Our Weekend with the 21 Pilots' Clancy World Tour Concert

Evan had asked months and months ago to go to a concert for his 17th birthday. It just so happens that one of his favorite bands, 21 Pilots, was having a concert in Boston pretty darn close to his actual birthday so we bought tickets and booked a hotel and made an overnight trip out of it.

My concert attire wasn't the greatest but I wanted to be comfy and have enough pockets that I didn't have to bring anything else with me-- I brought my phone (with tix on it), some earplugs, and my hotel key.

Now, I too happen to enjoy 21 Pilots so I wasn't totally mad about his choice! It really surprised us all that my husband wanted to go too. We ended up having such a great time. They put on a really good show. 

We headed up to Boston mid-afternoon on Friday and checked into our hotel around 3/ 3:30. From our room we could actually see TD Garden; the arena we were heading to that night. It was a nice room, shaped like an L with 2 queen beds, a nice big bathroom, a desk, mini fridge, and tiny little walk in closet. 

It looks small but felt spacious; it opens up a lot after the corner of the TV wall

The black building with the small green box and yellow lettering off to the right is where we were headed. 

We watched some TV/read books then headed to dinner in the hotel pub where 21 Pilots music was playing on repeat. Evan and I were mouthing/singing along and we could see others doing the same so we assumed they were heading to the concert too; some were even wearing past concert merch. 

I had a good meal but only managed to eat 1/2 of it. My husband said his meatball sandwich was cold and Evan's burger was practically raw so if you stay at Hotel Indigo in Boston I'd recommend eating off site.

It was 5:30 when we finished eating and the concert didn't start until 7:45 so we decided to just head back up to the room and hang out while watching TV. We could not get over the # of people already in line waiting to get into the Garden. In no time the line(s) were around the block! 

The line continued on down the left side as far as we could see!

We decided to leave the hotel at 7 and by the time we crossed the street the line had already shrunk enough that it was level with us (we used the crosswalk above with the two black cars crossing it). In under 5 minutes we had entered the arena and were in line to buy merch. They Garden had merch tables set up two or three per floor so the lines weren't super long and they moved so fast! We quickly found our seats after that and settled in to people watch until the show started.

My husband had thrown his back out earlier in the week and while he was feeling much better he did keep getting up and walking around waiting for the show to start. Family and friends asked for photo proof he was there; not believing he was really going. 

The opening band was a duo of brothers from New Zealand called Balu Brigada and they were pretty good. I'll definitely be checking for their music on Pandora.

21 Pilots took the stage an hour or so into the show and we hardly sat down at all after that. They had such great special effects... since I've only ever been to two other concerts in my life (John Legend maybe 8 or so years ago and Boys II Men/ TLC back in the early 90's) I had never seen a show with pyro techniques, confetti, lots of lighting effects, etc.  I know that's crazy but it's true!

They had a fabulous mix of old and new and favorite songs from so many of their albums. They were out in the audience, pulled a little kid up on stage to sing with them, had some fun audience participation portions with cell phone lights and things.  Evan and I were hoarse by the end of the night after belting out lyrics. 

We were clapping along, singing at the top of our lungs, dancing, and had a ball. 

We were back at our hotel by 11:30 and in just as few minutes as it took us to get there. 

The next morning we were up and out of the hotel by 9 or so and drove to Millbury Mass. for a very late breakfast at Panera bread. We made a quick stop for groceries and then headed home. We spent our afternoon cleaning and prepping for Evan's party with the grandparents on Sunday. 

Sunday morning I finished making Evan's Heath bar cheesecake with chocolate ganache and whipped up some homemade thousand island dressing.

I had time in the afternoon so I pulled out all our fall decor and decorated the house inside and out (though I do need to get some mums or something for near the front door). 

I also ended up packing away all the garden decorations and started cutting back all the dead plants in my garden in preparation for winter. 

My parents and in-laws all came over around 5 and we had dinner-- steak, potatoes, broccoli, corn on the cob and salad. 

Then Evan opened gifts (mostly money with a few candy bars and small things like that) before we sung happy birthday and bug into the cheesecake. 

fittingly he wore his 21 Pilots jacket all night. 

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