Optimus Alive’11 (Paramore, Kaiser Chiefs, White Lies)

Much like Amy Macdonald’s concert in Barcelona, I found out about Optimus Alive after we’ve booked our tickets while looking to see if there were any concerts. At that time, the only bands that I wanted to see were Foo Fighters and 30 Seconds To Mars, I knew I could do only one day, so I was leaning towards the second band. But as the time passed, they confirmed Paramore on the last day (sadly, not as headliners) so I knew it was meant to be! Actually, the whole festival had a kick ass line up, I wonder if we’ll ever have a festival like that.

After we were done visiting stuffs, we headed to Oeiras where we had to drive around a bit until we found a place to turn around and park. The queue wasn’t as big as we imagined, but it wouldn’t have hurt to go there a few hours earlier. Anyhow, after running a bit and getting a security guard’s hands all over my ass (I always knew there was a reason for going to concerts!) and more running, we found a nice place, not too far away from the stage. Luckily, they gave us some hats, since it felt like there were 1000 degrees at that hour. That’s when I got tanned too, not when I went on the beach. Well, only my arms and face got tanned, but still!

The wait for the first band was kinda boring, all around us there were bigger groups of friends, all Portuguese, all seemed under 18. But at least we had water and I got an Optimus shirt (boo for sold out Paramore shirts!)

Finally, the first band started, they were called Lululemon, I think they were Portuguese, they have barely said two words. Literally, as their music was all instrumental. They were some contest winner and that’s how they came to play, their music wasn’t bad, but if they had some chick singing it would have been a lot better, otherwise it got boring after the 3rd or 4th song.

Once the bands started, the time seemed to be going much faster and really soon, White Lies was on the stage, making some girls in front of us who came from Switzerland really happy! For me, White Lies are just like Franz Ferdinand. I mean, they didn’t catch my attention when I listened to the CD (seemed boring even), but live they were really cool! Sure, I only knew a couple of songs, but they had a very good set. Haven’t seen them live when they came here, but now I’d definitely go if only they came again. Maybe this time it won’t rain as bad as the last time

Setlist:

1. Farewell To The Fairground
2. Strangers
3. To Lose My Life
4. Holy Ghost
5. The Price Of Love
6. A Place To Hide
7. Death
8. Unfinished Business
9. The Power & The Glory
10. Bigger Than Us

Kaiser Cheifs were next and just like White Lies, I haven’t seen them when they played here. And I didn’t like them much on the CD either. But my god, were they fun! I don’t know if Ricky Wilson is that hyper all the time, or he was sort of drunk (his face was kinda red ) but they put on such a great show!  I knew about five songs they played, Ruby being the most fun, I was jumping a lot, half trying to make people to move away from me. At one point, towards the end, Ricky jumped off the stage, went to one of the bars nearby and started giving people beer, it was hilarious. Also, people went nuts when they thought Hayley and Jeremy from Paramore were watching Kaiser Chiefs, but actually, it was just Jeremy and his girlfriend. But from that moment on, I couldn’t pay attention to them anymore since I realized that OMG I’M GONNA SEE PARAMORE!

Setlist:

1. Everyday I Love You Less and Less
2. Little Shocks
3. Never Miss A Beat
4. Modern Way
5. Long Way From Celebrating
6. Ruby
7. Starts With Nothing
8. I Predict a Riot
9. Take My Temperature
10. Kinda Girl You Are
11. The Angry Mob
12. Oh My God

My excitement was over the top while they were getting the stage ready for Paramore, a kid at Disneyland, first day of Christmas…they had nothing on me! “Better than drugs, better than smack! Better than a dope-coke-crack-fix-shit-shoot-sniff-ganja-marijuana-blotter-acid-ecstasy! Better than sex, head, 69, orgies, masturbation, tantrism, Kama Sutra or Thai doggy-style! Better than banana milkshakes! Better than George Lucas’s trilogy, the muppets and 2001! Better than Emma Peel, Marilyn, Lara Croft and Cindy Crawford’s beauty mark! Better than the B-side to Abbey Road, Jimmy Hendrix and the first man on the moon! Space Mountain, Santa Claus, Bill Gates’ fortune, the Dalai Lama, Lazarus raised from the dead! Schwarzenegger’s testosterone shots, Pam Anderson’s lips! Woodstock, raves… Better than Sade, Rimbaud, Morrison and Castaneda! Better than freedom, better than life! ” (kudos to whoever knows where this is from without googling)

It was annoying that a lot of people got in front of us, I’m talking about pushing to get in front of you, but I was trying to ignore that when the first notes of Ignorance started. People were SO loud, that I didn’t hear Hayley much on the first song, but that was okay, I was screaming my lungs out as well. See, Ignorance is my favorite song of them, it’s why I came to love them so much. Next song was Feeling Sorry, during which she greeted us, said they have to make up for lost time (even though their set was really short!) and let us say the usual WE ARE PARAMORE!

Well if I talk about each and every song, it will be mostly like “this song was so awesome!”. I was glad they played all the songs I wanted, but a tad disappointed they didn’t play longer, I mean, most of the people there came from Paramore, seeing the crowd at Jane’s Addiction (the headliner) was depressing. I loved how everyone screamed CRUSH during Crushcrushcrush, the fireworks at The Only Exception (that had me weeping like a baby), the Pressure flip (see above), the confetti at the end, the fact that they had fans playing with them on stage.

 

 

But now….I’ll talk about something super speshul. We wanted to make a banner at first, but since…well, we were lazy/didn’t know how, we settled for a plushie to throw on stage. It had a picture frame in front so we were able to print a card and sign our names, it was perfect. My sense of direction pretty much sucks so when someone throws something at me or I throw something…I always miss. Not this time though, it landed right on the edge of the stage…..and Taylor got it!! Even played with it a bit! But now I’m wondering if they have it, they left it on the stage, but the crew was careful with it when they were taking out their instruments.

Setlist:

1. Intro
2. Ignorance
3. Feeling Sorry
4. That’s What You Get
5. For A Pessimist, I’m Pretty Optimistic
6. Emergency
7. Playing God
8. Crushcrushcrush
9. Monster
10. Pressure
11. Looking Up
12. The Only Exception
13. Brick By Boring Brick
14. Misery Business

After Paramore, we left emo and thirsty to get some water and food, look at some merch, explore the festival area, then sat down to watch Jane’s Addiction whom I found really lame, so we left halfway in their set. I regret nothing!

Optimus Alive’11 was a great experience and I can’t help but think that with bands like the ones they bring every year, we could have a festival that would gather 100000+ people from all over Europe as well.