Work today sucked. No two ways around it. I was just feeling awful all day, not only due to work but due to other external circumstances. But I'm not going to go into that right now. Suffice it to say, I really felt like crap, especially when I arrived at Mama's Mexican Kitchen only to find nobody there... we had a misunderstanding with Deb about when to meet, apparently. Anyway.
Eventually I ended up getting dinner there with Eli, and Megan and Josh, and my friend DJ (who the DDR crowd knows as Mighty Florist). Then we went to the Crocodile Cafe for the TMBG concert, where I ran into
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pauldf and a whole bunch of his friends. And much to my surprise I also saw
zannah and her James and some people. The original 5 of us sat around playing cards for an hour or so because the opening act was kinda blah. As a result, we didn't get to stand all that close to the stage, and I dunno if I should feel bad for DJ over that or not - he was apparently RIGHT up there at yesterday's show. Oh well. Anyway, I gave up on taking pictures and instead used the video feature on the Powershot to tape some audio snippets of the show instead. I got some decent ones I guess, but not many.
TMBG went on around 9pm, and here's the setlist of what they played (of course I wrote it down. What kind of oldskool Apollo-18-shirt-wearing nerdgirl do you think I am?):
Santa Claus / 4 of 2 / I Palindrome I / Your Racist Friend / Turn Around / Don't Let's Start / Wicked Little Critta / Meet James Ensor / Au Contraire / In The Middle / I've Got a Fang / She's Actual Size (complete with "shitty blues" and "dial-a-drum-solo") / Bed Bed Bed / Pet Name / Destination Moon / Ana Ng / Johnny Lee Supertaster / All I Have To Do is Dream (Spin the Dial) / Particle Man / She's An Angel / How Can I Sing Like a Girl? // Robot Parade / Istanbul (with Guitarmageddon intro) // Monkees Theme / Road Movie to Berlin
It was... an interesting spread of songs. I was floored when they played both Don't Let's Start and She's An Angel - the last time I heard either of those live was at least five years ago. I was also pleasantly surprised by Palindrome and Destination Moon - no, I haven't been following recent setlists, so I don't know what's common. At any rate, hearing She's An Angel just brought me back about ten years to the new year's eve 1993 show at TLA. I guess an interesting fact about me is that the first musician I ever had a crush on was on John Linnell (nevermind the fact that when I was 15, he was like 33). Like, I have a gazillion TMBG posters and stuff... and when I had to get a name put on a jersey for a youth group I was in, I actually had "C. Linnell / 20" as my name and number. I bet there's all of umm... two people reading this who might get why. ANYWAY, at the TLA concert, I was standing like 5-10 feet in front of John Linnell when he was singing She's An Angel. And it was perfect. And then some girl behind me started singing along. LOUDLY. In a really high-pitched voice. And it just totally ruined the song for me. At the time. But in retrospect it's pretty funny. So I started singing along tonight. And then I remembered the TLA. And I stopped singing. And instead I just let myself be flooded with a lot of memories. It was good. I miss
bk3c and
ag5j and Merion and the days when life was simple and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.
Oh ya. And they forgot a verse in James Ensor and screwed up the lyrics of Ana Ng. I used to think they did it on purpose but now I'm just wondering if it's just that singing some of the songs for 10+ years has started to just get so routine they don't notice snafus? Aside from that they did a lot of cool stuff. Like playing Pet Name with the lights off. And the Istanbul Guitarmageddon intro, and the "shitty blues" thing during She's Actual Size, and a lot of funny jokes I only wish I could remember now. And the little bits of song interspersed with their normal songs.
It's so weird to think of TMBG as being in their early forties. I don't know if it's just the birthday aspect of today, but it was like... looking around at the crowd at this 21+ show, I realized: shit, these are all the same sorts of people that used to be at TMBG shows with me ten years ago. Except now all the upper teenagers from the shows I remember are... almost 30 years old. And of course none of us have grown up.
I kind of wonder where a lot of the people I used to go to TMBG concerts with in high school are now. Like Greg Galcik, creator of the infamous Shpi-Dahh! shirt which almost got him sued, and Dan Wineman, who first got me listening to TMBG, and Doug Bright, who is one of the funniest and strangest people I have ever known, and Lizzie Dubroff, who had the honor of coining the line "Oh shit, I'm covered in sweat and none of it is mine!"... and so on.
Okay, I'm done with the babbling. Anyway, after the concert we met up with our friends, hung out for a bit outside, and then came home. And that's it. That's my birthday. Rawr. I'm older than I've ever been, and now I'm even older... yeah.
