Weezer Weekend: I love a good theme!

My favorite band of all time, Weezer, was here in Nashville this past weekend for a two night gig at the Ryman. I've been looking forward to it for months! You can read a little bit about my love of the band here. They have been my biggest obsession ever and I have the blog name (and big dorky tattoo) to prove it! I'm gong to have to split the experience into two posts because it was the best weekend I've had in a long time! I'll be back soon to tell you about MEETING RIVERS CUOMO only my biggest nerd love. I still kind of can't believe it happened.

A bunch of friends were going, and we love a theme, so we had a little Pr(w)eezer party before the Saturday night show. Here is what we had:  

 Kimmie provided the "Somebody's Heine is crowding my icebox....pie"

 Our host Nettie made these perfect, delicious, Islands in the Sun. It is butternut squash soup with a gnocchi island, broccoli trees, quinoa beach, and a little umbrella. I'm still not over how cute it is!

 Kimmie's other half Jamie proved the El Scorcho spicy snack mix. 

 I made Pink Triangle cookies, which didn't turn out quite how I wanted, but you get the idea. 

 And Ryan brought "I'm a pig, I'm a dog, so scuse me if I drool" dogs! It was kind of a weird mix, but it was delicious and fun! I wish we had gotten a group photo before we headed out.

I wore this button that I made back in high school. See the nice packing tape job? I'm pretty sure I added the text in Microsoft paint. I wasn't sure I would wear it, because it's pretty lame, but a positive instagram response encouraged me.

 I stole this collage from Ryan, here we all are moments before the show started! There I am, looking towards the heavens!

 There really aren't any bad seats at the Ryman. We got the cheapest ones (since we were going both nights) and still had a great view. The shows were part of their "memories" thing where they play through their classic albums, plus a greatest hits set. I think I was one of the few people there who cared about them after Pinkerton came out so I was thrilled to hear the other songs!

The highlight was probably when they did an acoustic version of Suzanne. The Ryman is known for its acoustics (it was the home of the Grand Ole Opry for a long time) and the song sounded amazing. Here is a little video of it from youtube. I wish I had been so close!

After the greatest hits set they had a little slide show and the played the Blue Album all the way through. I cried a few times during the show, mostly from being overwhelmed with happiness. Karl posted this photo on the official site and I love it! We were in the balcony, a little to the left.

The second night saw our numbers a little diminished, and we moved the party to my house. I went simple and just had pork and beans with candy, cuz you know, the song "I eat my candy with the pork and beans." Backdrop provided by the stunning painting I made of Rivers in high school ( I told you I was obsessed!)

Such a delicious combo! We also had salt and vinegar kettle chips, just because.

The pugs love it when people come over because they get even MORE attention. Little Phyllis is pretty hard to resist.

Our seats for night two were a little more to the side, but I loved it because we could see Rivers' kids dancing around backstage!

See that? That is his little toddler son, running around pretending to shred on a ukelele. It was killing me! Rivers' 7 year old daughter Mia came out and played keys for a song both nights. How cool is that?

This time after the little intermission/slide show they came out and played Pinkerton all the way through. That album is critical to me being who I am today. It felt a little like a religious experience being there. I'm not even kidding.  It's just so GOOD, and sincere, and weird and meant to much to me at  a hard time in my life. I cried again, this time during the beginning of Across the Sea, and at the end during Butterfly (OF COURSE).

So it was a perfect weekend. I'm so happy they brought the memories tour here and I was in a position to be able to go both nights and scream along with so many other happy people. My voice was hoarse on Monday. But it was worth it!