Wes & Erica's vacation photo album// DFW, TX // August 2025

We took a quick trip to Texas in August to see Ghost on their Skeletour (for Wes) and to see the Return to Infinity: Yayoi Kusama exhibit (for me). I've been told, more than once 😖, that our vacations seem like an exhausting to-do list instead of a relaxing experience, so this time those two activities were literally all we did -- no extra stops, no last minute plans.😊 (I actually also wanted to go to Fuzz Lab, but their hours are weird & there wasn't a location near our hotel, which meant we'd have to stress to fit it in, so we skipped it.) We got to spend quality time lounging around in our nice hotel and I got a lot of crocheting done on our downtime.

Probably the largest sandwich I've see in my lifetime. I ate about 3/4 of it.

Wes has a couple of coworkers from the Dallas division of Paycom so we're always getting good restaurant recommendations. We had lunch at Weinberger's Deli in Grapevine, TX. (Downtown Grapevine is super cute, and I would have wanted to walk around their historic main street, which is railroad and dinosaur themed, if it wasn't 102℉ that afternoon.🌞) The deli was packed, even though it was around 2pm when we got there. Wes got Morgan's Turkey sandwich, which had both turkey & pepperoni, and I got the Vera Cuban. There are soooo many different sandwiches on the menu; it was hard to choose but I went with vera because it had cilantro on it. 🥪 We both liked our giant sandwiches, but also both wished we had gotten something else (Wes the muffuletta and me the lamb special). Wes saw a billboard for Grape Fest, advertised as the best wine festival in the region, annually in September in Grapevine on our drive out of town. 🍷 It's been added to the 2026 vacation itinerary! 

We went to Nando's (Dallas location -- about an hour away but so worth it) for dinner. 🐔 I learned from No Such Thing As A Fish that the Nando's franchise is the world's largest buyer of South African art because they decorate each of their restaurants with art made by indigenous artists... like they actively seek out native & emerging artists to feature in their various locations. So, of course the first thing I do when we walk in is look at all the art on the walls! 🎨 The menu even had art on it and a QR code that takes you to the artists from that location's social medias. That aspect of the restaurant is super neat, and the food was delicious, too! 😋 I rarely see livers on offer so I got them (even though I much prefer gizzards). OMG they were so tasty!! Wes isn't a huge fan of livers, either, and he agreed that they were very good. They had several sauce options to choose from; I got the Peri-paradise sauce over the livers and the Peri-ranch over the Brussels sprouts (Wes went with medium). We also sampled the lemon & herb sauce, which Wes really liked but I didn't. We got the Naughty Nata (Portuguese custard tart) for dessert, to-go because we were stuffed but couldn't turn down a sweet treat. LOL

I should have taken a picture of the fighter jet/airplane decor inside. It was definitely a theme restaurant. 

The next morning, we had breakfast at West Side Café, an airplane themed diner that is close enough to some sort of base or training facility that we could hear jets flying overhead while we ate. 🛫 Not sure if they built it there on purpose to really lean into the theme. LOL I wanted to try their bacon, cheddar & chive "tater kegs" but they're only served at lunch. (My newest foodie goal is to eat a tater keg -- a large tater tot stuffed with something yummy.) I ended up with Mama Sue's hashbrown casserole and French toast instead. The food was okay. I liked that their syrup is warmed up and Wes liked that his bacon was hickory smoked instead of Applewood smoked. 

We had no plans until dinner that evening, so we stopped in Café Azul on our way back to the hotel to get coffee to sip on the rest of the day. ☕ The little coffee shop looked so familiar but I don't think we've been before. I got the Mexican mocha and Wes got the churro latte. We stayed in Fort Worth's Cultural District, and right across the street from the Kimball art museum. I checked their website to see if they had any good special exhibits but nothing peaked our interest. Again, it would have been fun to walk around the area if it wasn't 100℉. Man, I HATE summer. 😠 Ugh.

