Went to see the Matt Good concert last night and it was absolutely incredible! pumpkin_dude and I got there nice and early so we managed to get great seats in the second row *happy flail*!

The awesomeness started even before Matt's set did. The opening act was a folk duo from Toronto called Dala. I hadn't heard of them before but they were freaking amazing! I was hooked about 10 seconds into the first song they played. Their voices are gorgeous and their harmonies gave me goosebumps. You guys should check them out, here's a streaming link to their first video:

"Anywhere Under the Moon" by Dala (if you guys like it and want me to upload some of their songs, let me know and I will)

They were in the lobby signing autographs during the intermission and were super-cute and sweet. They complimented me on my "Allow Me to Explain Through Interpretive Dance" T-shirt, which made me happy. So yeah, they were pretty awesome.

After intermission, it was finally time for Matt's set to start. The concert was acoustic, which was cool (despite the fact that MG's muti-layered instrumentals are one of the things I like best about his music), so we got to hear a lot of familiar songs with a different sound. He played a bunch of my favorite songs, like "Champions of Nothing", "Strange Days", "Apparitions", "Born Losers", "Avalanche", and a ton of other stuff. He played for nearly 2 hours, which rocked. And when he came out for the encore he did another 4 songs, which kicked ass.

It was such an incredible and moving experience for me. Being so close to the stage just listening to his amazing voice singing all of these songs that have meant so much to me for so long made me actually made me tear up a couple of times. *hearts Matt liek whoa*

He was super entertaining in between songs too. He's surprisingly hilarious and had the whole crowd laughing out loud. He had a cold (but still sounded great) so he decided that he needed to drink wine on stage, which was pretty funny (and led to him telling us how you can apparently open wine bottles with a scimitar -- LOL!), he kept bugging one of the roadies for loading him up on a bunch of weird homeopathic remedies and for buying him cheap wine that made his teeth hurt.

Near the end of the set, Matt brought out his camera and took a picture of the crowd, (which he does at every concert), he put it on his Flickr page today, and pumpkin_dude and I are in the photo! Check it out (we're in the second row on the far left)! LOL!

So all in all, it was a great concert. And I have to say, as much as I love and adore American TV shows and movies, sometimes it's really nice to take in a night of actual Canadian culture. *waves flag*

So, it goes without saying that I've missed out on a RIDONK amount of stuff in the past few months. I'm going to try to catch up as much as I can by going through spnnewsletter and reading as many journals as I can, but it'll be damn near impossible to catch up on everything I've missed.

So I'm asking, nay, BEGGING for recs so I don't miss anything particularly awesome. Supernatural vids from the past few months, Firefly vids from whenever (because I've FINALLY watched the complete series and the movie and I love it so much ZOMG!), cool vids from any other fandom (because IMHO, a good vid is a good vid), good SPN icons, good SPN fics (gen, Wincest, J-squared, it's all good), interesting meta posts, and anything else noteworthy. Self-recs are totally cool.

I'm going to post a (long overdue) big giant vid rec post really really soon, and I'm going to upload the new Matt Good album in the next couple of days (you guys totally need to hear it, it's awesome).

I'm also absolutely freaking determined to, in the next week or two, finish and post at least ONE of the many vids I've been working on lately.

Oh, and winners are posted and the new round is open over at Villainous Imagination Awards, so you can go check out the awesome vids that won and/or submit a vid, if you are so inclined.

And, it's really really late now, so I'll have to post about last night's SPN ep tomorrow :-(

Round One Winners have been announced at Villainous Imagination Awards and Round Two is now open for submissions.



You guys should all go check out the winning vids, they're freaking fantastic, and made the round really tough to judge (but still TONS of fun). The awards turned out pretty good and I'm really happy with the new Matt Good themed layout (I also changed my LJ layout a few weeks ago as the old one had been up for awhile -- plus Jared = love).

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I'm nominated in the Best of the Best Round at the Art of Vidding Awards, so...




...if you are so inclined ;-)

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I've been frantically trying to get my Sweet Charity vid done in time, but my muse refused to co-operate until like a week ago. Luckily candygramme is very understanding and is OK with waiting a little bit longer.

Once I'm done that, I'm going to start working on a Dexter vid as I've found the PERFECT song! I'm just itching to get my hands on the DVDs so I can just get it made already!

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I know I haven't been around much (again, some more), but I'm planning my return to LJ and fandom in general for mid-August, after I get back from vividcon (*flappy hands* Less than two weeks away!!!).

And now, a little poll, so I know who I can look forward to seeing in Chicago next week:

Poll #1030531
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 14

Are you going to Vividcon this year?

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I got the new Matt Good album and it is fan-freaking-tastic (I'll likely be sharing it with you guys when I get the chance to upload it)! Also, I just bought tickets to see his acoustic show in October! Eeeeeee!

