Ramping Up For Vegas NTO Style - Part 2

September 1, there’s a surprise on the NTO blog.

What’s the significance of that date? Why it’s the twins—Bill and Tom Kaulitz—of Tokio Hotel celebrating their 21st birthday. In the meantime, the NTOs will be having fun at a little watering hole called Las Vegas. While we pack and travel, enjoy a blast from our recent past with Annette’s review of the Humanoid City tour in Padova, Italy—Part 2.

Concert
The electronic voice comes on and the curtain drops. This particular curtain must have been made of lead because I have never seen a curtain drop that fast in my entire life. Tom + George appear and then the egg starts to open. I see a HUGE cloud of smoke. Suddenly Bill emerges from the cloud of smoke. OMG, by the grace of the GOOD LORD himself, I have an unobstructed view of Bill. I can see all the way to the stage on a diagonal angle with hardly any cameras in the way. I do a mini squee dance out of insane happiness. I feel like I am super close. Something about where I am standing and the padding on the floor, to cover the tech cords, allows me to have the most amazing view of Bill in all his gloriousness. His hair seems super dark, darker than the previous day's concert. Did he dye it last night I wonder? His voice is magnetic. I hang onto every word of Noise and sing along to the lyrics at the top of my lungs. He stands at the microphone stand throwing his arms up at one side than another. He barely moves his center of gravity and then shifts his hips. I fangirl for a moment and then catch my breath. He sings a line, moves an arm, shifts hip to other side. I am BLOWN AWAY. The crowd is going nuts. They scream at the top of their lungs and shout every lyric. These Italian fans know all the words. Un-freakin-believable, how the right mixture of teenagers, 20-somethings, fanboys, parents (even pushy fandads), and NTO’s make ALL the difference. Bill is soaking in all our energy. You can see the happiness written all over his face, hear it in his voice, and see it in his movements. I, Annette am one of those people who made him this happy. This thought will FOREVER be imprinted upon my memory of this day and brings me immense amounts of joy.

Tokio Hotel goes thru the English setlist. At several points during the show Bill lets out a woot as he is running up the side steps. He actually does this three times, I counted. He moves effortlessly around the stage, working every corner of the room. He spends time on the landing of the stairs on each side singing to this section of the audience. He jams out during the interlude of each song, wildly dancing his Bill dance. Arms are flailing, legs are moving, the non-microphone holding arm resting in a fist on his thigh. I can NOT take my eyes off him. I follow him around the stage like he is an enemy mercenary soldier and my life depends on knowing his exact position at all times. When he runs off the stage to change, I look at Tom and sometimes Georg and Gustav. HELL, the other members of the band could have been BUCK NAKED and I would not have noticed because I only had eyes for Bill this night. The fans never stop singing or screaming. This spurs Michelle and I on to greatness. We scream at the top of our lungs the entire night at the end of every song. Several days after the concert and I can barely talk. That’s how long and loud we yelled. I dance along to each song and sing loudly opening my mouth as wide as possible to let every bit of air in and every bit of intensity out. I am riveted on one goal and that is absorbing every bit of Bill that I can. As the crowd sings, we gesture towards the stage every time the lyric is you, specifically in Human Connect To Human and Hey You. Bill points towards us at these you’s. He also gestures towards the ground when singing the word here during Phantomrider. BEAUTIFUL!!!

Too much at this show that was PHENOMENAL, I could talk about it forever. A few moments permanently etched in my brain are:
#1 At the beginning of the show, the 1st time Bill speaks, he asks us if we are excited to be here and we scream at the top of our lungs, the standard chat and response. Then he continues on, which shocks me a bit because normally he doesn’t talk this much at this point. He tells us that the band is sorry they can’t bring us the entire show. The top egg is missing so at first I think this is what he is referring to and I rack my brain trying to remember if he apologized at the other shows with only ½ egg. He goes on and says something about the f---ing b--ch fire department. Whaaaaaa? I turn to Tricia and say did Bill just say f---ing b--ch? She confirms that I have not completely lost my mind in some kind of Tokio Hotel fan squee meltdown and that Bill did indeed say that. He then instructs the audience to raise our middle finger to the fire department, of course we oblige this request immediately and while loudly shrieking. From this point on I know this show is going to be HISTORIC.

#2 The 1st time Bill comes down the catwalk I swear my heart stopped beating. I’m not sure how I managed to not faint from the experience and continue breathing. Some things being automatic is good. Bill is singing, can’t remember what song, and he starts walking towards me, he is getting closer and closer. As I see and feel him coming towards me, my mind and heart starts racing. It is like he is in slow motion and if I just hold my breath I can slow him down even more. I stand there like a deer in headlights, just frozen in that space of time. The closer he gets, the more beautiful he gets. Is this even possible? The answer is yes. I felt like I was clicking on the photo to begin and it kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger, yet I wasn’t clicking. MIND BLOWING. He stops at the end of the runway and looks out into the crowd. He is EXQUISITE. Being that close to that bone structure is THE experience of a lifetime. I can see every detail on his face. Those eyes, those cheekbones, the lips. GOD broke the mold when he made Bill Kaulitz. A synapse in my brain fires. Wait, can he see me? Quick Annette, smile, just in case he can, I instruct myself. I beam the brightest smile which oozes from all of my pores. The light coming from my eyes in those few seconds of time had to be the most incandescent EVER. I feel as if I could reach out and touch him. If he stretched out his long arm towards me and I stretched out my long arm, I SWEAR we would touch fingertips. Then he turns and heads back towards the stage. The view walking away is just as good. Compact butt in skintight catsuit. Nice.

