I had a draft I deleted a while back about my reaction to new music. At the time, I was hearing new music and not getting it.
Like, severely not getting it.
It was at the point where if someone recommended something to me, I’d give it a listen and then question their company. That’s how bad my reactions were.
And it wasn’t just acts that were new to me. There was notably a new Sting song during this time and I just couldn’t get there. I’ve been a fan of his since the 80s and have probably seen him perform live more than any other act.
We’re talking dozens of shows.
That’s on top of acts I qualify as only having seen dozens of times. Enjoy that qualifier.
Eventually, it clicked…this new music. I can’t say I really got there entirely, but the impulse to turn off the radio dissipated.
I credit my Drinking Buddy and local radio station with getting me back into the flow of music.
DB got me to a couple shows either in his stead or when a buddy of his dropped out. Seeing old faves bring a new spin to the songs I knew and loved loosened me up a bit. It didn’t hurt that about this same time, KINK was re-opening their live performance lounge and I was getting to see acts that maybe I only knew one song perform.
Eventually, that last situation evolved into seeing people I’d never seen or even heard of. Then my musical stuffiness really receded.
Oh, the joys of actual music performances that I’d forgotten about in exchange for taking what was available to me at the turn of a dial.
It was that re-awakened old Xtopher that encountered the first airing of a new song by The Rolling Stones a few weeks back. My first thought?
Just what was recently called the worst remake in music history. Or was it least necessary?
Either way, I remembered it.
From 38 years ago.
I might have pronounced MTV dead at the end of the video when it aired then. Look who called it.
There I was, though, listening to Angry and liking it. A lot.
A couple weeks later, Hackney Diamonds – the full album – was topping the charts. DJs and music critics all around were gobsmacked and saying things like “Not bad for a bunch of 80-year olds”.
I’d have said octogenarians, but I have a wiser – albeit smaller – audience.
In the middle of all this hullabaloo something unexpected happened.
The Beatles released a new song.
The. Beatles.
Everyone, everywhere: Mick Jagger is 80 and released a new song!
The Beatles: Hold our intentionally warm beer, half our band are dead!
So…that’s my music arc here.
I’ve gone from resisting newness from acts I love to ambivalence to appreciating acts I’ve barely heard of killing it to acts we collectively assumed we’d heard the last of putting out new music…that I love.
What’s even happening now…am I living?
I don’t even care what the answer is as long as I’ve got the reality of loving the music I’m privileged to hear.
Ok, first…the Silver Fox isn’t dead! That said, he’s not yet out of hospital, this being day 15.
“What the fuck” does not convey the level of conflict I have over that length of stay. Mind you, this is also with no immediate end to the stay on the horizon.
My conflict is between relief that he survived an aneurysm and that his doctor said if he wasn’t in such good shape, he wouldn’t have. That last part sounds like praise for good living, but for a man who didn’t want to live past 75 because of his belief that quality of life decreases beyond that point…surviving without thriving seems less like a blessing than a curse.
Not to say he won’t thrive, but it’s hard to see that potential over the current horizon.
It hurts me to see him imprisoned in this limbo and absolutely cripples me to think that a worse outcome two weeks back might have been his unspoken desire.
Hence, the title. I can’t imagine having to let go of my life with him in it. But I also can’t see how he moves on from here. He’s stronger than I am, so I know he will show me how it’s done. Until then, though, I feel like his limbo is absolutely my own.
And since the titular topics are just too for me, I thought I’d share some nonsensical things that I can’t let go of that at some point during my recent move I held in my hand and thought, “I’m absolutely keeping this”.
Because I need that return to my regularly scheduled insanity.
Those cans are all empty. Well, that’s how I remembered them. Turns out the Izzy can was sealed with what felt like 1/3 of a serving, so I did let that go. The two Coke Zero cans were both sealed up empty.
Why in the Willy Wonka Hell can’t I just recycle them?
These assorted beads and ticket stubs. I may die alone in my loft like a shut in, but I guess these mementos prove I left my home at some point. I also tend to keep the Age Verification wristbands longer than I probably ought. Recently I added a couple of patient ID bands to that mix, but I think I finally divested that weird collection during my move. Or it’s in a drawer and I already forgot where I stashed it.
Real toss up, that one.
This festive wine bottle sweater and cap. This is the only bottle it’s ever adorned, so I guess I also can’t let go of that bottle. The bottle started as a reminder of a tasty wine I needed more of but have never found again.
If there’s a reason to get rid of these plastic dinosaurs, I can’t figure it out. Not that that’s a reason to keep them. My stubbornness is at an impasse, so here they are. If anyone even notices them, they never say anything about them. But I know they are there and it makes me happy.
The weirdest thing about these…keepsakes isn’t the lack of prestige these souvenirs carry. No, it’s that I’m kind of a natural purger. I have enough stuff to never be confused with a minimalist, but not so much to ever be mistaken for a hoarder. And all that stuff actually means something. Maybe it’s useful, maybe it somehow reinforces my style or identity. Heck, to that end, maybe it’s just quirky so I keep it around.
But this stuff is all basically – sometimes literally – garbage. And I can’t get rid of it…so I literally packed it and moved it from one home to another.