I've never been a fan of bologna but the slices we got on the meat & cheese plate were really good. Wes was not impressed.

Our next meal (late lunch... early dinner... whatever meal you eat at 3:30pm) was at Taste of Europe, another restaurant recommended by one of Wes's coworkers. There is a small grocery store with Eastern European foods at the back of the restaurant. The market had some interesting things that we wanted to try, but nothing was going to keep well in the car while we were out & about. I tried a chicken kiev for the first time. It was good and I loved the lemon butter. 🧈 I could dip anything in that stuff! LOL I tried one of Wes's perogies. It was so heavy; no idea how he ate all 10 of them. I guess we wouldn't be having dinner until late night after the concert so it was a good idea to have a nice meal beforehand. 

The Ghost concert was a phones-free event (so no pictures for the next few paragraphs😢). The concept was terrifying at first (no phones... what if there's a terrorist attack, medical emergency, bad weather??!?! 😳), but it ended up being okay. Ghost's frontman claimed that not having your phone made you "more engaged with the band", but honestly, I think it was to protect his proprietary material -- no concert footage leaked on YouTube. I may have been a bit more engaged but I was also 100x more anxious. 😵 The concert was at the very nice & CLEAN Dickies arena. The employees placed our phones in Yondr bags for us as we walked in, and there were more employees outside of the arena waiting to unlock our bags as we exited. I thought the process would be more chaotic, resulting in a crush... and none of us having a phone to call for an ambulance, but it was very well organized. Kudos to the Dickies arena staff! 👍

Wes loved the concert; Ghost is one of his favorite bands, and that's all that really matters. My opinion is just blah, blah, blah, noise. 💀 This was our second time seeing them live. (First concert was at their 2022 Imperatour) I thought that maybe the first show wasn't amazing because the venue wasn't packed and our energy was off (it was in Lincoln, NE... not exactly a hotbed for heavy metal music). But this time, the Dickies arena housed a sold-out crowd and the vibe was top notch, and I still felt like Ghost wasn't having the time of their lives like we were. 😑 I guess my main problem is that it sounded so rehearsed-- exactly as they do on Pandora; at one point I wondered if it was even live. I know, its a weird complaint that the band sounded too good but that's just me. 🤷

Overall, the show was fun & we enjoyed ourselves.  I've become a Ghost fan over the years and I could recognize the hits. 🎶They played a few of the songs that Wes really likes that they didn't play the last time we saw them; I think he really likes the new Skeletá album so it was a good tour to go to. We wanted t-shirts but the merch line was insanely long before the show. I volunteered to step out during a lull to grab the shirts we wanted, but by the time I got the merch booth, our sizes were sold out. 😒 We had planned to get sushi after the show (Blue Sushi Sake Grill was just 10 minutes away), but it took ages to get out of the parking garage and back onto the main street. We settled for Taco Bell on the way back to the hotel instead; their taco pizza was no replacement for delicious sushi, but beggars can't be choosers when it comes to dinner at 11:30pm.

Hands down the best breakfast I've had in a while!! 😍 Definitely the best mimosa I've ever had.

The next morning, we had breakfast at Lucile's. 😋 We've been keeping a list of restaurants to return to each time we're in Texas; Wes has Hurtado BBQ and Blue Sushi Sake Grill, and I'm adding Lucile's. We ate off the breakfast menu, but I'm dying to try their lunch & dinner options. Lucile's is a cute little house built on a median and inside is filled with open air New Orleans vibes. Super cute decor and very  welcoming. Wes said his bacon was cooked perfectly. I got the crab lump benedicts, with huge lumps of fresh crab. 🦀 Everything we got was so good!

After breakfast, we headed back into Dallas for the art museum. It was still kind of early when we got there, so we got street parking right in front of the museum. 😁 I don't think we've ever been so lucky with street parking. We were only planning to visit the Kusama exhibit, but our tickets came with free general admission so I paid the max time (2 hours) so we could walk around. We got back to the car literally as the parking app's timer went off!

