My soundcheck and concert experience at the Get Weird Tour, Sydney
So last month, on May the 13th 2016, I lived my ultimate dream and went to the Get Weird tour. Not only did I go to the Get Weird tour, I talked to Little Mix.
That’s right, I talked to Little Mix.
My friend and I tried so hard when the tickets went on sale to get soundcheck tickets, it was just so cheap to get close seats, but we missed our chance. Then, a little while after the tickets went on sale, my friend Natasha won a Nova competition and got front row plus m&g tickets and was selling her soundcheck tickets, so we jumped in before anyone else could.
We founded a squad consisting of myself, my friend Georgia, and our two internet friends Rheanne and Natalie, who we met at the show. We tried to think of ways to get the girls to notice us and eventually decided on wearing onesies to the soundcheck. I had the same Olaf onesie as Perrie, and i knew that it was sure to get attention. Rhe was a unicorn, Georgia was a cow and Nat was Bugs Bunny. This decision was a little unfortunate for me at first because I had bought an entire outfit just for the show and it was going to spend a portion of time covered by Olaf, but when you’re trying to get Little Mix’s attention, you gotta do what you gotta do.
Fast forward a couple of months and I found myself waiting in line in an Olaf onesie and wearing a VIP lanyard at the Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney to go and see the soundcheck. Waiting in line was painful, the backing for Grown kept playing and it was a massive tease for everyone waiting to go in, a total of about 100 of us. My hands were shaking, the closest I’d ever been in a concert was first elevation and now here I was about to go into a soundcheck and then afterwards be seated in the second row for Little Mix’s concert. We got split into smaller groups and told that each individual group would go in separately, but that didn’t end up happening. Instead, the doors opened and everyone tried to get in at the same time. The seats weren’t allocated so it was basically first in best dressed. Nat was in front of us and we all gripped each others hands for fear of losing each other in the mass of bodies swarming to get through and get front row for the soundcheck.
Georgia, Rhe and I ended up in second row, getting split from Natalie who ended up getting first row. The girls walked onstage and I just kept thinking “they’re real, oh my god they’re real and they’re standing in front of me.” They opened with Weird People and Perrie walked over to our side of the stage and waved at us. I know that many people would read that and say “how did you know it was you she was waving at?”, but honey when you’re that close it’s a little bit hard to get it wrong. There was definite eye contact and she smiled and waved. I gripped Rhe’s arms so hard that after the soundcheck, she told me that her arm was broken in two places. A little exaggerated, yet still understandable.
After Weird People, the unthinkable happened.
No, I’m not exaggerating. It was legitimately unthinkable, I could never even imagine this happening to me.
The girls were all talking among themselves when Leigh points towards us from the other side of the stage and says “Perrie, have you seen over there in that direction?”
I’m very aware that she’s pointing in our general direction but also very aware that Leigh was on the other side of the stage and could be pointing to anyone, but hell we were the ones wearing the onesies. Unless someone else had done something awesome that I’d missed, it had to be us.
Jesy realises what she’s talking about and says “oh yeahhh”, and Jade points at us. “Are you talking about the Olaf?” was Perrie’s reply and at that moment I totally lost it. I grabbed Rhe’s arm and literally hyperventilated for a moment, but was too in shock to cry or scream or anything really. If you were to watch the video, you’d see Leigh Anne watch this unfold and say “Awwww”, the sweetheart. However none of this could really compare to the moment that Perrie, still talking about the Olaf, says “I’m seriously in love.”
She then turned her attention to the three of us (remembering that Nat’s been separated from us) and muttered into her mic, “A unicorn, a cow and an Olaf”.
Leigh followed this with “You must be boiling though”, and Perrie said “yeah, are you not hot?” and I yelled out to them, “It’s really fricken hot!”
And behold the point in my life where I finally get noticed and get to talk to my absolute favouritest people in the whole world.
Not only that, but they all laughed. I made all of Little Mix laugh. Never have I had more joy in my life than I did at that moment making Little Mix and everyone at the soundcheck laugh.
Perrie copied my accent, saying “It’s really fricken hot!” back to me. Pez, the accent didn’t really sound Aussie but you were talking to me so I’ll take it. She did however realise that the accent was not the best one she’s ever done and said “that was really bad”, and they moved on to Love Me Like You.
As the girls were walking offstage, Georgia tried calling out to the girls so we could give them their gift, which we had snuck into the arena. We weren’t allowed to take in but we did, thanks Nat for your pro sneaking-in-things-that-we-arent-meant-to-take-in tips.
She called to Jesy and Jade. Jesy didn’t hear but Jade did and pointed to a security guard next to us and we gave him the book. We don’t know if the girls got their gift but it was expensive and time consuming so they sure as hell should have.
After the soundcheck, we parted ways with Rhe until the concert and Nat, Georgia and I walked back to our hotel. When Georgia and I got back to our room, I requested to see the video of me talking to the girls and upon watching that it kind of hit me that I had just spoken to Little Mix, and I stood frozen in place (Olaf pun) and sobbed.
I’d made the decision to keep wearing the Olaf onesie during the concert so that I could get noticed again, even though I’d bought a whole new outfit, and I ditched my heels for some converse because lets be honest heels with a onesie are an unfortunate combination that I wish no one at the soundcheck had to be subjected to.
On the few trips I made from our second row seats to the bathroom, my onesie got pretty much showered with compliments and I found myself constantly recounting the story from earlier at the soundcheck just out of pure excitement.
There were two empty seats in front of Georgia, Rhe and I and we decided that when the lights went out we were gonna jump to the front row, but when two little girls took those seats I found myself feeling a bit regretful and wondering how much trouble we’d get into, so we made the decision not do that. That decision went down the drain as soon as the lights went out. I was so overcome with excitement that I did literally jump over the seat to get to the front row, but I wasn’t really aware that I jumped until after the show when Georgia brought to my attention that I managed to actually jump over a chair.
The concert itself was incredible. For three years my favourite concert had been One Direction but that changed after Little Mix (sorry boys, I love you). It astounded me how they could put on such a good show; I mean, their dances were so complex that it amazed me how they still had A+ vocals throughout the entire show.
Another thing is that we as a fandom can talk all we want about how small the girls are but you’ll never truly realise just how small until you actually see them up close standing next to their dancers. Perrie and Leigh were in front of us for a majority of the show and their dancers were so much taller than them and I just thought “wow, I know we all talk about how small they are but w o w they’re so tiny”.
We had another moment though, we got spoken to during the actual concert as well. All of the girls waved at me during the show except Jesy, Jesy asked Georgia if her phone was ringing during How Ya Doin’, and Perrie was acknowledging fans that had done something to get noticed. We were apart of that.
“You know who I love? These three girls here.” Then Jade came over and they both said “Are you guys hot?” We were absolutely melting (another Olaf pun). “Look, we have a unicorn, a cow and an Olaf. I love Olaf!” And that would be the second time Perrie had said she loved me in the space of three hours and I honestly still haven’t recovered.
So I’m going to end this here. I know I mostly just talked about the parts where the girls noticed me, but they were the highlights of the whole show and I wanted to recount that particular experience. Hope you guys loved, I know I did! :)
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