Clearly I’m mad as a hatter. Maybe more from pickling myself more than mercury poisoning, but still…
I feel like #stamperstartedit needs to join my hashtag lexicon. You see, this is at least the second time this year that I’ve thought that something needed writing about but had dismissed as “too charged” has shown up on his blog.
So, there this particular notion sat – in the dusty corners of my mad mind, collecting cobwebs. Until, that is, this fellow blogger picked up the theme and ran with it. Defying the odds of my insanity much like finding a disturbing truth to the old chestnut that “everybody has a doppelgänger”, he trotted out a post about – as he called it – junk. As I mentioned earlier, this followed another instance of him writing about something I was de-prioritizing in my drafts – which I believe was poop, but I’m damned if I can find the reference now. Maybe it was in another mutual blogger’s comment thread, as we tend to swirl around the same bowl of the blogosphere.
As you may have guessed from the emoji in the title or the euphemism “junk”, this topic is dicks. Feel free to pop on over to his blog to see his take on the topic before continuing on with my post to see where my thoughts on the topic go through the guard rails.
What is it about them that have us Stupid Americans obsessed with the topic?
Well, at least the men. Being men, though, we assume our obsession to be the one, true obsession for us all. See also: sports.
A few months back – told you I’d been sitting on this topic for a while (also, horrid phrasing) – I won tickets to a local artist’s concert. Her name is Julia Logue and she put on a wonderful performance. She also had what turned out to be an equally charming act opening for her. That woman also gave me a pleasantly surprising performance to add to my local music trove.
That this show ended up being at one of our (soon to close and relocate) more awesome small venues, the Doug Fir Lounge, made the prize valuable to me regardless of the quality of the show. It’s a special place. I’m interested in seeing how it manifests in its new location, but needed another trip to the OG space before it closed.
I perched behind the bar watching people and sipping beer before the show started. Since this pic of the googley eyes someone put up in that untrafficked – at least until I sat there to watch the interactions of the crowd – is the only one I have of the venue, you can see that I was not taking a bunch of pics. Honestly, I think I was back there trying to finish a blog post…haha, found it.
I love watching live music almost as much as I love watching people. This crowd did not disappoint. It had everything from a broad – no pun intended, given the female artists – range of ages among the attendees to a healthy dose of sexually ambiguous men for my visual appreciation to a diversity of socio-economic attributes in the crowd (seriously, should someone wear FMPs to a female singer-songwriter spotlight?) to…a gaggle of bros?
Of the foursome, one of them was quite cute. Another was an atypical non-white m, which stands out in the homogenized population of Portland. Yet another was built like Dr Frankenstein had an unknown double-major in plastic surgery or aesthetology, honestly, this guy was 6’6”, easy and built like a damn wall. Obviously, they kept dragging my focus back. Plus, a couple of them – Frankenstein’s Wall and the Unmentioned Fourth – were loud talkers, too. Even though I couldn’t make out what they were saying, their unintelligible booms – accompanied by overcompensating high fives – as well as their central location in my field of vision made them all but impossible to ignore.
Cut to me hitting the can after the show to ditch one of the beers I’d consumed during the show. I was walking, but I didn’t want to hit the midway point – also midspan on the Burnside Bridge – and get hit with a biological imperative that refused to be ignored.
The men’s room at the Doug Fir is located behind the merch booth, both of with are comically undersized when viewed through the filter of 300 concert goers. I squeeze by the group of women sizing up tee shirt options and consider picking one up myself – my new rule is, free tickets require a merch purchase to show support – but the offerings were pretty plain, so I kept on excusing my way through the shoppers to pee.
I open the door and run smack dab into the Unmentioned Fourth and Frankenstein’s Wall standing in front of the sink, talking. I excuse my way past them wondering a) how I didn’t hear them through the hollow core door, b) what they were doing, and c) whether they washed.
My money was on no.
I “peed” longer than I needed to once I heard the topic of their discussion. Frankenstein’s Wall was defending the size of his dick to the Unmentioned Fourth.
But, c’mon…we’ve all heard about body builders.
I peed longer than necessary because I was both wondering how the conversation got here and afraid that if I left the urinal while they were still hashing this out at the sink, we’d all somehow end up leaving together…and I didn’t want to be accidentally associated with them.
“It was alright and everything, I just didn’t get as big as usual because she just didn’t get me that hot, y’know?” Frankenstein’s Wall asserted to his friend. This earned his a non-committal response from his buddy – whether because he didn’t believe him or didn’t care I know not – and an exasperated shake from me.
Resigned, I buttoned up and made up my mind to keep my eyes down – at floor level, you pervs – wash my hands and GTFO, regardless of the crowd outside the bathroom doors, who I assumed had heard everything this micro-peen was scream talking about.
“You know what I’m saying, right?”
Yes, because this is my life, Frankenstein’s Wall had decided to crowd source legitimacy for his position by shanghaiing the affirmations of a random passerby. Bad decision for him since that passerby – or pisserby in this case – happened to be me. Before I rewarded him with my best Julia Sugarbaker homage, though, I quickly looked around for a hidden camera – because it is my life, after all.
“I’m gay, so I’m sure I don’t.”