Oh how nice it would be to be a woman spinning yarn in a shop with her husband and cozy dog. #wistful 

The museum also had a pair of shoes that Yayoi Kusama made; she stuffed the shoes with balls of paper-or maybe it was rocks- and painted them, so they were no longer useful. I think it is supposed to represent being saddled down with ills to where you can't function fully as a human anymore.

The Kusama exhibit wasn't really worth the price 😒 so I'm glad we got general admission into the museum as well. I thought it would be larger, but it literally is a 10x10ft box. With no ventilation. There are glass pumpkins all around and the walls & ceilings are mirrors so we were standing in a pumpkin field, completely surrounded. Very cool concept... but there is a time limit and we were accompanied by a museum guard. We could only go in there one time for only 90 seconds. (When we went to the exhibit in Bentonville, we could go in as many times as we wanted and linger for as long as we liked.) I didn't mind the time constraint, but what ruined the experience for me was the guard. She clicked her stop watch when we got in and did not take her eyes off us; she was just doing her job and there was no way for her to be invisible in such a tiny setting, but it was truly distracting. We were free to take pictures & selfies and talk or whatever, but it felt so weird with her there. 😫 I couldn't feel engaged or immersed in my "immersive art experience" (which made me think of the Ghost concert the night before and decide that, yeah, I actually was pretty engaged then after all). 

We tried to find all the new acquisitions since its been a few years since our last museum visit.

The fuzzy pink closet was my favorite! Bottom right: my spoils from the gift shop. I've looked through the Dalí cookbook and there is nothing that I can make as a home chef 😢

We've been to the Dallas Art Museum once or twice before so we just took a quick tour around this time. Wes wanted to revisit the East Asian collection, and I had to say hi to the mummy (I'm obsessed!) I think we saw all the new (to us) pieces, and hit all the collections on the map.

Mummies are truly the best; I am still mad that we missed the Immersive King Tut tour a few years ago.

Check out the amazing detail on these two! 😲

The artist sculpted wind in the one on the left. WIND. How do you sculpt the concept of weather?! It really looks like the man's garment is billowing, and it blew my mind.

The piece on the right is made from beads. Tons & tons of tiny beads!

It was lunchtime after our museum visit. We drove up to Mitsuwa Marketplace in Plano, TX. I imagined it was a shopping center (the website boasted of a food court and Kinokuniya bookstore), but it was actually a giant Japanese grocery store. It was cool to walk around and look, but it wasn't really what we wanted for lunch. The Kinokuniya was a small stall in the store; kind of disappointing 😞 but we can cross another Kinokuniya location off our list. There was another stall with gumball machines, but with blind box figurines instead of gumballs inside. Each cost 3-4 tokens, and tokens were $5 each... no thank you, I can buy a legit tokidoki Unicorno for cheaper than that.

I should have gotten a picture of all the blind box gumball machines.

Luckily for us, we were in the Asian district of Plano and had plenty of other restaurant options. We went to Sichuan Folk, which was just across the street. All the diners were Asian and the menu was in Chinese, so we knew this place would be good. 😄 They had beef soup dumplings, which was a treat (I usually only come across the pork or veggie ones). I wasn't going to get a spicy dish, but I figured I had to since we were at a Sichuan restaurant. 🌶 I got the cold sesame noodles. They were so good but so spicy!! Wes got a spicy pork dish.

