A review from Nashville

Traveling 3000+ miles across the Atlantic, lots of money spent and
lack of sleep. It was all worth it because Seeing 100 monkeys live in
Nashville was PRICELESS!

I arrived Friday night just in time to meet everyone at the Newcon
welcome party. There was karaoke, food and lots of alcohol! Meeting
all my fellow monkey junkies was awesome! Moving swiftly on to
Saturday……

Saturday was such a busy day. It kicked off at 9am with a webmaster Q and A session. It was great to get some advice from Heidi who runs theTwilight Facebook page and also Lori and Jenn from the Twilight Lexicon page.

Next we had the actors Q and A session. Kimbra Hickey,  Jose Zuniga and Jackson Rathbone were on the panel. They were asked a lot of great and interesting questions and were very honest with their answers.

The music Q and A session followed. We had Uncle Larry , Ben Johnson, The Tin Tin Can, Tom Owens from the Pet Lions and Shaun Fernando who were happy to answer all questions about their music. Forgive my lack of details for what questions were asked. The weekend was long!

During the day there was art work on display from people who had entered The Spencer Bell art contest and there was also a 100 monkeys design a t-shirt contest in which people attending the convention could vote for. ( more about that later). Also Kelly Garrett Rathbone was on hand to show us her art work which was beautiful!

There were photo ops to meet Ned Bellamy, Jose Zuniga and Jackson Rathbone. As you would  expect, there was a full room of people waiting to meet Jackson! He was very nice an took time to sign something for everyone, take a photo with everyone and even had a brief chat with each and everyone of us waiting !

Then it was time for the jam session! What I had been waiting for!To
see the band play live for the first time!

All the band were there! It was a very intimate gig and most of the
music played was just made up on the spot! The guys did some
switcharoos and we were even treated to Uncle Larry on the bass!

The jam session was about an hour long and it ended with so many
audience members joining in playing instruments that the guys handed out and a few people even brought their own!

The guys hung around for a while after and took time to say hi to
everyone. It was a special and unique show.

With the jam session over, it was time to head over to the Wildhorse
Saloon to line up for the show!

Whilst in line, I was given the amazing news that my design had won
the 100 monkeys t-shirt design comp! Keep an eye on the bands website for details of how you can get your hands on the t shirt with my design!

A few hours later we were let into the venue and took our places to wait for the show to start.

The Wildhorse is a great venue with a balcony upstairs for those that
did not want to be squished in the crowd downstairs! The show was
packed.  It was amazing to see such a huge turn out to see the band!

We were treated to a great performance by the Tin Tin Can. If you have not had a chance to listen to their music or see them perform, check out their latest album on their myspace page!

Then came 100 monkeys! They opened with Ugly girl and were on fire. The order of the other songs they sang, I could not tell you but I know they sang all of these: Orson Brawl, Reaper, Her Sister Becky, Smoke, The Monkey Song, Arizona,The Thank You song, Prayer, Looker,Wings on Fire, The Grocery Store song and a new song that they wrote in Nashville.

After the show we staggered back to the hotel, just in time to wave
goodbye to the guys who were heading back to L.a

Newcon was a small and personal convention and if there is another
one, I urge you all to go!

Thanks to Tim and Vi and everyone else involved for working so hard to make it a big success!

Gallery Links:

Newcon Actors Q & A

Newcon Music Q & A

100 Monkeys Jam Session

100 Monkeys at The Wildhorse

Links:

100 Monkeys Music
Newcon Website
The Tin Tin Can
Pet Lions Music
Twilight Facebook
Twilight Lexicon