When senior Taylor Donahue was asked by her friend senior Zoe Vongtau to go to an Ed Sheeran concert back in 2013, neither one of them could have expected the friendship and bond that would ensue.
Four years after Donahue and Vongtau attended their first performance together, the duo has been to a combined 130, with Donahue attending 75 and Vongtau attending 55 concerts.
“I really just fell in love with being there,” Donahue said. “Just the environment and all the people at the concerts makes the experience so much better.”
Along with attending concerts, Donahue has found a love of camping out days before the concert to get a good spot. The longest Donahue has slept outside a venue was four days and three nights.
“It was the 1975 concert in May,” Donahue said. “We came Monday night, but left again on Tuesday to go to school. After school we came back and stayed until the concert, which was on Thursday.”
Senior Kaleigh Varney has accompanied Donahue and Vongtau to many of their concerts since freshman year. “Meeting Taylor and Zoe allowed me to find people who love concerts as much as me,” Varney said. “It’s just become a normal thing that we do now. It’s how we hang out.”
When camping out, the girls bring a six-person tent with them to each concert, which becomes the group’s home for the time they are sleeping on the sidewalk. They pack food or have friends and family bring some to them. While waiting for the concert, Donahue and Vongtau spend their time sleeping and making friends.
“You meet a lot of different people while camping out,” Vongtau said. “You sit outside with these people for hours, so you just start talking and soon you’re friends.”
The downside comes when the crowd is allowed into the venue the day of the performance and all the attendees are trying to push their way to the front of the crowd.
“The security sometimes gives us wristbands with numbers on them. That is the order they bring us into the venue to make sure no one cuts in line,” Donahue said.
Donahue even missed her sister’s graduation while waiting out for 31 hours for the Twenty One Pilots concert.
Both girls like waiting out before the concerts, but it also makes them anxious when they first arrive.
“You think that you’re going to be first in line because it’s days before,” Donahue said. “But sometimes there are already a lot of people there.”
Some of the best concerts the duo has been to include Hozier, Twenty One Pilots, Bastille, R5, Chance the Rapper, The Neighbourhood, Hippo Campus, and the 1975.
Of all the concerts the girls have been to, Vongtau says all of the concerts have been worth it, while Donahue only regrets one.
“There’s never been a time when I thought that I shouldn’t have spent money on that. I love every concert that I go to — except Toby Keith, but I went to that concert when I was 6. I regret that.”