There was a boba place next door so we got drinks for the drive home. I got my standard go to... the strawberry matcha latte.🍵🍓 I liked that it had chunks of fresh strawberry in it. Wes got a fruit tea, and he said he didn't like the chunks of fruit. Opposites attract, I guess. 😆 We had to order from a kiosk, which forced us to customize the drinks. No forgetting to add boba, or questioning the sugar level or how much ice you want. I think all boba places should install these because I can never hear the cashier, who always mumbles, over the loud trendy music. LOL

🚗We went to Buc-ee's to fill up on gas & snacks and take our last potty break before the long drive home. We usually try to leave town mid-morning, but decided to stay a bit later since it was summertime, so the sun would be up longer. My night vision has majorly deteriorated but traffic was fine and we got home before it got too dark. 🌓Another Texas trip in the books! And a relaxing one at that. So long DFW, see you next year for Grape Fest! 🍇

Wes and Erica's vacation photo album // St. Louis, MO // September 2023

The reason we went to St. Louis in the first place - to see Babymetal in concert

This was by far the most leisurely vacation we've taken. Wes and I always struggle a bit with vacations; I want to see & do EVERYTHING so I cram our day full of activities, and Wes, on the other hand, likes to relax and take a more laid back approach to our trip. He is also more practical when it comes to timing. (I know we can't possibly do a million activities but just stubbornly refuse to accept it 😞) We didn't make it to a couple of things I originally planned for us to do, so we had time to meander around town and I actually really enjoyed the slower pace... maybe Wes is onto something after all. 

We had a late start to out of Bentonville to St. Louis (we slept in, had a late breakfast and then ended up chatting with the hotel clerk for ages) so wouldn't make it to the city until mid to late-evening. Instead of trying to rush, we spent the day at our half-way point -- Springfield, Missouri. The plan was to stop in for gas, our bathroom break and a quick snack. I also needed to get that tokidoki Unicorno figurine!! I was looking up where the Barnes & Noble is (I got my Unicorno -- the Sagittarius one♐) and there just happened to be a fabric store nearby. 😊 We went to FM Stores. It is a gigantic store with all sorts of fabric. There was a quilting cotton section (not my preference for designs, but I did enjoy all the dog prints. I got a border collie one to use for Athena's next dog bed), a tiny garment fabric section, and the rest was upholstery & utility fabric. I wanted to get some fabric for me & Andrea's matching outfits but didn't find anything that would suit both of our tastes. I was a little disappointed (mostly because it was so cheap... if there was fabric I liked, we'd be in trouble LOL) but still glad we got to go fabric shopping. We also stopped in the Battlefield mall and I got a puzzle titled "100 Pooping Pups," it is a picture of exactly that and I laughed and laughed when I saw it. Can't wait to make that to display on our wall! 😆

Dunaway Books in the South Grand district. The bookstore smelled so good, ahhh... old book scent!!

I originally planned for us to visit the Missouri Botanical Garden but it was another hot 🌞day when we arrived, so we explored the South Grand and Central West End districts instead. We still ended up walking around quite a bit outside but we got to take breaks in the stores with air conditioning. We stopped in Garden District STL (an adorable gift shop in South Grand). The owner was genuinely nice and not just trying to convince me to buy things, though I still ended up buying a lot. LOL She brings her dog, Oolong, to the store with her so that was an added perk. At first, he was a little shy but after some chin & ear scratches he became my best friend. 🐕 We stopped in Dunaway Books next and they had a shop dog, too! 😍🐶 Their dog was a friendly puppy who followed us around and then brought me a toy. We also went to Wolfgang's Pet Stop, which was the only store we visited that day without dog. Ironic. It sadly didn't have a lot of treats or toys to choose from either. 

So glad we stopped in this little gift shop! (Garden District STL)

The World's Largest Chess Piece, recognized by Guinness World Records, and another large (and maybe more impressive) piece in the gift shop made from tons of regular sized pieces.

We visited the World Chess Hall of Fame. I don't play chess but Wes does. I was mostly excited to see the World's Largest Chess Piece. ♜ I wasn't sure what to expect but I at least thought I'd see some historical chess boards/pieces and portraits of champions. Nope, that is part of the permanent collection which is also reserved for private viewing. Instead there were two other temporary exhibits on display for the public. 

