Lisa Frankenstein (2024)

IT’S ALMOST HALLOWEEN

I know I have like a bajillion moments that are all my “favorite thing P!ATD ever did,” but Halloween 2008 seriously ranks way up there.

THE SONG & VIDEO:

Rock Sound asked Ryan in fall 2008 what his nightmares were like as a kid and he said “I was walking through a jungle and there was Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolf Man walking around too. I don’t remember what happened; I just remember that they were always there.”

A fan who was hoping to meet the band after one of the mid-October shows was told by Zack that the guys wouldn’t be coming out of their bus because they were busy getting drunk and writing a Halloween song haha. I saved a note of that because I didn’t think we’d ever get to hear it… I was just going to add it to a list of things that I hoped would get leaked someday.

Right before the St. Louis show the band posted on their blog: “we’re shooting a video ourselves for a halloween song we wrote, and need supplies/suggestions, drop them off tomorrow and you might see them again before the 31st. it’s almost halloween!!” And then they added the edit: “we will be in St. Louis so bring any halloween stuff to the show, the video will be shot tonight and monday.”

the main rumor was that they were filming a Nearly Witches video.

it sounded like the party scenes were filmed after the St. Louis show. idk if Dashboard Confessional had much to do with this, but guys from The Cab & Plain White T’s were definitely there.

PATD had the 20th off, so that’s when they filmed the outdoor stuff near St. Louis. Ryan told Kerrang that the band went camping while they made the video. Zack complained the next day in Minneapolis about his bug bites ha. 

The picture above was posted on the band’s blog on October 24th with the caption “We wrote a song. We made a video. We did it all by ourselves.” Their next post a couple days later had the video.

You can see more of their blog posts here… the “Everybody SCREAM!” post on October 11th could show they had some lyrics done, but it was posted as a caption for a Ghostbusters edit. (The dates I’m listing could all be one day earlier or later btw depending on time zones & what you qualify as the next day… like I think 2am is still the previous day).

It’s Almost Halloween happened towards the end of the Pretty. Odd. cycle, so Ryan was trying to do more of the singing. The song also sounds closer to what The Young Veins did since that’s the stuff Ryan & Jon were writing at the time.

right before Halloween you could download the song from FBR’s webstore. The CD also got on there but I think that was a mistake because it was taken down. 

a friend sent me this recent interview with Spencer that everyone else has probably already seen… there were a couple new bits of info in there that were fun to hear!

A few fans had already started making their own versions of the video before the contest was even announced.

CONTESTS / PROMOS / “THINGS I DID NOT WIN”

Fans could vote on buzznet for which band member had the best costume. 

Northern Downpour started their Halloween video contest a bit earlier than the FOE one (as in before Halloween lol). NDP’s contest was different, but the entries were still entertaining (here’s the winner & second place video).

People created SO many fun videos – here are some that are left. 

Friends Or Enemies waited until like Halloween or the next day to announce their dance off contest… I just remember it felt like funny timing for making a video about how it’s almost Halloween. But here’s the announcement: “Since the band was new to the whole synchronized dancing thing, the Panic dudes want to see if you can do it better. Make a video to ‘It’s Almost Halloween’ with your own moves & upload it to this group now. The band will be judging & the video w/the best dance will receive some of the costumes worn in the ‘It’s Almost Halloween’ video. People wearing costumes will get more points.”

I would have absolutely loved to win Bden’s cape, but I’m also kind of grateful now that the deadline was too soon for a lot of us to get our potentially embarrassing videos planned & submitted.

Here’s the winning video. And then here’s the band’s message to them and the bundle of prizes they won:

THE SHOW(S):

The first time PATD played It’s Almost Halloween live was at the October 29th show. They also played it on October 30th (I liked this video the best but this one’s good too). The band had pumpkins onstage during the shows leading up to Halloween, but they added more decorations + costumes for the actual Halloween show.

this tombstone was the best decoration haha.

the first 1,000 people at the Halloween show got a cd of It’s Almost Halloween (it looked like the one in the black envelope in the picture above).

Brendon threw candy into the crowd from the pumpkin buckets :)

Jon & Spencer abandoned their masks after they played the first song (It’s Almost Halloween). Jon also had this hat at the meet & greet that he wore onstage for a bit (along with a beard for a short time).

Ryan skipped his hood but was stuck trying to play guitar with toilet paper arms. Here’s a comment he later made. 

Brendon loved his cape so much that it made me so happy. Fans talked about seeing him playing frisbee in the parking lot before shows in late October – he’d be wearing his regular clothes but had his cape on. He had to take it off after the second song during the show… and then his glasses disappeared too (but at least his shirt still had fake blood). 

Brendon sometimes changed the lyrics in That Green Gentleman this season, so he did it at this show too. He also messed with the Shout lyrics.

here’s a playlist of some videos from the Halloween show.

anything I post from Halloween 2008 will end up in this tag.

I combined some fan videos from the Halloween show to get a general idea of the night:

Erin Maxick/dusty @ live in denver

lady gaga macbook selfies 2008 💋

KERI RUSSELL and JJ FEILD in Austenland (2013)

dir. Jerusha Hess

CHRISTIAN SLATER ↳ 1990 | Pump Up the Volume

As part of her social media detox this girl on YouTube made herself do one hour of understimulating tasks every day and she just counted rice for 60 minutes straight because its no different from doomscrolling in terms of wasted time

Irises in Monet's Garden | Claude Monet, 1900

honestly they were so crazy for this