One Direction & 5 Seconds Of Summer Concert Experience

I’ve always had a thing for boy bands. It started when I was 7 with the Backstreet Boys, reignited in high school with the Jonas Brothers and three years ago I came to love these four Brits and one Irish lad. I’ve had some pretty awesome concert experiences with these boys at the Molson Amphitheatre and Air Canada Centre thanks to VIP tickets, but this year with just a regular ol’ ticket (VIP offered nothing special anyways unless you’re into One Direction watches) I had just as good a time.

On their first stadium tour performing to over 50, 000 fans, it’s pretty awesome that Toronto is the first city in North America to see the Where We Are Tour. If only fans knew Where They Were hiding out. Seriously, every time they come to Toronto it’s an intense game of hide and seek and the fans never win. Anyways, instead of sitting here wondering what to do with my life, which is one of symptoms of post-concert depression, I figured I might as well write about my concert experience while it’s fresh in my mind and give you guys some pictures.

I plan on putting together a video of the experience and hosting a One Direction related giveaway, so stay tuned for that! Also for those wondering what it’s like to have VIP this year, my sister experienced that last night and will be sharing her story and pics soon as well!

The Seats: A7, Row 15
In my opinion, these seats were almost perfect. You’re probably thinking that the only spot to place your butt that could be perfect is first row. But when they’ve got a humungous stage and a catwalk leading to a secondary stage at the back, this first row is not the greatest. From where I was sitting, I had a perfect centre view of the entire stage, I was located right next to the catwalk and at the exact spot where they all seemingly decided to stop and pause to sing during their walk from big ass stage 1 to mini stage at the back. And here’s the thing, I got these seats THE DAY BEFORE THE CONCERT. You think you have to stick with your nosebleeds that you bought a year ago, but you don’t! When they set up the seating, most venues find that they have room for more seats and they usually put them up for sale that day. So I highly recommend checking ticketmaster a day or two before and the day of for more seats. You can call to exchange your old ones for just a $7 (and totally worth it) fee!

The Camera: 
Also, not to brag or anything but you’ll notice these pictures are pretty damn awesome. I wish I could take the credit and say it’s all me but all the glory goes to the best digital point and shoot camera to ever exist: the Canon Powershot SX240 HS. Sure being 10 seats away from the catwalk helped, but you do not understand the power of this zoom. It’s my go-t0 for concerts… and life. Whoever says the end of digital cameras is coming thanks to smart phone have not tried this beaut. And Canon isn’t even paying me or bribing me to say this, I truly honestly from the heart recommend it.

The Opener: 5 Seconds of Summer (who are totally ready to headline their own show by now) 
They looked so perfect standing there (sorry, just had to use that line)!

Picture taken WITH NO ZOOM. Not bad, am I right?

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Luke doing his thang, because that’s what lead singers do. Their thang.

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A perfect “Caption This” photo.  Clearly so many things were going on in Michael’s head, he’s overwhelmed, or he’s trying to use his telepathy powers or something.

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DAT ASS(ES).

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Look at those pink cheeks!

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The Main Event: One Direction
While the band’s professional photographer Cal was on stage, I could arguably take his job. Here are a few of the masterpieces I captured on camera.
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Confessions From… Aly Silverio (Jawbreaking)

This new weekly column “Confessions From…” will feature amazing young people who are living their dream or working their hardest to make it come true. It’ll feature a variety of bloggers, actors, singers and even fashion designers. I figured the best person to begin with would be Aly Silverio, the 20-year-old founder of Jawbreaking. Her cute and relatable clothing has been seen on the likes of Ed Sheeran, One Direction, 5SOS and even Simple Plan, just to name a few.

I spoke to the super sweet and super talented North Carolina native last year for a Faze Magazine article, so please keep in mind that this interview is from 2012, being not the most up to date answers. Nonetheless, Aly serves as an inspiring role model to youngsters everywhere.

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How did you describe the journey of how you got to where you are now?
Aly Silverio: Basically when I was 15 I started a jewelry company, basically because I didn’t want a real job because I was lazy so I started this jewelry company where I made necklaces out of clay and looking back on it, they were really really terrible quality but people liked it so I went on with that for like three years and just improved on my jewelry techniques. And I always wanted to do a jewelry company but it costed a lot of money and as jawbreaking jewlry started to expand, I started to use that money towards the clothing company that I always wanted to do. And once that started it kind of just took off and now im at where I’m at today because of that jewelry company.