The first floor was an entire timeline of T.S. Elliot's life as it relates to the game of chess. I haven't read much of his work (just what was assigned in high school literature and who remembers that?😅) so I knew nothing about him. Apparently, he is a famous St. Louisan and he wrote his poem, The Waste Land, as a chess metaphor mirroring what was going on in his personal life and society in general. Pretty interesting exhibit!

The silver costumes were worn by Katy Perry's dancers during her Super Bowl halftime show. Her dancers are so TINY! I thought they'd be taller and more muscular but those outfits are like a size 000.

I was much less impressed with their other exhibit. It was supposed to be a showcase of how chess features in music. It seemed like they found every picture of a musician playing chess and album cover with a chess piece on it, then printed it out and hung it on the walls. It felt lazy and uninspired, or maybe it was just because I came from the T.S. Elliot exhibit, which I thoroughly enjoyed so was underwhelmed by what I saw next. I did like the chess-inspired costume pieces though.

The wings on the Angel of Harmony statue have wind chimes! I wish it was a breezier day so we could hear them.

Our last stop while at the Central West End was the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis. I haven't been a practicing Catholic in over 20 years but I still love going into old churches. The architecture is amazing and I still get emotional looking at all the art inside. ⛪The basilica is literally made of mosaics. There were tons of them, and even a mosaic museum in the basement. We didn't visit the museum but I spent a lot of time looking at each and every piece. I really appreciate and am in awe of all the time and effort spent assembling a mosaic. We had gotten Starbucks before entering so Wes had to stand in the vestibule and hold our drinks while I spent probably way too much time inside. I told him that if this was my regular church, I would never pay attention during mass because I would be too engrossed in the art the entire time. 😂

And finally the reason for our trip to St. Louis. Wes heard that Babymetal would be on tour this summer so I looked up dates to see if they'd be coming near Oklahoma. I don't listen to metal and have never even heard of the band, Babymetal, but am always a willing participant to any concert. 🎤The concert was at the St. Louis Music Park. The venue is an outdoor ice skating rink but if you tell anyone that you're going to see a concert at the ice skating rink, they'll look at you crazy. This happened several times on our trip.😂 Anyway, the Music Park is great!! They had the cleanest bathrooms I have ever been in. (Not just clean for an outdoor venue, but clean in general) The seating chart was good and we had a very nice view of the stage. My only complaint is that the chairs didn't fold up so it was difficult to move when someone needed to get in/out of the aisle. Oh, that and the food was bad - my nachos were super stale. 

It was neat that they had a coffee truck parked out front for those of us who didn't want overpriced Budlight.

I personally did not enjoy the concert at all. My favorite "band" was the opening act. It was a heavy metal guitarist named Jason Richardson. I assume he is a part of a band but it was only him on stage playing guitar over his band's songs. It was like karaoke but for guitar. Nevertheless, he is super talented. 🎸 He had to stop his set a few times because people were getting too rowdy in the mosh pit and I think at one point someone fell down. It's nice that artists watch out for fans nowadays... completely different from my college concert-going days. 

Babymetal

Babymetal was weird. I need to preface this by saying 1. Wes loves them and said they put on an excellent show. He is the main authority on heavy metal so I trust that this was a good concert but I just didn't like it, 2. I don't know anything about J-pop or their artists' performance styles, 3. their backing musicians were absolutely amazing... I just wasn't sure about the 3 gals in the band. So it went like this... their musicians start playing their songs and then three harajuku girls pop out onto stage and start dancing. Only one sings and she has a very high pitched cartoony voice. The entire performance is put on and feels very fake; even when they wave to the audience, you can tell they were told to stand exactly on this mark and wave twice to the right and twice more to the left. Wes says that's how they're trained in "idol school" and they aren't allowed to add personality to their performance. Very strange.  

