150321-150322: BEST NIGHT EVER! One Direction On The Road Again Tour

I was initially hesitant on making this post. Because you see, telling the story almost five SIX months since that night that was probably one of the best in my life may not give the experience justice, but I plugged my earphones in and blasts my OTRA playlist, attempting to relive every single thing on what I'll forever dubbed as the BEST NIGHT EVER.

Before starting on how the day went like, I would be giving you a brief summary on how I was even hooked up with this British-Irish boyband One Direction. To be totally honest, I was one of those pop act snobs before, mainly 1D and Justin Bieber because yeah, I was feeling superior and special even though I stan a boyband myself (Super Junior) only difference is that they speak a different language and they belong in a much smaller, much exclusive community of Korean loving fandom. Back to 1D, I do love most of their singles, mainly the ballads and has always been in love with the most popular member, curly and charming Harry Styles. I guess the way I stumbled and took a liking with the boyband was by accident, just how I found out about SuJu, and I can't really remember the exact reason I decided to search for their funny videos in Youtube but I know that a huge part of it is because of the ever famous Larry Stylinson (Couple name of members Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson. I would've discuss this in this post but I realize there's a whole world out there about OTPs that I want to talk about so I'll save it for later, haha!) Anyway, Larry pretty much started the obsession. And conveniently they just released their fourth album (and sadly the last with now departed member Zayn) and I remember being so surprised and amazed with how good their sound was, far different than their bubblegum pop trademark song What Makes You Beautiful and even their latest, still very boyband-y Steal My Girl (DRAG ME DOWN IS ALREADY OUT NOW AND IT'S AMAZING! Ugh I started working on this post last August hahaha!) Beautiful songs written by members themselves that would probably startle outsiders when they found out it's from a boyband plus cute charming boys with accent and tattoos that may or may not be in love with each other plus really funny and adorable fetus and recent moments and needless to say, I AM HOOKED! And that's the start of my way to hell (jk.)

Featuring Ap's rainbow nails hahaha!

Obviously, I became a fan. The kind of fan that would make another Twitter account solely for the purpose of retweeting posts about the boys, following Tumblr blogs about them, throwing opinions about the management and the brand, lowkey defending them from ignorant boyband snobs (haha! I still laugh at the irony oh God) and of course, reading fanfictions about my new OTP. And I SWEAR I didn't really plan on falling in love with them FOUR MONTHS before their concert here in the Philippines but well, it is what it is (OH YES) and yep, I bought tickets.

OTRA Manila Offical Poster (I still get excited whenever I see this! haha)

Funny thing is, since being a fan of One Direction seems to indicate that you're a crazy twelve year old wanting to marry Harry Styles, I got judged by friends and my very own sister at that (haha!) But, since I'm very influential (lol), my sister fell for them too and when I bought a ticket for myself, I got hers too. The tickets ranged from 1K to 17K and since we weren't some rich mofos but I'm earning enough to get good enough seats, I got us tickets for the GOLD section  which was a Free Seating region for Day 2 (OTRA Manila has two days, March 21 and March 22 2015.) It was a little funny because when I was buying for said tickets I'm with this mom and her two teenage daughters planning to exchange their tickets with the famous E-Plus cards (first seen from SS5 Manila) and they got expensive tickets for BOTH nights. Ugh I was a bit green-eyed but moving on lol

Ticket  and the special EPlus card! Never got the chance to put my name on that lol

I wasn't feeling the excitement until the day itself. A few days before the show, Zayn had this controversy in Thailand I think and announced he would be going back to London for a break and won't attend the last stops for the Asian leg which made Manila the first concert without Zayn. It spurred so many speculations, there were already rumors that Zayn's leaving the band since 2014. About three days after said concert, Zayn announced his departure from 1D.

