And I didn't even TELL you about British Sea Force. (Why do I want to spell British Brittish, every single time? Dear The English. Please don't take offense to my adding another letter to your country from time to time. I haven't yet met one of you I didn't like, and thats really saying something.)
I had never heard of them before going to the show. Caroline had said they sounded like something that sounded like something that I knew and liked. It was Tuesday. I'd read 3 chapters of Pre-calculus text and really gotten a firm handle on shifting graphs of functions. I wanted to go out.
We came into the middle of Kaito, who sounded a lot like Le Tigre, but a little less self aware and bored. The lead singer had that rocker girl haircut where her bangs come down to the bridge of her nose like a canopy.
(ALERT! DIAGONAL MOWHAWK IN COP SUNGLASSES JUST WALKED BY! If that's the guy from the hill I think it is, that haircut was a bad, bad move.)
Kaito was energetic and pretty fun. Annoying after a little while, but we only saw 4 songs of their set.
and then. Oh man.
B.S.F.'s tech guy started setting up. You know how some really complicated bands seem to be able to get their shit on and off stage in about 10 minutes, max? Yeah. Okay. BSF had a rack of guitars, 4 mics, a drumkit, and an organ. After all the equipment was on stage and tuned and checked for sound (17 minutes), they proceeded to dress the stage with foliage. A lot of foliage. 15 minutes of foliage dressing. And then 10 minutes of nothing but their equipment guy looking over things, casually, every 3 minutes or so. I was already annoyed.
I've got to admit that when the lights came up and the band was on stage, it looked like they were standing in the woods. It was cool, absolutely, but it wasnt 42 minutes of standing while nothing happened, cool.
And then there was music. Caroline commented after the show that they wear their influences on their sleeves, and their sleeves are jam-packed. This lent them to a really forgettable sound. They were talented musicians. I thought the lead vocal guy had a great voice and knew how to use it. The drummer looked like a slimmer version of Fred from Scooby Doo's Mystery Hour, and I wanted to take advantage of him before he even sat down behind the kit. Fred played the hell out of those drums. Crisp, clean beats with interesting little twists that really kept the guitar chaos in check.
That was the first 20 minutes of the show. I was mostly pleased.
And then the lead vocal stepped up to the mike and said "If you don't know who you're listening to, you can fuck off then. We like you, though."
It was the only thing he said through the entire course of the show. It was also the most emotion to ever cross his face.
Dude, you aint Devo.
The primary reason this annoyed me is this: I go to a lot of shows where I know very little about the band in order to learn about new bands. When bands don't introduce themselves at least once in the beginning and preferably once at the end, I don't know how to get any of their music, because I'm unsure who I just saw. Half the time, no one in a 5 foot radius of me knows who the band is, either.
The secondary reason this annoyed me is this: Who the fuck do you think you are, British Sea Force? Don't be a jackass.
And C: I had chemically prepared myself to enjoy the entirety of the show, but I hadn't planned on that big wait. The preparations I had made tend to assuage my general annoyance with everything, so the longer they went on, the more intense my annoyance became.
And then they started to jam.
And they jammed for 40 minutes.
And after all that musical foreplay, I thought they were finally going to spray guitar string all over the stage, give us a hug and go to sleep.
But they just kept pumping away. uuuuuUUUUUUPPPPPDDDddddooooowwwnnnuuuUUUUUUPPPPPPDDdddoooowwwnn.
And after another 20 minutes of that, I was Not high, Not impressed, and Not interested.
Sorry Dudes! You blew it! Or, if we're to follow the metaphor, you totally failed to blow it.
Patrickt and I are going to see Pretty Girls Make Grave tonight. A band that has yet to leave me hanging. Plus, we get to eat thai food and be done with the whole thing by midnight.
Posted by Sonya at February 27, 2004 11:18 AMwhat losers.
Posted by: erin at February 27, 2004 11:51 AMya, total losers. I once met Diane Byrum. She's like a sentor or some other thing like that. But back then she wasn't "anybody". Or at least not "anybody" that "everybody" would know. I was working in a red neck grocery store and she went through my checkout line and after I rung her up she said "Just put it on my account."
So I said "OK, what's your name?"
And she stared at me and yelled "DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!?"
If I'd been a little older - like my age now, I woulda laughed. Like really hard maybe even shot coke out my nose at her but I didn't, I just felt really crappy and said "Um, no I don't believe we've met."
Anyway, she's still trying to work her way up the political ladder now and I tell this story to anyone I can make listen because I HATE when people are like that. She wasn't the British Sea Force either... she was a total JackASS!
In my very limited experience, people who have to ask, "DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?" are most likely people I wouldn't WANT to know...
Once I actually responded to someone who asked me that by saying, "No. Don't you know who I am?", which of course just made them even more annoying, but it was fun!
Posted by: THE COMTE at February 27, 2004 12:04 PM Reminds of the night I stopped liking Mazzy Star.
Here's another hard-and-fast music rule (to all the BSPs and Ryan Adams and Hope Sandovahls of the world):
Don't be a Liza Minelli-level diva if you're operating on a John Cougar Mellencamp level of talent!
No, really, don't be shy. Tell us how you really feel. :)
Posted by: nathaniel at February 27, 2004 07:22 PMI 2nd that emotion on the dude t shirt! ya
Posted by: gin at February 28, 2004 05:31 AM