Dethklok

The next band, Dethklok, was terrible. Another band I have never heard of so Wes had to give me the rundown. The lead singer developed a cartoon on Adult Swim about a fictional band named Dethklok. It did every well so he made the band into a real thing and now they put on live shows. Their entire set was songs from the cartoons with accompany snippets from the show. It all went over my head. I am a prude who doesn't get the humor on most adult cartoons (I never liked Daria or Aqua Teen Hunger Force), and am generally not a "fun" person so I am 100% the opposite of their target audience, but I think Wes does fit into their demographic and even he wasn't super into it. I think it enjoyed it but wouldn't go again (and he was there to see Babymetal; any other band would be less than). I found it to be weird, vulgar and noisy ... not loud, but NOISY. 

So the concert was a huge bust for me but we had one more day of vacation and I was going to get candy!! 🍬We drove by the Uranus fudge factory on the way back from Audrey's wedding in 2021. I wanted to stop in but we missed the exit. On this trip, I made sure to add St. Robert, MO on the itinerary. Uranus is the perfect definition of a roadside attraction/tourist trap. It looks amazing from the highway but when you pull into the parking lot, it isn't as great as it initially looked. There are a couple of things to do --a sideshow museum, ice creamery, World's Largest Belt Buckle, which actually is cool-- but the highlight is the general store (where all the fudge is). It's basically a giant gift shop. We walked around and did some shopping. I got Butterfinger fudge, and it was good but not the best, and taffy. The taffy was the best part for me. They had a section of the store dedicated to all different flavors of taffy, from traditional flavors to super weird ones. I got a variety but leaned toward the more interesting flavors. It is a fun store that relied heavily on the butt & poop jokes; I got a good laugh out of it. I think Wes found it juvenile. 💩

The World's Largest Belt Buckle, recognized by Guinness World Records

I also got a pressed penny! I've never collected them but one of my pen pals does. I was on the look out for a pressed penny machine at each one of our stops. Uranus was a nice break on the drive back to Oklahoma and I ate taffy the rest of the drive home. So there's our big trip for the year! We didn't get to travel as much as we wanted this year for various reasons, but I'm glad we still got to get away for a few days. We have one more trip planned for my birthday so I'm looking forward to heading out again!

I loved Fashion Plates when I was younger and almost bought some but didn't.

Lacey & Erica go see My Chemical Romance in concert... twice!!!

 

My Chemical Romance announced a reunion tour back in 2019. ❤ The closest they'd come to Oklahoma was Dallas, TX. Only a short drive away! Lacey and I knew we had to go. Lacey waited by her laptop hours before tickets went on sale in hopes of getting a pair... and we did!! They were the worst overpriced seats; the nosebleed section of the gigantic arena, BUT we got tickets!!! 😁 Then the concert was postponed in 2020... and again 2021. I was afraid that they'd just cancel and refund everyone. But then they announced the tour will be starting in 2022 with new dates. And guess what?? One of the newly added dates, the first date of the North American tour actually, would be in Oklahoma City at the Paycom arena. Oh boy were we excited!!! So excited that I bought us matching shirts and painted the band's logo on the back. ❤❤❤❤ Lacey once again waited hours by her laptop, counting down the minutes until tickets went on sale. She got us really good seats at a reasonable price. YAY! It was official, time to grab our eye liner because we'd be seeing our favorite emo band in concert twice!

The opening band at the OKC concert was Dilly Dally, a terrible band that no one liked. Lacey said they were okay but she is just very generous. It was a group of women who screamed sounds and pretended they knew how to play their instruments. The second act was Coheed and Cambria. Wes loves them and was jealous I'd be getting to see them. I vaguely remembered hearing them on the radio in the mid-2000s but didn't know any of their songs. Turns out, they're amazing!! 🎸The lead singer had a ton of rad guitar solos. They also had a spinning thing on the drum set that projected lasers!

