PWR BTTM concert in Portsmouth!

PWR BTTM

This is a more personal post than my other ones have been, about my concert experience this past weekend.

So, this past weekend I went to a concert for one of my favorite bands, PWR BTTM!
PWR BTTM's members are Liv Bruce and Ben Hopkins, and they identify the band as "queer punk", which is exactly what I need in my life. Both Hopkins and Bruce are nonbinary and use they/them pronouns, and write about gender identity and being gay.
I went with my friend Katie and my date-people to Portsmouth, NH; decked out in glitter, emulating Hopkins' signature look.


I still can't get the glitter out of my hair.

My friends and I somehow found our way to the front of the crowd, big X's marking our hands.
Then, Q turned to me and said "Oh, my god, Liv is running the merch table!"
I immediately started hyperventilating, because I may or may not have the biggest celebrity crush on Liv Bruce that the world has ever known.

who wouldn't have a crush on Liv, honestly. Just look at them.

After I stopped hyperventilating (actually, that's a lie, I just was hyperventilating less) we went in groups of two (to keep our spot in the front claimed) to buy things... And to see the ethereal being that is Liv Bruce, in the flesh.
After fumbling to buy things and just generally making a fool of myself in front of Liv - who somehow looks better in real life- they asked us if we wanted to take a selfie.


You can tell Katie was REALLY excited to see Ben.

They took the picture, and Ben jumped in last second, wearing no makeup (a shock), and told us we all looked cute and gave us hugs. Which was amazing. I'm still excited about it.
I then applied glitter to complete strangers, which was fun.

Then, the actual concert happened. There were 4 bands playing, PWR BTTM was on last, preceded by Tancred, Lisa Prank, and Bellows, who were all really great musicians (as well as sweet people- we got to meet them as well). Ben came onstage to play with Lisa Prank, and she gave Ben their very own rainbow tiara. It was adorable.

The image says it all.

Then, it was the moment of truth. PWR BTTM was onstage.
"As you can see," Ben said, decked out in blue glitter and greasepaint "I'm not wearing any makeup to the show".
Both members were such good performers, as well as musicians, with their back and forth banter and stories.
My friends and I were super pumped, yelling quips back to their comments. Basically, we were obnoxious and loud. It was great.
"Serenade me!" I yelled at one point.
"I am!!!" Ben shouted back at me.
The bassist, Nicholas (who was not part of the band, but played with them for the show) said, "That's like, the whole thing. You paid us money for us to serenade you."

About halfway through their section of the show, Ben stopped to appreciate a girl's light-up flower crown. I felt a sigh of relief that Ben didn't talk about how obnoxious my group was being. Except that they totally did.
"And to this group in the front, who has been tweeting about the show nonstop."
Called out. Oops.
After the show, Ben and Nicholas came up to our group and thanked us for being so into the show. It was the most amazing thing. ever.

 

And Ben took another selfie with us. With no makeup, clearly.

Ben parted and left us with this final nugget of knowledge:
"You can never tweet too much, and if you ever run out of things to say, jut tweet 'egg'."
Truly iconic.

We got home at 2:30 AM, completely exhausted, and collapsed, still covered in glitter, into bed.
(My pillow looked like a unicorn was massacred in the morning...)

So that was that! I had a really great time with my friends, the music was amazing, and the band members were super nice!

Creep it real y'all!