#3 Dogs Unleashed goes down in history as the sexiest song ever. Whoever came up with the idea of Bill straddling the motorcycle is a GENIUS. The music starts, smoky haze and the bike comes into view. Bill is leaning over the right handlebar stretching that catsuit material within an inch of its life. It feels like he is leaning over a lot further than in any of the previous concert videos I had watched. Most likely not and it is just the amazing view I have of everything he is doing that makes me think this. He straightens himself up while jamming out to the music and the drumbeat begins. Bill slaps the seat of the bike hard, as if he were b---ch slapping somebody who just called his mamma a ho. I jump back a bit as if he just slapped me across the face. It is a little startling, but uber sexy. He totally rocks out to this song feeling every note of the music in his whole body. You can really tell that it is one of his favorites by the way he gets into it. During this song a piece of hair on the right side of Bill’s head falls down onto his face. Michelle says it happens when he took his glasses off. She must have better eyesight or memory than me because I don’t recall this. What I do know is that, until the break before Zoom this hair is persistent at not wanting to bond with the rest of its peers. Bill tries many times to put this piece back up with the rest of his hair to no avail. He sweeps his hands thru his hair on multiple occasions during the next few songs. Every time he does it, it gets sexier and sexier. I have vivid imagines of this hair sweep movement in my internal hard drive. I would like to give a SHOUT OUT to this freewheeling, independent strand of hair for standing up to what it believed in. On Padova concert day it was that it should run free like a dog unleashed. God Bless You, little piece of hair.

#4 In Your Shadow is the only time my brain registered something that was not related to Bill and this is only after Bill killed me with his uber seductiveness. I did not own this song because my newness to the fandom at the time of the release of Humanoid did not allow me to realize that I need to purchase EVERYTHING. Now my monthly budget includes a Tokio Hotel category. I digress. Bill gives his little spiel about special someones, I awwwww because I now have 3 new NTO BFF’s, and starts singing. He is sitting on the stairs with his legs bent at the knees which are almost touching. After a few lines, he moves his left knee to the side so that he is sitting spread eagle on the steps. I almost die. Where I am standing, my vantage point is of the view right between his legs. It is just too much for me to handle. Later on in the week my traveling companions and I have a very heated discussion over whether Bill’s movements are deliberate pursuits intended to induce massive fangirl squees or just a function of his gangliness. Bill’s slight body adjustments send me reeling throughout the concert, but are really noticeable during the quiet moments of Shadow. Knees touching, knees apart, legs straight out feet close together, feet apart. Big beautiful feet. GOOD GOD. After Bill moves from the stairs position and starts running around the stage, the background vocals start. The voice is beautiful, so deep and haunting. Who is this? I begrudgingly take my eyes off Bill for a few seconds to notice that this is Tom’s voice. It is gorgeous and I am in awe. Luckily, at some points in this song they are standing next to each other so I can digest the both of them at the same time. No clue why I never noticed this before, but in Padova Tom’s background singing on Shadow was EPIC.

Soooooooooo many more things I could gush over. This review of Padova could potentially reach War and Peace proportions. I will leave the concert section with two brief observations. Sweat was dripping out of Bill’s catsuit from the elbow due to the intense heat in the venue magnified by his own awesome hotness. He wiped his brow multiple times during the show. Just more swoon inducing screen caps to be played in the rewind of this show in my mind. During Zoom, my ABSOLUTE favorite song, at the beginning he sang a couple of lines with his eyes closed. Sweet, sensitive, Bill. Oh, how I love you so. Forever Now, I was right underneath the confetti, Bill and the guys were right in front of me, my hand was reaching out to grab some of the pieces (I ended up with one red and one blue piece which I pressed in a book) and the show was over. EPIC!!!!!

After Concert
We hit merchandise which was conveniently located right behind the tech center. I propped myself up against a pole and stood staring at the stage as it was dismantled. All the black boxes marked Tokio Hotel are so rock star and super cool. We grabbed some water and headed outside past the food trucks. Finally ending up right in front of the barriers blocking the side entrance to the venue where the equipment trucks were parked. After a couple of pictures, some major squee action, and a conversation about leaving vs. waiting to see the band exit, we decided to wait for a bit. It was insanely foggy outside. As the waiting crowd thinned out, we decided that even if we were lucky enough to see the band leave the venue, any 6’ 3” guys could walk past us and we wouldn’t know the difference because the thick blanket of fog prevented us from seeing 5’ in front of our face. So we walk away, past the gypsies with the non-official merchandise towards the car, through the fog just me and you.

Tom and Bill - Hope you have a fantastic birthday celebration planned.

*NTO Blog does not claim ownership of any photos.