After a VERY long wait accompanied by what sounded like a low-flying helicopter, but was supposed to be "the swarm", My Chemical Romance finally came on. 🎤They sounded exactly as I remembered from our college emo days. They were loud, manic, and passionate. I have never felt such a sense of community at a concert before. I know music speaks to a lot of people but I, personally, have never really felt a deep visiceral connection to a set of lyrics. Well, that changed at the concert. I felt all the feels! I truly felt a sense of oneness as we all sang along. 🎶 It was so extremely powerful hearing an entire arena singing "we'll carry on," and declaring that we are "awake and unafraid." 💀 It was definitely an experience I will never forget. Their set was mostly songs from the Danger Days album, which was a little odd since most of the hits were off of Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge and The Black Parade. It was their first show so the sound could have been better but I didn't notice until Lacey & I were talking about it on the way home. If I had one complaint, it would be that the lead singer relied too much on the distortion machine, but he did tell us that he was having vocal problems that evening.

A month later, Lacey and I were in the American Airlines arena in Dallas, TX for show number two. We didn't get any merchandise at the OKC show because the line was miles long and the t-shirt designs frankly weren't that cool. 😕 We decided that we should buy something from the Dallas concert since we've been to two shows (what kind of fans would we be without t-shirts?) We decided to skip the opening bands to get dinner from the concession stands and wait it out in the extremely long merch line. I wanted a shirt with the tour dates on it but the only design I liked didn't have tour dates. 😑 The Paycom arena had some neat balloon and chalk art for the band (that we sadly didn't see until on Instagram the next day) so we decided to walk around the American Airlines arena in search of art. There was none. We made it back to our seats to see the last few songs of the second act, Midtown. They were decent. 

My Chemical Romance came on and played a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SHOW than the one we saw in Oklahoma City. They played almost twice as many songs and mostly from the Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge and The Black Parade albums. The set list seemed to have an order to it. It felt like they were testing out songs to play at the OKC show and were much more refined, and less chaotic this time around. They sounded 100x times better! I guess they had plenty of practice between August 20th and September 28th. The best part was that the lead singer let go of his reliance on the distortion machine. The tradeoff was that this concert felt more robotic and as if the band was at work. The OKC show felt more intimate because they'd stop every few songs and talk to us or the lead singer would tell a personal story. The Dallas show was all business, song after song with no breaks. It didn't have the same energy or sense of community as the OKC show did. I still felt moved as we all sung along but it was a different vibe. It was so strange to see the same band play two entirely different shows on the same tour, and only one month apart. I'm not sure which experience I enjoyed more. Now that Lacey and I have seen AFI and My Chemical Romance, we just need to see The Used and we'll have the trifecta of emo under our belts.

Wes & Erica's Vacation Photo Album - Ghost - February 2022

 

Ghost

Volbeat

The main reason why Wes & I ended up in Nebraska was to see Ghost in concert. [Who knows why they chose to play in the middle of nowhere in the Midwestern United States, but they did... and I'm pretty sure they didn't enjoy it. Don't feel bad, Nameless Ghouls, I didn't like Nebraska, either.]  Back in August of 2021, Wes found out that Ghost would be touring in 2022. Ghost is the last band on his "must see live" list so, obviously, we'd have to attend a concert. The closest they'd be playing to Oklahoma was Texas, but those shows were on dates that conflicted with Wes's job's blackout dates so he wouldn't be able to take time off work. The next closest concert venue was the Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, NE. We haven't travelled to Nebraska so we thought this might be a fun opportunity to cross another state off our bucket list.

The concert was great! 🤘 I have never heard of Ghost, so to prepare myself, I added them to Pandora and listened to a bunch of their songs. This is the same strategy I took before we went to see Judas Preist and Iron Maiden. LOL Of the three, I'd say I enjoyed Ghost more than Iron Maiden but not as much as Judas Priest. Wes loved it!! He said they played all of the songs he wanted to hear (except for maybe 2 but he knew they wouldn't play those songs anyway).

