On Tour with Twenty One Pilots (5) – We’re going Høme!

PARIS

Barely one week after coming back from Ireland, we were back on the road. This time, we had brought my girlfriend’s little sister, who had no idea she was on her way to go and see her favourite band too!

We took the train from Maubeuge, a small city in the North of France that is very close to where my girlfriend lives. That way, travel costs were cheaper than if we left from Belgium. We were in Paris in a matter of two hours, and we checked into our airBnb quickly, making a small détour to Montmartre and the Sacré Coeur (without bothering to climb up the many many steps though). Our apartment was tiny, with barely any lights, but in a quiet neighbourhood and not too far from the venue. In the evening, we obviously went to the Eiffel Tower, even though we’ve seen her plenty of times already. You just cannot get sick of her. She’s beautiful. Whenever we go to Paris, we always go to the Place du Trocadéro when we want to see the Tower, because that’s where you have the most beautiful view of it. The sun was slowly setting, and we decided to go down the Trocadéro towards the Tower to have a look at it from down below.

 

I hadn’t been there in a while, and I was majorly surprised (but also not) to see the massive and strongest security I had ever seen. People used to be able to walk freely down and around the Tower but now, you have to go through security checks on the far side of the Tower before being allowed right under it. As a consequence, there are a LOT less people, the majority of whom actually going into the queue to climb the Tower. I haven’t done that yet, and we didn’t do it that night either, but it’s definitely something I want to do before I die.

On our way back, we grabbed a crêpe with Nutella and bananas, which is almost a tradition of ours, and then we headed back to the apartment for a good night’s sleep.

On Monday, we decided to walk from our apartment all the way (about a 40-minutes walk) to the Halles in Châtelet, a massive mall, where we met up with my friend and her mom who were also going to the show. We did some window shopping and caught up on the latest dramas before heading back to the apartment to charge up our phones and rest.

When we arrived at the venue, we announced to G’s little sister that we were going to the show, and she doesn’t usually show off a lot of emotions but I think she was very happy! We had very good seats in the AccorHotels Arena, far down and close enough to both stages we could actually see our friends Lauryn and Donia in the pit, right by the B stage!

The show felt too short this time. Not that it doesn’t usually, but that night, in Paris, I could really feel we were getting close to the end of the tour and I felt a little sad already… but so so excited for what was next: Brussels. Belgium. Home.

BRUSSELS

We left Paris on Tuesday, and on Wednesday morning we didn’t feel rested at all, but ready to tackle on the show that would mark the beginning of the end of this tour. We arrived in Brussels around noon, and to be completely honest, we would have arrived much later if it wasn’t for this belgian radio station we were in contact with through Twenty One Pilots Belgium (Check us out on Twitter @BelgianClique, we do giveaways regularly!). We had contacted them to try and see if they could possibly give something to the band from us when they would interview them… and they originally said yes! We had agreed on a time and place to meet, but when came the time, we didn’t hear from them anymore. I learned through one of my friends that they were interviewing fans in the queue when we were in line too, so I gathered my courage and went up to them. When confronted to me, they admitted that sadly they weren’t allowed to give anything to Tyler and Josh, which meant we’d have to go back to our original plan. And now that they had me close, they persuaded me to ask a question (question that they basically told me to ask?!) in front of their camera, which was horrifyingly anxiety-inducing but hey, I did it anyway, love that for me.

Of course, who says Belgium says “when it rains it pours”… And it poured. Luckily, we started lining up around 4.30pm only (and we were soaked in a matter of minutes!) so I can’t even begin to imagine the state of the people who were queuing since the early hours.

Anyway, we met up with my friends Lauryn and Noémie in the queue, then managed to get a spot right in front of the B stage thanks to our friend Marie who had kept some space for us. Then my girlfriend’s parents and her little sister joined us, and we were a nice little excited troop when the show started.

I always say a show is what you make of it… and this couldn’t be truer than for this particular show. Being at home already made it exciting enough, but spending the night with these people is truly what made it so much more special. Without them, I would have said this show was just a regular show, one I had seen a couple times already and one I was getting used to. But these friends changed it all for the better. We laughed and cried (a LOT) together, we danced together, we screamed together (especially when the beautiful faces of two of my friends standing front row appeared on the screen!), and when Leave The City finally came on, we were hugging each other and sharing this particular moment like no other, because for now, we were alive. Vulnerable, broken, but alive. And I think that’s also one of the many strengths of Twenty One Pilots: when you sing these songs, you are vulnerable, basically admitting that maybe there’s something wrong with you, but you’re not wallowing in self-pity because you are surrounded by thousands of friends and strangers all going through stuff of their own, and it makes things feel a little less like a burden. And it warms you up from the inside.

I didn’t take any great pictures of the show, so here are the only pics of that night that truly matter:

 

After so much emotion, we headed back to my friend Louise’s place for the night to try and get at least a little bit of sleep before the next day, when we were bound to fly to Spain for the last stretch of this tour.