Dublin - Olympia Theatre - 21st November

majitzu
angel bean
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So that's why twitter was full of guinnes tweets, I dind't know it was a drink and was very confused. It sounds like you'all have a great time. Congrats both of you for getting your craft on stage :D
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mez29
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And a review from me. Having written this I can now only apologise for how long it is.

So I was glad it was a 2.5-hour train journey from home as I would have been so embarrassed if someone I knew had seen me in the queue (so much shame). When I got into the queue I was a bit eeehhh, felt about a foot taller than most people and I’m not even tall, definitely look too young to pass myself off as a parent, the number of people in the queue with cat whiskers, smh (I don’t know what I’d expected). Parents nearby seemed nice and genuinely looking forward to the evening, but I guess you would be if you’re going to spend 90€ or whatever to see a show with your kid.

The queue seemed quite calm (despite a minor police presence). It was less calm when we got in. Once the playlist was on, people screamed every time a song ended just in case D & P were about to come onstage. They screamed when a guy who looked a tiny bit like Dan if you squinted came onstage to pick something up off the floor, they screamed when the lighting was tested, three times, they screamed a lot when the cat whiskers came on the microwave. I didn’t know there was alcohol for sale, second biggest disappointment of the evening in retrospect. I didn’t know where the merch table was at this point either, although that became clear afterwards. The theatre was nice. I had a mum sitting in front of me to my right and a dad in front to my left. The girl who was with the mum kept leaning over to her to explain the references during the show, which I thought was nice.

They played the same announcement as ever about phones and spoilers, which seemed a bit outdated. I’m not sure many people heard it because there was a lot of screaming to accompany D & P’s prerecorded voices.

Finally D & P came onstage, and although I’d spent the last hour wondering why I’d chosen to spend the evening with hundreds of overexcitable teenage girls, I was just … really happy? They looked just like they look on YouTube, except Phil is more attractive. Dan and Phil IRL, idk, it just made me smile a lot.

Dan’s three facts about Dublin: it’s in Ireland (wow), it was where he got stroked by a security guard, everyone has a “beautiful Irish accent”. Dan, you know nothing about Ireland, smh. Phil had to do an Irish accent and it was terrible. Dan said that the audience had been really enthusiastic with singing along to the songs before they came onstage (true), and that the theatre had “snazzy chandeliers”. I hadn’t expected these improvised bits so close to the beginning, and I was impressed, they were delivered nicely. Made me think how those four years of liveshows must have really honed their improvisation skills.

On the first attempt at The Internet Is Here, I was surprised that everyone started singing along, but obviously it made sense that that would happen. Kind of would have liked to just hear them singing on their own, but they obviously felt good about having the audience sing with them.

I’ve written down “Irish sheep” here but I don’t know why—another bit of improv I guess.

They went back to the UK format (I think) for Phil’s weird kid stories: broken arm, fish boy, and then the one about Phil pretending he was French—got a few surprised reactions from the audience when that one came up on the screen. While he was telling the last one the screen switched to one of the audience submissions, the first but not last technical mishap of the evening. Phil handled it really well: he said “a weird kid seems to have appeared, you’ll see some of this in a moment”, and then went back to what he was saying.

Weird kid submissions weren’t that interesting, they were mostly about eating strange substances. Nice bit of spontaneous audience participation when the name Caoimhe came up and they asked the audience how to say it, so people were yelling it until Phil got it right.

Internet Support Group also had pretty mundane submissions, and a couple of them were exactly the same as ones I’d seen before, so probably from the official tatinof film. One of them actually reused the phrase “anime pit”. I’m sure there were some more interesting/original submissions than that, so that was a bit disappointing. The drink was Guinness [Irish beer, objectively the best beer in the world], which was great; people were chanting “chug”, which wasn’t so great imo, but Dan handled it really well, deflected it graciously, turned it into a joke about how responsible he was, even when the audience did it a second time, really professional.

After the JOHN CENA call at the end of ISG there was another one with Never Gonna Give You Up, which I hadn’t seen before.