“But it’s gotta be the same either way, right? No matter who you’re with, if they don’t get you turned on, you just don’t reach full size!”
Oh, lordy.
Ready?
“Look, dude…dicks change size, ok? Over the course of your life, temperature changes, health status or yes…even depending on how horny you are.”
“See? I told you!” he says to the Unmentioned Fourth.
“But how dare you put off your situational size or performance to how hot your partner got you. How misogynistic. And basic.”
Frankenstein’s Wall is standing there with his mouth hanging open. Not the response he was hoping to crowd source, obviously. The Unmentioned Fourth is smirking at the back of his head between him and the door and someone in the stall is openly chuckling.
I move in front of him to wash my hands. No way I’m dying in the bathroom without washing up after taking a whiz. Plus, I suspect these guys need me to set a good example.
“That poor girl isn’t the answer to your biological imperative” I tell his reflection in the mirror, “not that it sounds like you were even horny to hear you tell it. Plus, it’s not her job to ‘get you hot’. Plus, plus…that’s probably how you’ve left every woman you’ve climbed on top of feeling, so think about that. And lastly, if a girl doesn’t interest you as more than a cum dump, do yourself and fate a favor and just jerk off.”
I move past the Unmentioned Fourth, who is nodding appreciably, and reach for the door. Then I hit Frankenstein’s Wall with a Columbo moment.
Turning from my position in the opened door, I say “But this? This is exactly the type of conversation we need to mainstream in this country. Maybe if people like you knew it didn’t matter to anyone how big your dick was, we wouldn’t have the white male problems we do in this country. Gun violence? Racial violence? Domestic violence? Sexism? Women’s rights…all that comes down to the size of some white man’s dick, I guarantee it. And do try to be more aware of your surroundings when you engage in this type of conversation. A women’s music showcase is hardly the time or place.”
I swear that the guy in the stall yelled “Yeah!” as the door was closing.
How I don’t get beat up more often is beyond me. I suspect the Unmentionable Fourth would have defended me if shit got real. Fortunately, Frankenstein’s Wall seemed to be using 100% of his brain power to process what was happening and therefore couldn’t think to pummel me.
You all know by now how much live music means to me. It’s a factor in my well being. One I had let go of way too soon and had somehow convinced myself that hitting up a concert once or twice a decade was…fine.
Of course, it was a source of pleasure that was partially withheld because of the musical tastes of some of the guys I dated. I mean, Slipknot…really?!?
But after I stopped dating, I never picked it back up. Half a decade or so later, no one was going to concerts for a good 30 months, so everyone was on an even footing then.
It was during my temp gig era at the company I now work for that I heard that my local radio station was reopening their Live Performance Lounge – with the last artist to play it before everything shut down. Talk about poetic.
Well, I want in on that – Me
And that was pretty much it. I cried during that performance. I remembered two things during that show:
First: live music – good live music – is a communal experience. Not to take away from the energy of a crowd of strangers, but the performative cryers who absolutely lose their shit or throw a bra or…I dunno, but it’s not about them. It’s the connection the artist makes with the crowd for me. Are they phoning it in, just collecting a paycheck? Or are they there sharing the stories behind the music? There’s a distinct difference.
Second: do not underestimate the power of a small venue. I’ve been to probably two dozen shows at the KINK Lounge since it reopened and they are incredible. Some acts are big name artists that don’t have to do it, but I think crave the same connection with their crowd I’m talking about. Not everyone can pull a Freddie Mercury at Live Aid at Wembley out of their ass. Other acts have been relative unknowns – like catching Bono’s kid’s band when they rolled through town – or even acts of the sister stations in the building. It reminded me of the Portland experience of the 90s, just being out bar-hopping on weekends and stumbling wandering into a bar with a live band and a $5-10 cover that had a band no one had ever(clear) heard of and having a fanfriggintastic experience.
Well, let me tell you…I’m me – curmudgeonly flaws and all – so I usually go to shows alone. My drinking buddy – I think we’ll just call DB from here in out in a nod to infamous Pacific Northwest characters, as he is one in his own right – actually ended up triple-booked one night last summer and gifted me his ticket to Bonnie Raitt’s show that night. His fourth row ticket. That’s when it really crystallized for me: I don’t need to have a date to a show to justify going.
Since then, I’ve gone to two shows with him and taken two former Work Wives to a total of three shows at the KINK Lounge.
But mostly, I’m on my own.
In 2022, I spent $36 total on concert tickets and saw dozens of shows. This year, I’ve already seen nearly two dozen shows and I’ve spent…$12. Why? Because I wanted to see the top 5 new bands in Portland and figured it was worth it. It was a solid 60% worth it, with partial credit to a fourth band whose music <cough, cough> Slipknot <cough> was not my style but was still well executed. And that show was still the total 90s throwback vibe.
That was last Friday and Saturday and Sunday I had tickets to two shows at a new outdoor venue way South of town. I asked one of the Work Wives if she wanted to go and she committed to Saturday and volunteered to drive – sign of a good upbringing, IMO. Later she picked up Sunday, too when her fiancé flaked on her. On s holiday weekend. To go camping alone…like fiancés do.
