The Time I Waited Six Hours to Meet America’s Favorite Boyband.

Yes, it was worth it.

I don’t have many days I can go back and call “the best day ever,” but February 19th was definitely one of them. That was the day I waited six hours to meet America’s favorite boyband, Brockhampton. 

If you aren’t familiar with Brockhampton, I can best sum it up as a group of talented kids who came together to pump out good music. The category they’re typically placed into is Hip-Hop/Rap, but they experiment within different genres too. This post isn’t about Brockhampton’s journey so I won’t go into much detail. But if you want a more in-depth article, just comment below or message me on Instagram and I’d be happy to write one.

Now a little backstory of how I found out about them.

I discovered Brockhampton sometime during the spring/summer of 2017. One of their music videos appeared in my YouTube recommendation list. I thought the thumbnail looked cool so I clicked. (I went back to see what appealed to me about the thumbnail but either they changed it or I saw the video via a repost from a fan’s channel because I could’ve swore it was a snapshot from the video. Leave a comment if you remember that too or I’m just crazy cause now I wanna know haha.) Anyways, similar to all my favorite artists, I didn’t like them at first listen. Then in early August, more of their videos start popping up in my recommended list. I gave them another chance and once I heard “Swamp,” my mind exploded and I went back to listen to Saturation I and it was like everything was now clicking.

So fast-forward to February 2018, I can’t recall whether the tweet was from Brockhampton or RSVP Gallery, but I was informed that Brockhampton was having a free meet-up at a pop-up shop they were holding at RSVP Gallery in Chicago before their show that night. I for sure knew I was going to go since I wasn’t able to go to either of the Chicago shows. And it was like a once in a lifetime experience considering they were gaining a bigger fanbase since Saturation III released a few months prior. They weren’t even doing meet and greets at shows anymore. I was so excited.

So it’s the day of and around 1:35 pm. I wanted to get there a couple hours earlier because I expected a line long, but there ended up being wayyyyy more people than I estimated. I wasn’t even that close to RSVP when I saw the end of the line and jumped out of the car to rush into it.

The crowd was just as you would expect it to be. It’s like those cringe “Flower Boy” starter packs you see on IG come to life. It was a sea of Rothco camo pants and Vans. I went to the meet-up alone and instantly made friends in line. As bad as it may sound, I actually love lining up for stuff. You meet so many new people with the same interests as you. It was a breath of fresh air just referring to Tyler the Creator as Tyler or just saying Frank and everyone knew who I was talking about. 

A half hour in and the line was moving pretty slow. I was still in the alley where I first got into line. Thank god though the line started to pick up once this weird orange liquid started coming up out of a drain and coming towards everyone in line in the alley. 

I can’t say I wasn’t entertained in line. Here are a few of the interesting events that took place during my wait:

1.) Some guy had to take a leak and literally ran across the street from the line to go pee behind a mural in like a bunch of bushes in front of everyone and then ran back to his place in line.

2.) This conversation I overheard: “Wait. That Kevin guy is gay?” “Yeah man I told you. They all gay. And they’re just like Tyler, they like the white boys.”

3.) Cars we’re constantly pulling over to the side to ask us what we’re waiting for and people would yell out responses like “ODD FUTURE!” or “We’re waiting for One Direction!”

Also to everyone that cut the line: ya’ll are lame. Though there was this one kid who cut, but had a pretty cool fit. If you’re reading this though, you can mail me the Golf flame jacket you had as an apology. Thank you very much.

 

So after six hours of standing in cold but also weirdly warm and rainy weather, my new acquaintances and I reached the doors of RSVP. By this time it was nearing time for the boys to leave to go to their concert, so security was rushing everyone along. We all decided we were going to go in as a group. I was the ringleader walking in while everyone followed behind me. They were already all starstruck, but I was acting super cocky until it hit me hard. I couldn’t even move. I just remember standing there just smiling and staring at all of them. There were so many of them I didn’t know who to greet first until Romil came over and hugged me and guided me closer into the designated picture area. Since time was cutting short, we didn’t get as much time to hang out and talk with them as much as people who came earlier did. And only one of us could give our phone to Jon, the manager of Brockhampton, to take the picture. But before the picture, I quickly located Kevin and surprisingly managed to spit the word “hi” to him before going to hug him. I then heard Jon counting down so I quickly moved in front of the backdrop for the picture. After the picture, Bearface told me he liked my shirt and that was the most of a conversation I had with any of the members that day, but it was worth the wait. 

I guess a lil epilogue to this story was that I went to go to the merch line to find out it was a whole ass separate line on the other side of the building. I went into the line anyways and waited an hour in the rain to sadly find out once I reached the front that they sold out of EVERYTHING. On the bright side, I got to say goodbye to the boys as the all ran out to their ride to make their concert. Once I got home, I couldn’t even sleep cause I was still so adrenaline-ridden. I felt like I injected RedBull into my veins. So I ended up pulling an all-nighter and going into school all busted the next morning. But yea, that was fun and if anyone reading this gets the chance to have a similar experience as I did…DO IT.

Thanks. Love Ya’ll 🙂

Author: Wisner
© 2018 Wisner