:(

Ap and I had vowed for a millionth time we're never gonna camp out after the disastrous DKFC 1 (in MoA Concert Grounds as well) but since we're now dealing with Filipino Directioners (who camped out in the opening of 1D World in SM Megamall) we made a a quick decision on the afternoon of March 21 (Day 1 of their 2-day concert) to look for a nearby hotel we can spend the night in so we can line up early for Day 2. It was hard looking for a place, they were either too far, expensive or fully booked. Thankfully, our friend and fellow fan Joan had offered a place to stay in, one which we would share with some of her college friends and our Twitter friends as well, Habbah and Andy. SO YES! First day of OTRA Manila and we have a place to stay!!!

Me and Ap at the night of March 21. We were able to watch the first night's pyro display from the terrace :D

Two of Joan's friends were attending the first night and since we're really close in MoA grounds (like a more or less ten minute cab right from the hotel to MoA,) we all decided to 'watch' the first concert. It's an open area so really it's so easy to watch from outside and we can certainly hear them loud and clear. Since we've experienced a concert held in the Grounds before, we were telling them to watch at the side closer to the mall, the one where the Starbucks, Fitness First, etc were located but the cab driver had driven us on the other side, the one closer to the bay area. It was too far to walk on the other side and there were too many people! So we just stayed where we were and waited along with a group of teens singing and screaming their hearts out to just about everything I think, from the 5SOS mvs playing inside the concert grounds (I wasn't familiar with 5SOS that time) to the passing vehicles and joking they were either 1D members or carrots).

1DAF Squad lol from Habbah's Facebook :)

After a bit of waiting, the opening VCR finally played and we're all screaming!!! Harry's high note in the beginning of Clouds reverberated over the place and we can actually see them when they walked down the catwalk! Especially Harry with his brilliant yellow button up with red flowers. IT WAS SO SURREAL!!!!!!! I was already pumped up and so so excited and as much as we wanted to finish the concert, Ap and I had stick to the original plan to get a proper rest so we're all on point for the real battle next day: OUR CONCERT! So bidding our friends goodbye, we went back to the hotel first to take a bath and sleep (even though it took as quite a while to fully fall asleep lol we're really pumped!)

We arrived at 6AM the following dat and there's already a long line for the free seating sections (Titanium and Gold) and the standing area (Silver and Gen Ad.) Everyone's pretty pissed off so early in the morning because apparently most of the kids already lined up the previous night and up until that morning, there were no specific lines yet for each section. Ap and I were grateful we made the right decision not to line up the night before because the same thing pretty much happened during DKFC1 (you would thought in two years Grounds' officials finally learnt to handle queuing especially those artists with young audiences but lol no.) Luckily, the officials decided to let in the Gold ticket holders in the queuing area at 8am. There where tents set up  so even if it was so hot, we at least have some shelter.

The energy of the Filipino One Direction fans are just.. unbelievable. Since I come from fandoms where the vast majority of supporters are teen girls, it's quite pleasing to see such happy faces despite the heat and stress of lining up. There were so many Larry Supporters! They kept chanting Larry and Zayn (who no one had an idea was on the verge of leaving then, and we all lowkey still hoping will appear for the second night of the concert.) Mine and Ap's couple shirt was an instant hit too and we're approached by some fans saying they love the shirt especially the Styles (mine) and Tomlinson (Ap) names behind.

This was a hit shirt! Also a note that this wasn't a part of my
participation for Rainbow Direction.

I'm trying to remember everything that happened in the queue but it was five months ago (six already since I'm just continuing this in September hahaha) so I can't really put out everything but the ELounor official breakup and Louis kissing someone in the pool news spread out as we're queueing and thankfully I got my mobile data to check on line. There were also a lot of Zayn cosplayers in the venue and one of them was even mistaken as the real Zayn (yes, the 14 year old beside us was screaming and asking if that's really Zayn) and we're like 'omg honey no,' haha (the Zayn cosplayer was dressed like Kiss You Zayn, very far from the then 2015 pre-1D departure, heavily tattooed, ponytail wearing hot Zayn.)

OTRA Manila is a safe space for all!  ❤️

The hardships didn't end even if we were seated inside. We got a good view, we're like among the first 50 who got in and although we were surrounded by kids from 4 to the sweet 16s, it was all good. I took a few photos for Rainbow Direction (a fan project made by One Direction fans that aims to build a safe space among a still homophobic fandom), took pictures with Ap and watch the MVs playing on the big screens (OTRA Sponsors and Modest! clients like Little Mix, 5SOS and Olly Murrs.)