A little back story, this Work Wife had kind of been bouncing around trying to find the right career situation for herself. Nothing is really sticking, and some of the situations are down right shitty. One job back, she was a Corporate Sales Manager for a “local” boutique hotel. They put her in the only below grade office in the place, between the laundry room and the trash. Her body did not react well to that environment and she was some kind of sick most days. Plus, leadership asked her why she wasn’t doing more site visits – and as if her office location wasn’t enough…<waves around vaguely at Portland sidewalks>
So she quit.
Sure enough, her constant hacking and nose blowing cleared up within days of her going to work for a company whose goal-models seem to be Enron and FTX.
Until this weekend.
She coughed and hacked all the way there and back in the car both days. At one point, she coughed directly in my face while we stood in line for food. There go those points she scored for being raised right earlier. Her parents were both in healthcare for Pete’s sake!
Whatever, though. Grass allergies had been all over the news lately and accidents happen.
Until I started feeling symptomatic on Monday night.
I cancelled my plans with the fam on the 4th and spent the day on the couch.
Today, I woke up feeling feverish. I couldn’t really tell if it was fever-fever or just my body temperature rising as I woke up. However, when I mentioned it to my boss, she insisted I take the day off. I had already taken some DayQuil and was mid-caffeination, so I kind of dragged my feet on it. Plus, it’s Quarter-End, the end of the First Half and the beginning of a new month, which meant there were time-sensitive things to do.
But I logged off after wrapping that stuff up by 11 and took the rest of the day.
I mention I’m still not feeling great – better, but not great – to the Silver Fox and eventually mention I’m worried it might be COVID, even though my symptoms are different than when I did have it. I’m delivering and fetching him from a procedure on Friday morning- maybe – but he was already off to the races, insisting I take a test and self-escalating to “I’m not getting in your car without a mask!” and “I need to find another ride!”
He doesn’t need me for these episodes, but I hardly help de-escalate his situation by being…myself.
I mean, if it’s COVID, I might die, but by all means, make your procedure the big issue here. <—that’s supposed to come off ironical.
Not that doctor appointments aren’t the main reason he comes to town. Well, and haircuts. And manicures for his dog.
But I’m delusionally happily in his Top 5 reasons to visit. And I’m sure he’d make an exception to come up for my funeral. Not to visit me in the hospital, because that’s an obvious cry for attention and he’d see right through that. And he practically insisted I go to his place yesterday since my AC is out and it’s in the high 80s/low 90s. But, again, if it’s COVID and he’s coming up Thursday for his appointment..,I’m not taking my germs on the road like that.
Anyway, that snark is all to distract me from my actual frustration with the Work Wife. While the SF was…I dunno…recreating, I was also texting her. I just casually mentioned that I’d been sick since Monday night and was worried she might be, too.
Very neutral. I tried to leave the door open for her to, y’know, own anything that needed owning. I get back an “I feel fine, can I bring you anything?”
Oh-feckin’-blivious.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I knew exactly what I was doing. The Gays re-wrote obliviousness with an overdose of innocence, and if I were straight and kids really were the STI I joke about them being? Well, the Partidge Family and Osmonds would have nothing on my brood.
All I’m saying is I know how to make a safe space for honest conversation – even though The Fox would not back me up on this after the crap I pulled on him today. And it takes two. All I can do is open the door and sit at the table. If no one joins me, well, I don’t mind my own company.
But someday The Fox will back my integrity up. Maybe in my eulogy.
I was just left aghast at the obliviousness and total lack of self-awareness it would take to allow yourself to forget you basically coughed into someone’s face.
Jesus. I would have been mortified if I’d done that. I certainly wouldn’t forget it anytime soon.
Anyway, after petulantly making the SF wait several hours, I gave myself a test. Because
I certainly didn’t want COVID, any more than I wanted to spend a dozen hours over the weekend with someone whose bubble prevented them from seeing a clear causal relationship between time spent with them while they hack and cough and the onset of sickness. At the same time, I remember how COVID felt last time – the words I used were “The recovery from the vaccine was worse than the illness”.
This was not that.
Still, test I did take. Mmm-hmm.
I still don’t know if I’ll be at 100% by Friday morning, but I have also already spun myself up for wearing a mask out of respect to my friend and the hospital. That’s an easy call, because I was raised right, and mostly it stuck.
So, then I went and celebrated by buying myself one ticket to the Cowboy Junkies show next Thursday. Gotta reclaim what started this whole episode in the first place, right?
I remember a phenomenon from my days in Kansas that still amazes me. Following a tornado, it was not unusual to witness stalks of hay sticking out of telephone poles at right angles. As if they had been blown at the poles with such velocity, they became lodged in them. Partial credit, as they were surely traveling at great velocity at the moment of impact. But that’s not how they became stuck. In a tornado, the centrifugal forces are so great that they basically twist the pole, stretching or unwinding it’s fibers enough that projectile hay that hit it in the moments the pressure was weakening and the pole returned to its normal shape become stuck.
I’ve observed a similar – sans pressure – occurrence in my own home. But instead of hay, it’s cat hair. And instead of whizzing around under pressure, it’s just drifting idly through the air. Somehow under these conditions, it still manages to weave its way into my blankets, towels and clothing.
