Feeds:Saturday
LIES! There will be no sweeping critiques of the American South today, for instead I will arbitrate the case presented by The Electric Six last night at the Double Door.
Now, I had been having a Bad Day. I had been working on my project for Networks, an IM server, and I was a little stressed about it. Then a good friend accosted me angrily for blowing off her party for the concert. This was a bit hard to take, as I had told her about the concert a month ago, and she herself had even considered going, whereas the party had been organised earlier in the week. I left that conversation somewhat cranky. Next, about four hours before the concert, I got an e-mail from someone who had been planning to come to the concert, telling me she was going out with friends instead. I was severely non-plussed by this, but assumed it would be easy enough to find someone else eager to attend. It was not. Everyone was either out of town, had family visiting town, or unresponsive in the short window between my offer and the time I left for the concert.
On my way to the concert, I was thinking, "At least the day can't get any worse." I was, in fact, running through scenarios in my mind, trying to find one that would make the day worse. Get mugged and tickets get stolen? No prob, just go to the party. Get mugged and killed? No prob, I'm ready for that. But there was one possibility I hadn't even considered: Crappy opening band. This band, We Are the Fury, almost tipped me over the edge. A little prayer and the promise of the rockening to come keep me going, though. But this band. This band. Their instrumentation was actually pretty tight, but the songs themselves were uninspiring. The vocalist was no good, and the band's showmanship was bland when it was not outright disturbing. Maybe Brian and I just weren't their target audience, but we agreed on all these points.
Not so with the next band, the Gore Gore Girls. They were tight all around, from their tight riffs to their tight black vinyl dresses. Instumentation, stage banter, vocals, lyrical content, the Gore Gore Girls were spot on for their niche. It just happened to be a niche that I wasn't interested in. They were wedged tightly into the type of hard fast classic rock that lies directly in the gap between "classic rock that I like" and "classic rock that I like". Brian had no such disaffection, but we were able to agree that what they did, they did well. We disagreed, however, about whether the bassist or the lead guitar was cuter.
Then came a fast, efficient set change followed by an extremely long wait for the Electric Six to arrive on stage. I finally resorted to the cigarette trick to get them up and in action. Brian was skeptical on this method, but was proven correct. Within a minute, the band was onstage and jamming, the frontman wearing a purple cape with gold lettering spelling out SHOWTIME. They ripped straight into the lead-off track on the new album, "Showtime". Almost needless to say, their set was fantastic, full of energy. They played a well-formed mix of new songs and hits, keeping the crowd enthusiasm high. All the water in my body was gradually replaced with pure unleaded rockoline (0.08% ethanol). This lead to being pretty dehydrated, which, combined with the great heat of the packed venue and an especially vigourous and prolonged bout of headbanging, almost caused me to pass out at one point. Thankfully, I recovered and reined myself back just a little bit, since (a) I didn't want to miss the rest of the show and (b) I had by that point worked myself forward in the crowd to an area where the floor seemed to be covered in broken glass. Also, (c) I've never had to drink Pedialyte, and I don't intend to start at this point in my life. But, gasp, the set ended with a few hits still unplayed? How could this be?
Well, since they were obviously fishing for an encore, the crowd tried to do their part and cheer, hollar, and otherwise demand one. But, much like their original enterance to the stage, they were much delayed, to the point where the crowd had mostly given up and were starting to move away when the stage door re-opened. But what an encore it was! They took us to a gay bar and infected us with a dance epidemic, and warned us of the dire germanic threat to our southern neighbors. The chorus of "Sing, everybody, Deutsche Deutsche, vaya con Dios, amigos!" went on for almost five minutes, and I loved every second of it. When the four song encore (one from each album so far) was over, the crowd dispersed and I drank about a litre of water. With a copy of the new CD in my hand, I walked out into the night. Brian, Meredith, Hudak, and Nicolle were nowhere to be seen. I made my way home (after stopping to talk with some friend who I happened to run into) hung up the clothes I'd been wearing to dry, and took a shower. The only articles of clothing (including, I may point out, my necktie) not soaked through were my socks, and even those somehow smelled like cigarette smoke.
So, certainly not the best concert I've ever been to, but the Electric Six, at least, were exactly what I needed and wanted. As the arbiter of justice, I find in their favor.
Comments have closed.