#RainbowDirection

There was a part where they played songs too and it was quite funny because while everyone was singing to the latest hits of Olly Murrs, Ariana Grande and 5SOS, I was the only one singing to the Friends themesong (I'll Be There For You) and I guess that pretty much told how old I am haha!

Anyway, the hardship I was telling came in at nightfall, about a few hours before the concert. It rained and it wasn't just like a drizzle but actual rain and since they didn't allow umbrellas inside the Grounds and there weren't available ponchos/raincoats like they initially said, we were pretty drench. We even thought the opening act wouldn't perform anymore because it was raining heavily (not like a stormy type of rain but it was enough to soak us all up) but the lights dimmed and Malaysian DJ KC was spinning in front. He was really good I enjoyed his part so much! Though we had to wait for another hour I think for 1D.

I was a bit annoyed that time because I don't like getting my hair wet when I'm out (lol arte much) but yeah maybe I was just really tired too.

Finally, FINALLY!!! The concert notices and regulations played as well as the opening VCR and we're all screaming!! Harry wasn't as colorful as the first night but still! We couldn't really see them from where we were unless we stood on the chair (I did one time) but it was prohibited lol (though most of the kids were stubborn and kept on standing on the seats even if the bouncers kept dragging them down, lol see what I did there.)

IT WAS SO GOOD.

This was why I said it was the BEST NIGHT EVER despite all the heat and stress and sweat and rain.

I don't have the prettiest pics obviously lol and yeah as you can see I
have a favorite hahahaha also i only figure out how to do the photoset
at least decent looking halfway so sorry with the state of the first
few ones  :p

It was so good :((  Liam was very engaging to the audience and we were singing all the songs as hard as we can. Most of Zayn's high notes were left unsung but that didn't matter because we were singing them anyway. There was a Larry moment! The infamous Team Nuggets Lilo and Team Healthy Eating Harry. I could see it in the big screen near to us but everyone's pretty much in nuts to noticed lol. They also sang I Will Survive which hyped me up because this was a famous LGBT themesong and my beautiful petal Harry singing it with everything he had was such a lovely picture to see.

I felt a little teary whenever I remember how much I enjoyed belting Strong, Better than Words, Where Do Broken Hearts Go basically everything! (except Alive and Diana they were my least faves during that time lol) I've been with mostly Kpop concerts for a long time and to be able to sing the lyrics perfectly was a brand new and quite exciting feeling! Also those little lights during Little Things and just singing the song back to these four wonderful boys with the thousands of other fans sharing the same love you have for them was just... beautiful :')

The concert ended with Best Song Ever and girls legit crying to which I understood because they waited years for this! I found out very much later on that Philippines was one of the countries with such a huge number of Directioners and I can't just imagine how long these people waited  to see 1D live. The fireworks at the end of the show were superb though we didn't finish it because we decided to exit first to avoid the onslaught of the crowd as we left the venue.

Overall, evidently, I enjoyed the show. It was just a beautiful feeling and even if I had to redo it all over again I would gladly welcome it all even the rain (with a poncho this time though because my hairrr haha) Singing your heart out, in the rain, with wonderful people, watching lovely boys and I was just... overwhelmed! Haha! Harry was such a beautiful soul and made me love him more than I already do.

Before the concert hello forehead

i think this is after DJ KC? Soaked! But feelin' great! 

Today, September 2015, the band is in a mess. Pregnant Louis, Solo Harry, Problematic Liam and is Niall? Where's Niall? lol. There were rumors and speculations of a break leading to disbandment March next year and although I am upset I just really want the best for this band, because they deserve it so much, though I'm kind of bitter I only get to see them live once :( But nevertheless, I am happy for the opportunity and hopefully, no matter how long that is, I will be able to see them again (with Zayn this time if it's possible! lol) and enjoy Niall's constant bright mood, Liam's warmth, Louis' cheekiness and the wonderful, loveliest petal that is Harry Styles.

All the love! U ❤️