Every now and then, I get the impulse to break out the vacuum to suck up the cat hair dust bunnies. But that would traumatize Myrtle, so I just settle for the less effective collection method: sweeping.
I clean out my dryer vent regularly between uses because I was raised right. There’s always a nice pad of fluffy white fur accumulated. Despite that habit, I still pull clothes out of the dryer with cat hair on it. Generally, I attribute it to some variation of the hay phenomenon.
However, it happened again this morning…with a concert tee-shirt I had just bought last night and laundered do I could wear it to today’s show. I know, that’s a lot of concerts in a weekend – just the tip of my entertainment iceberg for the weekend, too, but that’s another post.
So not only was a garment I’d owned for less than 12 hours coming out of the wash with visible cat hair attached, Myrt also chose this morning to do something she hasn’t done in weeks: cuddle on the couch. Literally minutes after I’d gotten dressed and sat down.
No way I’m buying this was not intentional. Just look at that defiant glare.
And the anticipation is killing me. Figuratively, of course. I can’t wait to see how the shoes drop, though.
Here’s the deal, you know me and my winning free concert tickets, right? Well, if you don’t – trust me, it’s a thing. My thing. Just take a peek at my “Live Music” hashtag.
So, anyway, the local station I listen to – KINK – is having a ticket giveaway that they’ve dubbed KINKapalooza. Every week for three weeks, they’re giving away a pair of tickets to 10 different shows this summer. And there’s ~40 to choose from, so you can really tailor it to your (my, dammit…just putting that out there) schedule and taste.
The first winner (me, obviously) will be announced this morning. And yesterday afternoon I was going to their website to enter my keyword and saw this
I’ve been watching this show for months. And by watching I mean entering to win tickets – trust me, I’ve entered my ass off for tickets. Crowded House was a band that came into popularity my first year of college, so it was cool to discover a new band as a newly minted independent adult. Mind you, I was familiar with the brothers Finn’s first band, Split Enz, but only tangentially. When I heard Crowded House on the radio, they were both familiar and at the same time new and interesting. I bebopped my ass right down the the record store and bought their album on cassette.
Later, I bought it again on CD.
So, there I was…wondering if I should just wait out my original entries and the Monday or Tuesday email telling me I’d won Crowded House tickets or enter this Last Chance contest to possibly boost my chances of getting there.
Or as a third option, just wait to find out that I’d won the KINKapalooza tickets and make them one of my options. Right? Options, I had.
And then…it all came crashing down.
The realization of it all.
Thursday is May 4th, which, as a geek I celebrate as Star Wars Day. If it needs to be said, I’m not kidding.
Here’s where it gets messy in case you didn’t pay close attention to the Crowded House pic above, the show is Thursday, May 4th.
Because I come by my nerdiness honestly, though, I’d also accepted a sibling invite to go on a May the Fourth Be With You pub crawl with my good brother, my sister and her hubster.
In Bend.
Now, obviously, I’m going to that fucking pub crawl, right?!? My sibs trump free concert tix. Even for such a formative – you thought I’d say seminal, dincha? – band for my nascent (at the time) musical tastes.
But just watch me win direct tickets. It’ll be a real Sofie’s Choice, but I’ve already thought it out and decided the sibs are the no-brainer choice.
But since the pub crawl ends at 8 and concerts always start late, I’ve got to go look up plane tickets from Bend to Portland on the 4th. Maybe I can get one with a Luke Skywalker flight attendant.
I feel like my most recent posts could have seemed complain-y. I think folks who know me or at least get me understand I’m a verbal processor, to which this exercise contributes.
Not to mention it spares my friends a lot of one-sided ranting about nothing.
People who know me will also understand that I notice patterns. Not in a full Rain Man card counting type of way. it’s more of an I did well on those standardized tests in school we used to have to take when graduating and going to a good school was a parent’s dream for their kid. Now, I think parents are happy if their kids finish their school career with a pulse, but that’s another blog.
So, anyway, when I notice things, I like to talk them out. Especially when it’s something inherently annoying I notice someone doing. And then someone else. And someone else.
Nonetheless, I felt it was time to show a little less attitude in a post and a little more gratitude.
Or…maybe I could do both!
If you’ve read this blog over the past year, you’ll be happy to know that the 2022 streak of free live music has carried over into 2023. It’s actually expanded slightly.
2022 actually ended with a show I was excited to see – Modest Mouse – ending up being really awful. It’s so much of a disappointing memory, I was ready to go back to not bothering with live shows.
Then I remembered that I’d won tickets last November for a show in March of this year and felt really conflicted about not using them. On the one hand, it was someone I’d never heard of, Unknown Mortal Orchestra. On the other, I’d seen some free shows for bands and acts last year I’d never heard of that turned out to be great experiences: Tigirlily Gold and Noah Kahan to name two who have gone on to have quite a year.
Between Modest Mouse and UMO, there was a lot of gratis ground to cover! From kicking off the year with a free Literary Arts lecture as a stand in for a traveling friend, to The Lone Bellow (amazing), Daniel Seavey (left because he was an hour late), Vance Joy (insanely good, really wished he’d played more than 3 songs!), Inhaler (I was offered ear plugs, these guys absolutely ripped it up) and then bookending my free live music with a private screening of the new Matt/Ben movie Air, which was just a lot of fun for the hometown connection.
