6.2.09
7:14 pm
And thus it came to pass...the Busiest Weekend of My Summer.
Actually, the First of the Two Most Busy Weekends of My Summer.
By the end of work I was knackered.
Literally.
But I ate some Thai food and became a ninja, making it to Terminal 5 one minute after doors opened.
I entered with a throng of cynical, smarmy people and ended up dead center maybe fifteen feet back.
Then I stood and waited from 8:30 to 9:45 while goddamn nothing fucking happened.
No opener doesn't actually mean you get to see the band you want to see earlier, it just means and extra forty minutes standing in a darkened room.
Or so opines Terminal 5.
The fucks.
By 9:15, my back was aching and I was getting ready to just bite some of the people crammed into the place around me, but then, finally, Cake.
They opened with "Sad Songs and Waltzes" which is a down tempo, slow waltz and it seemed an odd choice, but then everything afterwards was jeweled gold.
They broke their 21 song set into two parts and that was a mistake because leaving you're slavishly dedicated audience (not only was the place sold out but EVERYONE was singing along with EVERYTHING) in the dark for twenty goddamn minutes tends to unexcite them; and then they came back on with "Daria", not a bad song, but it did nothing to get the energy back up. After that slower song that had another and another but eventually they kicked things back into gear.
Highlights included: "Guitar", "Love You Madly" (one of my favorite Cake songs), "Wheels" (ditto), "Italian Leather Sofa" (probably my favorite Cake song) and "The Distance" (not a favorite, but the band and the rest of the crowd seemed to think it was and they did give it their all so...).
Five of the songs ended in massively extended audience sing alongs conducted and orchestrated by John McCrea who cajoled, begged and commanded the audience to sing along.
They played two new songs (one sounding very "good Cake song" and the other very "Cake music for a popular movie soundtrack") and then said they were never releasing the album the songs were on because "people only want goddamn fucking ringtones".
Although McCrea was dour at times, talking about the apocalypse and the failing economy and "goddamn fucking ringtones", we wasn't as abusive towards the audience as he was eleven years ago.
Toward the end of the show they did their tree giveaway thing and that was...Cake-like.
They finished with "Jolene".
Oh boy did they.
During the sing along section, while the audience was getting into it, they turned off all the lights but some dark orange ones and two silver body painted girls wearing silver bikinis can out and proceeded to do a synchronized routine with hula hoops full of lights.
It was hypnotizing to the sober and world ending to the stoned.
Very interesting choice.
And their guitarist (named Xan) was a fucking animal.
He made love to that guitar and let us all watch.
I'd love to see him and Dan Miller in a Shred Off.
Aaaaaaaand speaking of Dan Miller...
Saturday was TMBG, but, before the show was dinner. Mark (Brubaker, Ange's hubby), Lisa and I went to Bamboleo, the same Mexican place Chris and Lawn and I went to for an earlier TMBG show at Le Poisson Rouge (it's practically next door).
It was...slightly awkward to be frank. Probably won't set that up again.
As we walked out, doors had just been opened and we went right in and took our place ten feet from the Linnell side.
Then we were subjected to Mixel Pixel.
Waaay to hippy/psychedelic for TMBG fans.
Eventually, they cawed their last and after a brief wait, TMBG took the stage.
It's hard to really be surprised at a TMBG show after you've seen them 50+ times, but they still managed to pull out some revamped chestnuts like "Subliminal","Thunderbird", "Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes" and "I Am Not Your Broom", performed by Flans, behind a broom, talking as the broom for a good five minutes.
It really isn't about surprise, more just entertainment. I know I'm going to have good fun at a TMBG show and it has yet to happen.
They also threw in "Birdhouse", "Don't Let's Start", "New York City", "The Guitar" and a few other songs of which I'll never get tired.
Didn't get "Drink!", thank God.
So sick of that fucking song...but they still slipped in "Damn Good Times". Not a horrible song, but if you don't get a show with "Drink!", you get a show with "Damn Good Times".
Oh well, I only have myself to blame. Maybe I shouldn't have seen them 20 times in three months that one time...
Then Lisa and I shared a cab with the first woman driver I'd ever had...and hopefully the last one.
She made such a fucking stink about making two stops, but when we said, "okay, if you don't want to take us to our destinations, let us out" she said, "and then I'll have to pay the meter" (which was at $2.50 plus $.50 for the thirty seconds we'd been in the cab).
This went on for about five blocks until I said, "Yes or no, are you going to take us to our destinations, yes or no?"
Eventually she grudgingly agreed to take our dirty, filthy money in exchange for, you know, a service that we were purchasing with our dirty, filthy money and we were off.
What a cunt.
You're a cab driver, shut the fuck up and eat the corn.
Then, silly billy goat, I played Infamous until sixish, then went to bed only to wake up again...
...for Colin's BBQ/house warming.
I awoke at 1:30, showered and left.
Then I ate a hundred hot dogs, hamburgers, corn on the cobs, grilled corn muffins (a stroke of nostalgic genius conceptualized by me and carried out by Lawn) and just everything.
Good times.
Met Colin's new roommates and the people that live above them.
One of them is a stone fox.
A fox templar to reuse a term coined, copyrighted and owned in perpetuity by me.
ME, MOTHERFUCKER, ME!
Then Lawn drove me and the Gold Berg back to my place for the fireworks commemorating the 45th anniversary of the Queensboro Bridge.
Yay?
It was wonderful on the roof, the fireworks were shiny and the gay folks on the top floor were stoned and flouncy.
All I could ever ask for.
Yesterday I played three hours of Scorched Earth.
Today I purchased the new EELS (because if I don't, who will?).
Tomorrow I have a dentist appointment (all covered by my not-really-for-White-Folks-but-we-can't-come-right-out-and-say-that insurance).
Thursday I will record something with the Tecate Light guys producers who liked my voice so much they want to use it on their own thing (THAT is how I know I'm doing well).
Friday I'm killing myself with another 11 am - 4:30 pm for to so I can to be present at my Nouf's birthday.
Saturday I'm going to New Jersey to see Nine Inch Nails.
Sunday I'm going to Long Island to see Nine Inch Nails.
I just read an interview in Mojo in which Reznor says this could be the last tour for A DECADE.
Jesus.
Hopefully he'll get bored and change his mind.
He did say there's a new album coming that will be less of an experiment in this or that and just have a lot of well-written songs.
Hey, after five years for "The Fragile" and six years for "With Teeth", as long as he has this one in before 2014, I'll be happy.
All right.
That's all.
Go away.
Movie's over.
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