Tough

Listening to: My Brightest Diamond (Dark Was The Night)

Label launch parties, nostalgia trips and concert-carnivals. That’s the executive summary of this blog post for those of us suffering from social-media-induced ADD. Feel free to move along to the next distraction.

Oh, you’re still here? I’ll make this as succinct as I can then, mainly because it’s my bedtime in 15 minutes. I won’t be able to live with myself if I go another day without writing about some of the aural happenings of late, so here goes… three spectacular shows in 15 minutes.

First up, working from most past to least past, is the Breeders show at Bowery Ballroom back in August. Kim Deal is part of my Holy Trinity of Female Rock Stars (PJ Harvey & Kristin Hersh being the other two) and I was thrilled to be in the same air space as her for a couple hours. I first saw them waaaaay back in like 1993 or something at the old 930 Club in DC. I think Kim was wearing the same shirt.

Like in the olden days, they had their fun up on stage – I love all the goofy banter and antics, and they made technical difficulties look cute.

On the down side, Kim and Kelly’s voices are sounding a bit worse for wear. Whereas Kristin Hersh uses this issue to insanely fantastic advantage, the Deal sisters just sound kind of worn out. On the up side, they can still play, which more than made up for the occasionally faltering vox. You can’t argue with how fantastic Cannonball, Happiness is a Warm Gun and Drivin’ on 9 sound live. It was heaven.

The floor provided its own entertainment: 40-yr-old balding men attempting to create a mosh pit. Most of us in the crowd were just too old and honestly too tired for that shit anymore. But these guys were out to prove they still had it. And by ‘it’ I mean a chiropractor on speed dial.

I had strategically placed myself next to this hulking Serbian-looking dude with a slicked-back euro ponytail and a menacing look on his face. Or it would have been menacing if his face held any expression whatsoever. OK, so he stood there expressionless and rooted to the ground, and flicked off the aged moshers right before they got to me. It was like he had his own personal force field, and I was kind of barnacled onto it.

At one point a slightly more spry mosher jumped right into my Serbian Protector causing him to sway like a towering oak and me to almost get pushed to the floor. I grabbed onto SP’s bare arm with my fingernails and kind of dangled off it until I could right myself. His facial expression didn’t change at all. Tough.

Also tough – having to get up at 6am. Two more shows to come!