King Mark Foster would like to welcome you into this extravagant holiday concert post. [For some REAL photos from the event, check out Dave Lichterman’s work here.]

Lineup:

• Grouplove
• Two Door Cinema Club
• Young the Giant
• Foster the People
• Cage the Elephant
• Death Cab For Cutie
• Mumford & Sons

Year after year, I have always dismissed radio station sponsored concerts, but this year, I made an exception. As soon as I saw the lineup for the first four bands (without the headliners being announced,) I was all in. Two Door and Foster are bands that I have been wanting to see for a very long time and Young the Giant and Grouplove are bands that are quickly on the rise. The concert started promptly at 4PM and didn’t end until what I imagine was probably 11PM. I left two songs into Mumford & Sons, but before you bite my head off about that – allow me to explain later on. Kevin and I had pretty decent seats, which I was grateful for cause I get claustrophobic in general admission. Overall, it was definitely an experience for me and one that I will never forget.

[The view from our seats]

From the event, I learned a few things. The first – in regards to bands – is that the set list is crucial. Young the Giant kicked off their set with my favorite song, “Apartment,” but probably could have got the crowd going more with “My Body,” or a song similar to that since most bands wouldn’t start with their hit single. If you don’t start off with a strong song, you can introduce yourselves with a unique intro. Grouplove entered the stage to a Kanye song and right away, everyone was like, “Who is this band?” These days, I’m a really strange concert attendee because of my Blackberry note taking. I mean – it’s meant for posts like these! At shows, I find it hard to enjoy it completely because aside from singing along to songs and dancing to them, I’m constantly fixated on the band – how they perform, the mechanics of it all, their movement, their interaction with the crowd.

Read more “Deck the Hall Ball 2011 Recap”