Yay, tickets have been bought, flights are being booked, now… time to save money for the trip!

When I was 9, my parents, my brother and I took a trip around the world to visit Mum’s relatives, Dad’s friends and other family friends they had built up over the years. One place I’ve never been to though, is Australia.

I think I might have an opportunity to “jump the ditch” as they say and have a holiday over in Australia next year. A couple of our friends are heading over there for the Soundwave ’09 Festival in February/March next year. Aimee and I are hoping we’ll be able to save enough money to go too but it does mean that I’ll probably need to negotiate time off from my new job only 4 months after starting which may or may not be a problem. The concert is only for one day, depending on which city we go to but we’ll want to stay at least a couple of days.

The bands performing at Soundwave include some of my favourites like Madina Lake, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Funeral for a Friend, New Found Glory and hellogoodbye as well as some major headliners like Nine Inch Nails, Alice in Chains and Bloodhound Gang.

Whether the idea was conceived as a marketing stunt or not, it certainly has a lot of followers now.

If you like Hip-hop dancing, check out these videos on Youtube:

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/

The mezzanine floor where Aimee and I usually grab tickets sold out during the presale period and now the stalls at the back of the bottom floor have standing room only. I managed to get Grand Circle tickets (at the top) yesterday from the site using the presale password but I can’t imagine those tickets lasting very long as public sales started this morning at 9am.

I’ve had the album for a good month or so now and have been listening to it constantly. Apart from the totally upbeat dance rhythms, I like the fact that words like “yeah”, “nigga” and “my bitches” aren’t all that common in their lyrics unlike the great majority of songs on C4 (New Zealand free-to-air music television channel).

One thing that I like that gives Panic! an edge over Fall Out Boy for me is the vocal talent and dynamics of the songs. Damn he can actually sing; does anyone know if he was singing broadway style before joining the band?

My only [minor] gripe is that the lyrics are sometimes hard to distinguish from simply listening to the songs. This comes about as the use of not-so-frequently used words and puns in their lyrics make some word choices not so obvious. Alas, the lyrics are included in the cover of the album. Since I compared to Fall Out Boy up there, I’ll also say that Fall Out Boy‘s lyrics don’t seem to have the same vocal clarity that Panic!‘s do.

Anyway, I don’t really have a favourite or worst song, I love them all, they don’t seem to be getting old yet either. My most-played playlist at the moment is sitting with 28 songs, Panic!‘s album, Broken Dreams compilation and the Fall Out Boy album From Under the Cork Tree.

Hi everyone, my name is Alex and… I am emo.
Y’all knew it, now I’ve said it.

Panic! At The Disco on the web:

• Official Homepage
• MySpace page
• Wikipedia Article