The opening band for the concert was Twin Temple. They're a jazz/rockabilly duo who's show reenacted fake & silly satanic ritual. They came out and anointed us in the name of Satan, then sang a few cheesy songs (with lyrics that included, "let's all love Satan," "I'm evil" and chanted 666), then closed with another cult-like ritual. It was pretty terrible, extremely weird and overall cringeworthy. Wes said the performance was supposed to be a gag, like a Saturday Night Live skit. The only good part about them was their saxophonist, who was really talented and made me wonder why he's working with them. LOL

After that disaster, the real show started. The tour featured Ghost and Volbeat, but Wes didn't tell me that it was a double headliner show. I spent all my time listening to/familiarizing myself with Ghost and didn't know a single one of Volbeat's songs. I didn't even know that Volbeat was a band until they came on stage. (Yes, I'm a terrible "fan".) Volbeat was SO GOOD! They were loud but not screamy (like other rock/metal bands), they were super fun on stage and smiled & waved a lot, and I actually liked them more than Ghost. 

They had a large screen that showed videos that went along with their songs. The best one was a song dedicated to the lead singer's wife and children that had random mixed media collages. The other one that was really good was the song dedicated to the lead singer's late father. Sadly, I don't remember the names to these songs, but I took lots of pictures. LOL Other thoughts - One of the bandmates looked like an older rock & roll version of AJ from the Backstreet Boys. They brought out a jazz pianist and saxophonist for one of their songs and jazz metal became my new favorite thing. Volbeat cured my stomach virus. I felt terrible all day up until about their third or fourth song. 

I enjoyed Volbeat so much that I decided to start listening to their music when we got home. I have to admit they are amazing live but awful on the radio. Wes says that they are overly produced on their albums, but the lead singer has such a good voice so that makes it really unnecessary. I completely agree. The singles I heard sounded like Puddle of Mudd, Staind, and all the other disgusting rock bands I don't like. I am so glad I saw them in concert first.

At a little after 10pm, Ghost came on. The arena was pretty empty (maybe a little over half capacity) until then. It filled up a bit but there definitely wasn't the crowd that the band was expecting. I think that affected their vibe and energy of the show. Ghost's "gimmick" is that the lead singer is the leader of a band of nameless/faceless ghouls. Everyone in the band is covered from head to toe in costume. The lead singer is, too, and he wears face paint and a latex mask. I loved the ghouls--they interacted a lot with the crowd and played around with each other--but I kind of felt bad for them. Their costumes and gas masks seemed super uncomfortable under the stage lights and pyrotechnics. The lead singer told us that after the show, instead of partying, he'd be taking a violent shower. I totally would, too! LOL 

The lead singer had a few costume changes. My favorite was a glittery teal tuxedo jacket. He wore bat wings in one of his costumes but didn't flap his arms like a bat, which was a little disappointing. I enjoyed all of the lasers and confetti. One of the confetti cannons shot out fake bills with the ghouls' faces printed on along with gold confetti. I tried to catch one of the bills but couldn't grab one. 😞 I was also really close to getting a guitar pick but it landed right next to the woman I was standing next to's foot and I didn't want to fight her for it. LOL

They played all their popular songs (which I actually knew, thanks to my pre-concert research). They played Wes's favorite songs of theirs and he really enjoyed the concert. His only complaint was that they played a cover of Metallica's "Enter Sandman," which is funny because he loves Metallica so I would think he'd enjoy the cover. I hate Metallica and even I enjoyed it. 😂 We both thought the setlist was a little short. I think they only played ten songs. They did tell us that they were running short on time in the middle of the show. They implied that it was the fault of city curfew, but I think they weren't having as much fun performing for us as they usually do in bigger cities, so no encore. Even with the abridged setlist, Wes & I had a good time and enjoyed the show. And now, Ghost is a regular feature on my Pandora station.