But my favorite show of the year – I’m going to say “so far” – was The Dandy Warhols.
A) Because they are also a local Portland success story. B) They were doing something unique, playing with the Oregon Symphony. I’d seen other acts I love do this, but never an alt/punk act. It doesn’t lend itself to orchestra accompaniment as well as some of the adult contemporary or singer/songwriter acts I’ve seen do this, but the more die hard fans didn’t seem to mind some of the more dissonant moments of the show that I didn’t care for. C) Zia McCabe had a Chris-near-miss a while back.
And when they performed what is arguably their biggest hit, they absolutely killed it. Old people were dancing in the aisles – and it was particularly dangerous because these are sloped theater aisles!
Sidebar: a song by one of the last acts I saw at the KINK Live Performance Lounge just came on the radio – Inhaler.
If he looks familiar, it’s because his dad is kind of famous, too…
If you closed your eyes, you’d have sworn Bono was right there in the room. I’m sure he doesn’t love that comparison, but it thrilled me. I hadn’t seen U2 perform in decades and never in an intimate setting like this, obviously.
But back to the story. My favorite thing a bout seeing The Dandy Warhols was my arrival.
I actually won the tix – don’t worry, I went alone even though I won a pair – while I was driving around one night and one of the DJs, Gustav, did a call in interview with Zia about the show. Afterward, he pulled the whole, “If you want to see the show, gimme a call” thing, so I did. And the son of a gun picked up!
So my tickets were at Will Call. I go up, they’ll the guy my name and he hands me my envelope – and then says, “Hold on a second, there’s another one!”
I thought it weird that they would put the tickets in separate envelopes, but whatever. I’m opening my envelope as I head to the GA stairs – because a friend of mine told me free tickets are always in the nosebleeds and I believed it – and there’s two tickets in the envelope. And they aren’t nosebleeds…they are Orchestra! Score!
I open the second envelope once I get to my seat, curious about why there were two envelopes with my name at Will Call. My guess is that it was just a duplicate. But the tickets are different seats. Also Orchestra, but a few rows closer to the stage. I’m sitting in U and I think the other pair was on the other side of the venue in row R. I muse that I could move at intermission and get an offset stereo experience.
Then my neurotic ass chooses to feel guilty that Gustav had put my name on someone else’s tickets and they were gonna be left high and dry at the door. This is also when the orchestra starts walking out into the stage.
I’m conflicted. I’m also wondering if someone else would arrive later than I to an event like this – most of the shows I win tickets to are at General Admission venues with no seats, so I just go at showtime and miss the standing around alone part of the show. Then I notice something different about this pattern of tickets for me:
Do you see it?
My tickets for the seat I was in said $0 – truly comp tickets. The second set cost $49 apiece. My neurotic ass kicks into high gear, worrying that I derailed someone’s date night. Surely someone wouldn’t arrive later than I do to an event on a date!
That all comes to a screeching halt when I realize that maybe there’s more than one me in Portland.
It can’t be, I think. Last time I checked, there was only three men in the entire country. Me, Chicago me and Tennessee Me. Or was it Kentucky? Doesn’t make much of a difference at that particular point…it’s splitting a fine hair.
Mind you, this was back in the days of MySpace that I was looking up myselfs.
Clearly, it was time to look into this further.
LinkedIn found another me right here in Portland –
That’s weird.
Also, this guy in Oregon City, courtesy of The Knot –
So in a moment (and 20 years, give or take) I’d gone from being one third of the mes in the country to being one third of the mes in my hometown!
I felt about as unique as a Pitt in Neosho, MO. And since one of these guys sounded pretty well compensated from his LinkedIn profile and the other I learned about from a wedding registry site, I felt a lot like the lesser Pitts in Missouri – less successful at life.
Well, shit.
Suddenly I was less concerned about possibly disrupting someone else’s date night. I kid. I was still worrying about that. At intermission I tried to see if those other seats were occupied, because I know people get email receipts and theaters can reprint tickets – and they weren’t. Maybe they’d gone to the bar.
I’ll keep on keeping my eye out, too. I’d hate to be the last of Me to find out this was a Highlander situation…
Don’t make it dirty. I know that’s hard if you’re at all fagmiliar with my shenanigans, so I don’t blame you.
Maybe I should title this Bookends? Nope. That doesn’t work either.
And really, this turns out to be a surprise triple-header, anyway – if we carried the analogy through to the end. Does that ever happen in sports? I don’t know anything about it, really. I went to a double-header baseball game last summer, but that was just for my dad…and after a couple innings, meh.
Boys in stretchy tight pants only go so far as far as my attention is concerned. It’s like, how many times do you want to consecutively have the same thought as Bill Murray in Caddyshack?
Wow. I’ve wandered rather far afield. Shocker.
What was I saying?
Oh, yes. The double-header.
A couple months ago, my local radio station got a new DJ – Iris. She does the 8-midnight. At 9 pm she does a new music feature where listeners are encouraged to give it a thumbs up or down vote and maybe you’ll win a pair of concert tix for your effort. This particular night she was giving away Barns Courtney tickets at the Wonder Ballroom.