7-second challenges: Dan had to do a rap about Shrek, he said something like “Shrek, Shrek, he’s the best, he lives in a swamp and he’s got a swaggy vest.” Nice. Phil had to name five typically Irish things: he said leprechauns, rolling hills, Taytos [Irish crisp brand], Dublin and jacksepticeye—sounds like he knows about as much about Ireland as Dan does. Dan had to say “Irish wristwatch” five (?) times and failed. Another technical mishap here: the clock on the microwave went funny and didn’t time one of the challenges, then randomly started counting down when they weren’t doing one. But they handled it really well, again. Phil’s next challenge was to do an Irish riverdance, which I was quite impressed by. Dan had to dab (sigh) fifteen times, which was obviously impossible. Phil had to say potato ten times [stereotypically the Irish eat lots of potatoes], and managed it. So Phil won and Dan had to instigate all or nothing, which from the sound of it is quite rare.

Magic show: the famous “choke me daddy” moment. Phil was doing the “I’m thirsty” gesture and Dan said “you want me to choke you daddy?” When Phil was drawing the bowling ball, he got it wrong and wrote BALL BOWLING and then had to do it again so it would come out the right way when he revealed the page where the ball was missing (sorry that wasn’t a great explanation). At some point after this part Phil made a reference to an “accidental front camera selfie”—he said something like “we’ve all done that, right?” Made me laugh as it felt like an overly clunky reference to the recent stuff about Dan’s front-camera-flash-selfie-gate, but maybe it wasn’t.

Crafts: Dan’s trolley started rolling away towards the front of the stage, and Phil gracefully leapt across to stop it as it didn’t seem like Dan was going to to begin with. One of the craft submissions was a tiny melapples and there was another technical error in that the wrong thing was projected onto the microwave, but they handled it well, again. Dan made a reference to his mistake with the Côte d’Ivoire/Ireland flags, appreciated. Phil had occasion to do an Irish accent again and it seemed a lot better (probably because he didn’t say “top of the morning” the second time—does anybody actually say that?).

Future pinof: as soon as they emerged from the microwave after the montage Dan said “endorsing Kanye was a bad thought in hindsight”. I was so pleased, I immediately wrote down OMFG in very shaky handwriting, and this was apparently the first thing I wanted to inform everyone about once I got back from the show. Dan had three more nice bits of improv in this segment that I noted: first one was when they were talking about the reformed One Direction and he said “even after they all had solo careers”; second was after the Niall Horan having his mind implanted into a potato one and he said “it’s a risky joke but we still decided to say it”, which I appreciated. The third one was after they came out of the microwave the second time and he said “time travel has made my hair curly”. Nice.

Fanfiction (or as the microwave would have it, “Fan Fiction”): the little car delivering the scripts didn’t make it all the way offstage so one of them (Dan?) kicked it away, which was amusing. Pirates won over cowboys by quite a long way, which made me think “aha, a sensible audience”, but space/camping was so close that they had to redo it. Space won, but then french girl won over cake by a long way. Sigh. Dan’s pirate eyepatch gradually rode back on his head until it looked like some kind of fringe extension, and he forgot to take it off before the Dil segment, so it looked like he had a weird misshapen black bit of fringe during that part. Dil gave the same speech, I thought they’d have changed “don’t mess up my relationship” since the wedding, but nope—like the “no spoilers” announcement, it was something slightly out of date that they kept in, a sign that tatinofeu is more of an epilogue than a major chapter imo. There was a minor line fluff here from Phil, but nothing disastrous.

I didn’t take any notes during the song because I was apparently too in the moment, but that in itself probably says it all. idk, people sang along, D & P looked fierce in those gold jackets, you know the story. Apparently I missed Dan being emotional at the beginning (biggest regret of the evening, definitely). I felt like an idiot applauding politely at the end while everyone around me was waving and screaming, but someone’s got to be inhibited (should have tracked down that wine).

In conclusion: they did the whole thing so well, so professionally, and seeing them in the flesh just made me happy and proud. It was kind of comforting to see and hear them irl just the same as they are on YouTube, I don’t know what I’m talking about, but yeah. I’m so glad I somehow fell into stanning these lads.
blueapple_x
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Thanks for giving nice lengthy reviews missemma and mez29! It made me feel nostalgic reading reviews again :D