So how do you think the jewelry company started to expand, what was it that really broadened that?
AS: When I started doing it I just started giving necklaces to random people, like people that had followings like bands and stuff. I honestly don’t know why they wore them because personally looking back I don’t really like what I did, but it got to where I am today so I appreciate that I was out there when I was 15. It just stemmed into this whole clothing company.

Do you have any hopes or plans to get back into jewelry?
AS: 
I don’t think I’ll get into the jewelry I was doing because it was clay and it’s so time consuming. But we’ve been thinking of re-releasing and collaborating with another jewelry designer, or making some exclusive metal pieces not clay. It’s so time consuming so we don’t wanna get back into that again. But hopefully doing some jewelry that’s not clay in the future.

When you first started the brand where did you expect it to go? What were your goals?
AS: 
I definitely had a lot of goals which I definitely accomplished and I didn’t think I was going to accomplish in such a short amount of time, like getting into stores, I didn’t think that was going to happen at all this year. But it did you know, and you just have to work hard for it. And just believe that you can do it and that’s what I did and I definitely succeeded in a lot of my goals that were on my bucket list.

How important do you think it is for teens who have dreams like this to set goals for themselves?
AS: 
So important, if you don’t have goals then you don’t know where you’re going with it. So for me I put my goals on my ceiling and I wrote them up and I look at it literally everyday and I’m like “yup, that’s what I wanna do.” And it reminds you of what you need to accomplish if you get far in life.

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Where did the name “jawbreaking” come from?
AS: 
It’s really not an interesting story but when I was 15, I honestly didn’t think I was going to be saying jawbreaking every five seconds of my life, I didn’t think it was going to stick, I didn’t think it was going to become this big—but when I was 15 I was with one of my best friends Alexa and we just wanted to make it roll off the tongue and since I was doing jewelry I wanted it to start with a J and we were just thinking of different names and stuff that started with a J and I came across the words jawbreaker and jawdropping, and I thought “oh I’m going to combine the words cuz that sounds cool!” and that was 15 year old Aly’s mind and I just kind of came up with that and it stuck and now everyone is kind of used to it. So when I started the clothing company I kinda just dropped the jewelry and it just stayed jawbreaking.

So how do you go about creating your designs? Where do you get inspiration and stuff like that?
AS: Basically my life. It’s kind of a vague take, but I’ve come to realize that I think I’m the “taylor swift of creating shirts” because the last line was kind of inspired by boys. Like I have a shirt that says “boys suck” and it was called “I love you to the moon and back” and it was because there was a bunch of celestial things like moons and stars and then also “I love you to the moon and back” because there’s always that one guy that you’re never gunna get over so I kind of based it off that. Which I never thought I’d be able to do, but I somehow did it and I just base it off what’s going on in my life. Not only relationships, but travel and my friends and inside jokes I can make into a shirt. It’s basically my life, it’s a very interesting way of creating shirts.

I’m sure there were many obstacles in the past four years, what’s the biggest one you’d say you came over?
AS: 
Definitely, the first thing I can think of is just people who think you can’t do it, it’s definitely hard coming from not even like your best friends, but people who are close to you and you think that they’d be there for you, but there are people who are going to try and knock you down and be like “oh that’s impossible, you can’t do that, how are you gunna do that, how are you gunna afford that?” but I just use that has my fuel to my fire. I mean you use that to you’re advantage so you can prove those people wrong. So that’s how I overcame that and unlike you still deal with it even now. My family’s very very supportive and they help me more than you’d even know.
It’s really great to have such a great support system from ym family and my best friends.

What do you think is important for teens when pursuing a dream?
AS: You can’t let people tell you that you can’t do something. Because if you believe that then it’s just going to be embedded in your mind, “wow I really can’t do this.” So you really have to, it sounds cheesy, but you really have to believe in yourself.