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I finished Book 7 of Harry Potter a few days ago (was able to read it at work because being on chats thankfully requires very little actual work) and freaking LOVED it to bits and pieces!

Also went to see Order of the Phoenix last week and really enjoyed it (though the fact that I was watching it in Imax probably helped me to ignore all of the discarded plot points), the 3-D at the end was freaking cool! I just hope they don't keep that effect in when the DVD comes out, otherwise the entire climax of the movie will be pretty much useless for vidding purposes.

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I know I should probably comment on the SPN season 3 spoilers at some point, but I don't really have the energy. I'll just say thank GOD Kripke finally cleared some things up so fandom can stop imploding already.

Trust in Teh Kripke, people.

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( RL has been really stupid lately... )

*delurks momentarily*


Here are 3 of the 6 videos I just can't get enough of lately:


"Omaha" by halcyon_shift - Heroes, Bennet character study.

"Steady As She Goes" by obsessive24 - Ugly Betty, Mark character study.

"Ramalama (Bang Bang)" by kiki_miserychic - Dexter, Dexter character study.


The other 3 vids I'm going crazy over are submissions to VI Awards so they will be recced later once the round is over ;-)
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Also? OMFG the new Matthew Good single is AMAZING!

"Born Losers" - Matthew Good

Waiting a month for the album to come out is going to be torturous!

YAY!!!!!!!!

I know everyone has already posted about this, but if any news demands obnoxious spamming of the flist it is this:

SUPERNATURAL HAS BEEN PICKED UP FOR A SECOND SEASON!!!

*flails/dances/dies*

YAY! That means we are guaranteed more Dean and Sam until AT LEAST May 2007 (and hopefully for many years to come). Words cannot adequately express how unbelievably full of squee this news makes me :-)

Woot!

In other news, I've decided I NEED to make a "Donnie Darko" vid liek whoa. I really really want to use a Matthew Good song, but I haven't a clue which one I should use. I love Matt Good (to a pretty unhealthy degree), but most of his songs are COMPLETELY unviddable. It's annoying. His songs are so soul crushingly beautiful and multi-layered and just generally awesome in millions of different ways, but a lot of his lyrics (though brilliant in the context of the songs) are so random and bizarre that they don't make even the tiniest bit of sense when applied to almost ANY fandom. Argh. But I think random and bizarre would TOTALLY work for a "Donnie Darko" vid, so I'm holding on to hope that I'll find at least one song that would be appropriate. *madly scans thru playlists*

Ugh...

Just went to Thanksgiving dinner at my parents' house...

FAR too much turkey (and mashed potatoes, and stuffing, and gravy, and pumpkin pie) was consumed...

Spent the whole of last night tweaking the layout for supernaturalvid (and thanks again, charmax for the awesome header!). Took fucking FOREVER. I don't know why, but the task of moving the body of the page down to make room for the header image took far longer than it should have. I'm talking hours here. I couldn't figure it out and any tutorials I found weren't working. Just, argh. Oh well, it looks pretty now, and we actually have like 25 members already! Awesome for a comm that's only been open for a day!

I need to get working on my "Supernatural" vid. For some reason (probably knowing that I had an entire weekend at my disposal), the 4th episode is taking an ungodly amount of time to download. Usually I can set it to download at night and have it done by the next morning. I set this fucker to download on FRIDAY NIGHT at like 8 pm. It's been downloading off and on for the past 2 nights and most of the past 2 days and it's STILL only at like 75%! Argh! Now I need to wait for next weekend to get any good work done on my vid!

I'm considering just making a vid of the pilot episode, because the song I'm using would fit just the pilot ep if I chose to go that route.

Blah.

I dyed my hair deep purple yesterday. It looks pretty cool. I managed to do it without staining my hands, my ears, my forehead, or the bathroom counter purple. So I'm gonna say it was a success!

Just got the new Matthew Good CD "In a Coma". It's his greatest hits, PLUS three new songs, PLUS an acoustic album, PLUS a DVD of all of his videos!

Excuse me while I cream my panties a little bit.

The man just OOZES talent. I love every single song he's ever done (considering he's recorded nearly 100 songs that's quite a feat). All of his songs are just so richly textured and awesome. It's hard to listen to them just as background music. They command that you actually stop what you're doing, pay attention, and soak it all in. There's no other artist whose music even comes close to being as deeply satisfying as Matt Good.

I also love his politics. Everything about him is just so fucking amazing.

He's playing a free acoustic show at Zaphod's next Sunday so pumpkin_dude and I are gonna head down there at like noon in the hopes of being one of the 250 people they let into the show. *crosses fingers*

Here's a couple of songs from the new album (these are the unreleased ones):

"Oh Be Joyful"

"Big City Life"

"Pony Boy"

also "Symbolistic White Walls" (an older song that this album has renewed my love for)

Just so freaking awesome. I can't even describe it. If you like alternative rock, pick up this album, it kicks ass.