Out of curiosity, what was the all-or-nothing challenge and the outcome since Dan won this time?
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missemma
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Mez, loved your review so much. It made me remember so many bits I had forgotten, such as Phil's Irish accent (terrible), dans curly hair and Dan kicking the car off the stage because it wouldn't move. Thank you for writing it down!
blueapple_x wrote:
Out of curiosity, what was the all-or-nothing challenge and the outcome since Dan won this time?
The all or nothing challenge was the usual 'become a dolphin and swim to the other side of the theatre, dan loses.
:prideheart: :gayaf: :prideheart:
blueapple_x
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^^ Ah ok. Thanks!
sweetmm
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Thanks mez29
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vincentian
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Thanks for great reviews missemma and mez29! It sounds like it was a special show.
Good to hear of boys enjoying the improvisation and how emotional the musical number turned out to be (also Dan is a liar for saying in a ls that he didn't cry/want to cry lol).
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DryCereal
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vincentian wrote:Thanks for great reviews missemma and mez29! It sounds like it was a special show.
Good to hear of boys enjoying the improvisation and how emotional the musical number turned out to be (also Dan is a liar for saying in a ls that he didn't cry/want to cry lol).
After a rewatch this morning, he says he wasn't emotional over the song.
Make of that what you will.
IckleMissMayhem's evil fic writing alter ego. :twisted:
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flarequake
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Great reviews missemma and mez29. I tried to remember all the different bits compared to the recorded show, but you've got it all covered. Seeing them live has become a little less surreal, but it was still weird when I thought "they're really real up there". It's a funny feeling.

I loved all the improv and how well they covered the tech slip-ups. Dan gave the car quite a kick, I wondered what the crew made of that or if the car's made of sturdier stuff. The screaming was impressive, there was a girl right behind me really going for it (I was a few rows from the back) and one to my left competing with her. At one point girl behind me really broke the sound barrier (yes I know, but that's the best I can explain the sound in my head at that moment).

The bants for things like Weird Kid and ISG was funny, I thought there were some good submissions and questions from the audience. Everyone telling them how to pronounce the name Caoimhe took a while as they heard "Kiva" at first and it took a few more shouts to finally get "Kima" (though I've just looked it up and Google tells me it is with a "v" so I'm not sure I heard it right either). Also at one point they asked the name of someone, which turned out to be Rachel, and it was just lovely having them both asking the audience things and everyone responding, that just makes the community feel of all of us and just the two of them so cosy.

Dan's response to "chug chug chug!" was good, he said something about peer pressure and then a firm, but nice, "No." and then similar when it started up again. Good man, great influence He made a face each time he sipped the Guinness, though, as if he didn't like the taste. I tried it once and it seemed to be just made of air and froth, there wasn't much to it so I don't understand the appeal.

Phil's dash and leap across the stage to rescue the rolling trolley was great, Dan really didn't bother at first and then slowly caught it before it got to the edge. The mini versions of the trolleys were so cute, I was trying to figure out what little metal or plastic things you can buy to make them. The tiny Melapples was adorable too, I hope they keep things like that tbh. Also the string of Dans, Phils and Dil by missemma and human was so cute. They coloured the clothes really well, the handkerchief tshirt, for instance, looked really accurate.

The Existential Crisis was the same as usual, but I like that part, how Dan goes down the rabbit-hole of his thoughts until he drops to the floor and Phil's expressions are good reacting to it all. Also how he deals with it, starting off more sympathetic and then having to firmly get Dan to listen to him, though still it's the car bumping into Dan that actually snaps him out of it. It was great to see at least the pirates and space options for Fanfiction if not the cake as well. I think it was during the space bit where
Phil kills the blow-up alien
that Dan went to stop him going too far and was standing behind him, maybe holding his arm? Forgive my trash heart, especially with Dan being bigger than Phil things like that are cute.

The Internet Is Here was just the best. Once he'd sung the first line and heard everyone singing with him, Phil's face lit up a little more and it was so precious. Dan was extra smiley throughout the finale compared to the recording on YouTube Red where he looks really intense. It's interesting to see how Phil, like in the recording, slightly looks like he's concentrating on getting it right, but you can still see how much he's enjoying it (same for both of them in the Boncas performance too).

It went so quickly, I'd been looking forward to the song and dance most of all and then it was done, but great to see it again.
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kuensukki
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I caught up with this thread and all your reviews were lovely thanks missemma, mez29, and flarequake
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peekatyou
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Thank you so much for the reviews Reading them made me feel as if I was there myself! Imagining Dan getting emotional over the last segment of the show brought tears to my eyes. And Phil was so happy to have everybody sing along! In the liveshow on Thursday Dan said he felt that was one of the best shows they'd ever done (‘in the top 5’) and the crowd was ‘great.’ So I conclude that the amazing chemistry between the guys and the audience has made for a truly great experience for everyone (even for me, and I'm just reading the reviews.) Very cool.
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