While I was there, I decided to enter my name into the guest list drawing for the band’s appearance in the station’s Live Music Lounge, figuring my chances of being one out of ~100 winners was better than the one out of one winners for the show at the Wonder.
Remember, this is all happening against a backdrop of the country losing its mind over a Powerbottomball jackpot that built to $2.04B, so odds and chances were on my mind.
Well, a day or two later, I get an email from the station.
That’s right. I was the one of one winner!
And if the title hasn’t clicked into place yet, a couple days later I got the email telling me I was on the list for the lunchtime show in the Live Music Lounge, too!
Double-header!
Well, the on-air talent that hosts the events in the LML usually warm the crowd up with a little trivia, prizes are…concert tickets.
I wasn’t particularly interested in the first couple bands because I don’t really know them. The Barns Courtney show was enough adventure in expanding my musical palate since I couldn’t name a song of his off the top of my head. I always like them when I hear one, but it’s just not in heavy rotation. Musically, I’d put him somewhere between Cage the Elephant and The Heavy.
Unintentional entendres.
The third question offered tickets to Arcade Fire, which is a band I’d love to see…but it’s in Shittatle. But the fourth question offered an opportunity to stay home and see a great hometown band: Modest Mouse. So up went the hand, and – thanks to my knowledge of arcane news from New Mexico circa 1947 – I won.
The answer was a weather balloon incident, by the way.
Turns out, they would have also accepted alien crash-landing, but c’mon.
Then it was showtime.
These guys took the stage and I found out that they don’t fuck around.
Barns Courtney came out last wearing all off-white, down to him platform boots. Even the sunglasses, long beads and scarf he accessorized with were off-white. Only the (hopefully faux) fur betrays the color scheme – but it really brought the outfit together.
This guy definitely dressed like a rockstar. And his mouth looks like proof that somewhere Steven Tyler’s or Mick Jagger’s blood line has mixed with Carly Simon’s.
This is a small venue. Smaller than small. Barns Courtney filled the space with his persona.
Physically, the stage barely held the four of them and their drum kit and took up an entire wall of the room. In Barns Courtney, apparently if you don’t play drums you’re required to play guitar – so add three of those to the mix.
Seriously, this is at least 20% of the space –
This band is everything you want from a rock band. Literally, sex (look at them), drugs (you had to hear the interview to understand) and rock-and-roll (obvs).
Here’s a dump of the other pics I snapped during the show.
I have to say, this five-song set left me both sated and ready to finish out my work day and eager to see what they could do in a full venue. As showtime drew nearer, I debated not going to the show. I had a friend lined up to go, but they’d backed out – no doubt for a chance to get dicked down if their current track record is any indication. Indickation?
There was another friend who’d accepted an invitation I hadn’t extended who I knew was disappointed to not be going, but I just opted to go alone. I’ve been in a weird space lately anyway, so being in a crowd was likely going to overwhelm my tolerance for people without adding in the feelings and needs of someone I know.
I forced myself out of the house. First the the local watering hole for a pre-show drink. I shocked everyone there by closing out when my beer arrived, which only made me want to stay. But I’d had my motivator-slash-reward, so across the water I went, entering the venue about 815 for the 830 show.
An opening band. Who knew? I was not expecting that. I honestly didn’t think Barns Courtney was big enough to warrant an opener. So that was my Today I Learned moment.
They were a foursome of kids from Oakland. I mean kids – I swear they weren’t old enough to drink, even though I also swear I saw one of them tipping back a beer as they broke down the stage after their set. He was also doing it while carrying the pad from under his drum kit under one arm and the stool he’d been seated on, which had a water bottle balanced on it.
That right there is a dexterity that barely outlasts one’s teen years: first you’re all gangly and uncoordinated as you recover from your puberty growth spurt, then you’re running around doing impossible feats that lead to the words “Hey, watch this!” escaping your mouth and then you’re dead. Either because your last words were “Hey, watch this!” or you hit 30 and life is figuratively over.
Anyway, these kids were surprisingly good for an opener. Kinda a one-key sound, but the drummer and guitar players put on a show to offset the lead singer’s narrow range. I’m not complaining, that one-key was reminiscent of some Deathcab/Postal Service songs.
Nothing to complain about there.
But the highlight of their stage presence – and further indictment proof of their youth was the statement “Thanks to Uncle Kevin for letting us stay at his place tonight”. These kids aren’t even old enough to rent a hotel room. Haha. Ha.
Then the headliners room the stage.
Well, first their stagehand spent 40 minutes dicking around with equipment, making sure everything was just so. Their name – intentionally keeping pronouns neutral for them, dressed masculine-ish, but if I learned anything from Shakira, it’s that hips don’t lie – is Sexy Patrick. I’d been introduced to them at the afternoon show when they brought out a guitar for Barns Courtney and picked up their discarded sunglasses from the stage floor and got a load of what I hope was good natured teasing. Sexy Patrick demurred the attention, but it’s hard to know why. The nice thing is that you got some insight into the process behind putting a show on. Maybe I shouldn’t refer to it as dicking around, but I was getting a little antsy as the venue filled up with people who apparently knew there was an opening act. I had chosen my spot intentionally.