Was there a specific moment in your career where you just kind of stopped and thought, “wow I can’t believe this happened” ?
AS: Oh yeah, One Direction! When I first heard about One Direction like a year ago, I honestly had no idea who they were, I never heard of them before in my life. But one of my best friends Emily was like, “you got to listen to this band, they’re british they’re cute, they sing very well.” So I was like “alright I’ll check it out.” I’ve heard so much talk about them on twitter but I never even bothered to check them out. So I was like who are these people? So I checked them out and thus began my obsession with One Direction. And they were doing this tour with big time rush in the US, so my friend was going, and I didn’t even get tickets, I didn’t even try they were sold out in apparently ten minutes. So my local radio stations were doing contests and we were all trying to win it and two of my best friends won it so I didn’t win. But I went anyway because I was like, “you know what, I’m going to get them some shirts” so we went and basically after their radio interview, they’re like walking to their bands and my friend actually handed Zayn one of the shirts and I didn’t think he was going to wear it. I was like “let’s just hope”. There were so many screaming girls and I was yelling, because his van window was down and I was like hey I hope you like that shirt, I designed it!” and that was all I got to say. And I was on tumblr a few days later, just scrolling through, and was like hey that’s One Direction from when they were in North Carolina and was like Zayn’s wearing my shirt!” he had changed into it later that day for the today show interview and that was probably the pivotal moment of my life, in my career and I was like “wow, one direction, which is the biggest boy band in the entire world!” it was just crazy and ever since then they’ve kind of all caught onto it.

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Was there a point where your line just “blew up” and had that kind of “big break” or did it happen slowly?
AS: I think it definitely happened slowly if you count from 2008 for sure. But to me when I look at it from the past years it has blown up primarily because of like one direction, word of mouth and everyone just keeps telling others. Word of mouth has been insane in the past year and a half.

You’ve already accomplished so much, but what would you say is your ultimate career goal?
AS: It’s very vague but I just want to be able to do this forever and still be happy doing it and actually be able to make a living off of it so that it is my actually job. So that I don’t have to work for someone else.

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Be sure to check out shopjawbreaking.com for tees, crop tops, sweaters and more, and be sure to follow Aly herself on twitter @alysilverio and @shopjawbreaking.

My 26 seconds of fame thanks to One Direction

At times I may pretend to hide it, but in reality I’m a loud and proud directioner.
So of course I broke out jumping and screaming when I saw this on One Direction’s official fan page this morning:

Why yes, that is my sister and I in that screenshot because that is my sister and I’s greeting video. Which was only supposed to be seen by the five (gorgeous) boys of One Direction and lucky winners of the Bring Me to 1D Golden ticket. But One Direction’s management chose our video (out of hundreds from countries all over the world) to be used as an example…so now 11 million people on facebook and my 500 facebook friends who I exposed this to have seen it.

19, 000 views later we’ve received so many comments on the video saying, “wow this is awesome” and “you girls are so lucky!” and man, does it feel admittedly good.

This wasn’t a contest and we receive no prize (other than extreme happiness), and we never thought our greetings video was special to begin with.

So yeah, is it pathetic that I claim this one of the “awesome” moments in my life? …Nah!

Well have a look at our greetings video yourself, and if you’re a directioner, you should make one too!


1D World Toronto store visit

After snagging VIP tickets and sitting front row of their concert, watching them during soundcheck, being able to ask them a question, and basking in their good looks on May 31, it was pretty much mandatory that I paid a visit to their first North American pop-up shop.  So today I did just that.

We arrived at the store before it even opened, and there was already a line-up of a dozen or so people waiting. Seeing how most of those in the line were tweens and teens, my and my friend walked past muttering, “oh wow they have a one direction store?!” testing out our acting abilities, then went to Subway to grab a snack awaiting the store’s 10am opening.

We left our maturity at the doors, and walked into every directioner’s heaven. The live tour DVD was playing on a large flat screen at the back of the store, the current song “One Thing” blasted through large speakers so loud you had to sort of yell when talking. Poster’s so huge you can’t even purchase them in stores surrounded the walls, and red and white was the expected colour scheme.

They had One Direction themed everything–from posters, to t-shirts, to notebooks, calenders, keychains and even a 1D compact mirror were sold for might I add, kind of expensive prices (seeing how HMV and even my store Urban Planet has most items for at least $5-10 less than the 1D World store price).

But for those who had the money–or the parents with the money, or the parents who loved them enough, or the parents who wanted to avoid a screaming tantrum throwing child–it was a place for the ultimate One Direction shopping spree.

And for those like me, who at my age can only be seen owning so much One Direction merchandise without being thrown into a rehab centre and is also a broke college kid, it was still a trip worth making, just for the experience and the sight of it all. I did buy the $30 t-shirt with the boys outlined in blue and song lyrics, while my friend got the tour dvd special which came with a pack of 5 mini posters for $40.

The store only comes to a city once (as far as I know), and it’s going to be cool that in ten years I’ll be able to look back on my visit to the first North American 1D store in Toronto. At least I hope it’ll be cool.

If the 1D World Store comes to your city, and you like the band, then go ahead and drop on in!