Last Friday (30 Oct) was the kick off of a mini vacation for Matt and I down to Dallas for the weekend! We had big plans to be ready.to.go. by noon, grab some lunch and hit the road. But somehow with our busy week of night classes, neither of us actually had anything ready until the day of! We reserved a hotel, printed off directions to EVERYTHING, checked the car tires and oil, each packed our bags, ate lunch, and finally hit the road by about 3:00! WHEW! We were really scrambling to get outta town. You see, the whole reason for the trip was to go to a concert (the band is called Brand New) and the doors opened at 7:00. Our google directions said it would take about 3 ½ hours to get down to Dallas and we knew we would have to check in to our hotel first. We were really cutting it close. Traffic and road work only made things worse. We finally made it to our hotel and were pretty impressed! We got a great deal on it through Travelocity, and the hotel even gave us an upgrade!

The place was called Hawthorn Suites and it was just like a little apartment! It even had a full kitchen, fireplace, and a huge walk in closet!

After a quick glance around and change of shoes we were off to the concert. Wow, downtown Dallas is so beautiful at night but traffic was terrible! I was so glad Matt was driving us. It was pretty congested getting to the Palladium Ballroom so we didn’t make it there and get a parking space (on the very last row) until close to 9.

Needless to say we missed part of the opening band, which I think Matt was just a little disappointed about but we were both glad we got to see the entire set of Brand New! It was a great show. They had a lot of interesting vintage video clips playing on a giant screen behind them for most of the show. It was fun to watch.

I found out since the concert that some of Brand New's songs have deeper messages than I thought. I looked up the lyrics to a song of theirs called "Limousine" and found out that it is about a very sad but true story about drunk driving and how it can cause so much pain and heartache for others. The song is about a 7 year old girl leaving her aunt's wedding in a limousine who was killed by a drunk driver who was going the wrong way down a highway. Hearing this story made me have more respect for the band because they are trying to get a point across to their fanbase, teens and young adults.

Here is one of my favorite songs by Brand New if you'd like a little taste of the concert. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMJIc9USE2U