show. Please, if you’re reading this, go listen to them on Spotify or whatever you use, help boost their streams. They deserve it!

I rejoined Henry after their set. I had told him that I was going to just stay with him at the bar for the rest of the night. LOL. I’m so funny. I was back out in my spot right as Vana was getting ready to come out. I knew a bit about them so I wasn’t shocked when their adorable cat-eared singer started roaring.

I really liked them a lot, more than I expected to! It sort of reminded me of some of the female-fronted bands in the early 2000s nu-metal scene. Not overly heavy, and it had a slight goth/industrial edge to it. VERY different from nightlife, but still had a solid crossover appeal.

Their sound made me miss Warped Tour so much. (Like, real Warped Tour, not whatever this anniversary bullshit thing is that they’re doing – bring it back as a full summer cross-country tour or don’t do it at all!!!!)

I can’t remember when it was that this happened, btw, but when I was walking from the bar area back out to my “spot,” one of the Thunderbird employees followed me all the way over there just to say she liked my purse, then she turned around and walked back, lol. You KNOW I texted Chooch this immediately.

“Ugh” was his succinct and predictable response.

Back at the bar with Henry, lol. He went and got himself some pizza and garlic knots at some point and saved one knot for me, what a gentleman, my fucking hero.

OK, the next band was Daisy Grenade and FOR SURE I was going to stay with Henry for this. FOR SURE. We had just seen them two weeks ago at the Pierce the Veil concert anyway, so I was fine with enjoying them from afar. And from our spot at the bar, the view of the stage was actually not bad at all. Henry said he had no problem watching any of the bands that night, right from where he stood. Good for him I guess.

But then! One of the girls said something about doing a cover, and they had asked their fans before the show what they wanted to hear. I missed what they said after that but one of the singers said something about hoping they could pull off Kevin’s voice, so I was flipping through my mental rolodex of bands, thinking for one with a singer named Kevin, when suddenly the opening (and iconic) notes of King For a Day blasted out of the speakers and I looked at Henry with wide eyes and said, “Oh, KELLIN!!!!!” They were covering Pierce the Veil’s song with Kellin Quinn from Sleeping with Sirens! I was like, “OK I lied, I gotta get out there” and then I recorded the whole song to send to Chooch because I was up against a wall so my phone was not in anyone’s way and also I was kind of buzzed and REALLY feeling excited about this?!

I was sold after this.

The band walked past me while I was waiting for Honey Revenge (I was standing near the STAFF ONLY door which was good because I got to see a lot of the bands walking by but also annoying because that door was opening and closing constantly) so I was able to say my signature & dorky, “You guys were awesome!” to the singer on the right up there and she said, “Thanks! Have a good night.”

I was excited to relay this to Henry afterward.

“Wow,” he said, trying to navigate his way out of the venue. God, get you a concert buddy that cares, amirite.

By this point of the night, I was ultra-hyped, all-in, totally stoked for Honey Revenge. So when I said that I was just going to run to the bathroom real quick and brb and then saw the line was super long, I shrugged and decided to just go straight back  to my spot near the stage, lol. Sorry, Henry!

While the rest of the band was setting up, the singer (Devin) ran past me and into the STAFF ONLY door to get to the stage. Her beautiful pastel hair fluffed the side of my face and I had a mild MARSHA BRADY post-Davy Jones kiss reaction to this.

OK, the hype is real, yo. I only knew some of their songs from scrolling through my IG feed but the day before the show I put them on Spotify to get a better feel for them and almost instantly fell into their….honey trap. Ugh I hate myself, lol. I hate comparing female fronted pop punk bands to Paramore because that’s such low-hanging fruit and so stereotypical BUT, feelings-wise, they gave me the same happy and excited vibe that the first Paramore album gave me back in the day before they went mainstream. They don’t SOUND like Paramore, but they FELT like early, pure Paramore. I was SWEATING through their set, it was the best aerobics.

There was something about her that reminded me of Georgia from the Netflix show Ginny & Georgia??? Chooch hates that show so when I told him that, he replied with a rude, “Mmm.”

I don’t have it in me to write concert reviews that hold any value these days, but this was honestly one of the best (non-Kpop!!) concerts I have gone to. I was so into it for all 4 bands and that’s just not always the case. I walked away loving nightlife even harder and being a legit fan of Honey Revenge. So far, my declaration of “go to concerts regularly like you used to” has been doing wonders for my mental state.

Apparently, Henry had an exciting time in the bar when some girl fell off her stool and was laying on the ground, passed out and drunk. Apparently, her friends left her and I was like, “OMG did you help her??” but he said other people were already assisting – that must have been really tough for Henry to keep his cape in his back pocket and play the role of bystander instead. I sure hope he was OK after that. Phew.

And also, he admitted that he enjoyed all of the bands and was glad that we went. WOW.

No comments

No Comments

Leave a comment