I think it’s there so people don’t accidentally get pushed down the stairs right there. Maybe it’s there to provide grumpy old men like me a place to stand alone amongst strangers – without being too amongst. Who knows?
For the second time that day, I watched Barns Courtney take the stage for a show. Well, the band took the stage. Drummer and the two guitar players proceeded onto the stage and settled in. As soon as they beat out the first couple of notes, Barns Courtney exploded onto the stage. Seriously, from behind a curtain at the back of the stage, he leapt in a seemingly blind fashion onto the stage.
“How does he do that without falling?!?” – Me
It’s not accurate to say that this was the least dangerous thing he or the band did all night, but my curiosity for how or what they could do with a full-sized stage was definitely answered over the next 60-plus minutes.
And I’ll tell you now that my camera skills are not fast enough to catch the antics. As if the quality of my photography didn’t make that obvious. I did manage to catch one of the guitar players on top of a speaker, though.
It doesn’t come through as well as when they were both on speakers at opposite ends of the stage. Or when Barns Courtney stood on the drum kit. Stood. This was a sustained position, not a hop up and get pulled back down by gravity moment. He maintained position until he was done with his musical moment and then leapt back to the stage.
In platform boots.
Pretty amazing showmanship from these fellas.
They’ve got the talent and presence to have a long career together – like the potential father of the lips bands. But who knows what the future holds? I don’t see 20-something musicians (or any Gen Z-er) having the discipline to maintain a lifelong relationship of any kind, even if it involves fame and fortune. But I’ll definitely remember these shows for a good long time.
I’d had a good enough time, and even though I’d gotten Doris Day parking – I was ready to go. I’d heard every song I thought I knew, so I started heading for the back when what felt like the final song began. I don’t know if they did an encore or not – but I had to stop in spite of my grumpy old self before I hit the doors just to appreciate how this guy whipped his audience up.
I don’t see how this larger than life persona could be brought to you by anything but exactly the right amount of cocaine – but I’m glad o got to witness it.
Twice.
Two weeks until Modest Mouse – with a potential for a short set by Noah Kahan next week in the Live Music Lounge. I’m eager to see how this year of mostly free entertainment wraps up!!
You ever wake up and just briefly consider the reality of your situation could simply be that Pam Ewing is really out there somewhere, dreaming nightmare versions of people’s lives?
To refresh memories or fill in pop culture voids…Pam Ewing was Bobby Ewing’s wife on Dallas. No, the original version. Season one ended with Bobby being killed. Season two was a shit show and season three started with Pam waking up to find her husband showering after a particularly vivid dream…of the entire second season.
The audacity!
Or that maybe you are her, and one morning you come to wake up to find that the worst was all in your subconscious?
Absolutely insane. It was almost enough to wipe our collective consciousness clean of Fonzi jumping a shark on water skis. Almost.
Anywho. I swear that’s me lately. And, frankly, I don’t know why I haven’t made time to buy a lottery ticket.
This life that I deride and take for granted…well, it’s serving me constant reminders lately that while the bad stuff may not be going on in Pam Ewing’s dreams, it’s not the star of The Xtopher Show that I call my life.
Cases in point:
I think I mentioned I was going to another free concert a week or so back. I was incredulous to have notched another free pass onto my 2022 entertainment belt.
And it was incredible…despite a rocky start.
The Shins were playing two shows downtown and I had won tickets from a local radio station. I had said I wanted tickets to the Friday night show, giving them Thursday night to warm up. I got my winner’s waiver the Monday after winning my tickets and was told further info would follow. It did not. Well, by the day before the show, I finally double-checked that I’d submitted the waiver correctly and then sent an email to the station that I’d won the tickets from using the “contact us” link on their website.
Several hours later, at around 2:30, I got a BCC email from the station saying “Congrats Winners!”, leading me to believe someone was having a really long Monday at the station. It went on to tell us that our tickets would be at Will Call and the gates were at 5, show at 6…that evening.
My mental needle skipped.
Luckily, I live about 9 blocks from the venue. I worked until 4:45 and then set out on foot for the show.
Turns out, the venue is all General Admission. Still, when the guy asked if I needed both tickets – after watching me walk up alone and casually scanning my area as he went through my info – I said “Yes”.
What? I wanted them both. I was definitely going to find a way to take up two spots in GA. Plus, that was just rude, right? It’s not like I had a bogey hanging out of my nose and he asked if I wanted a Kleenex. No, this was him rubbing my nose in my solo-ness. Boo, sir.
Because it’s Portland and this venue is a public plaza when it’s not a venue, there were food carts on the periphery of the fence. I hadn’t eaten, so I grabbed a huge sandwich for $12 and a 16 ounce beer for the same price. That amphitheater where I saw Styx can shove it’s $18 beers right up it…area.
I sat on the brick wall at the back of the venue and ate my sammie and drank my beer while the opening band did its thing. It was another Portland band (I know, The Shins are from New Mexico, but they’ve been in Portland long enough to be called locals) named Joseph. Two sisters with a third woman make up the band named for the Oregon town the sisters’ grandfather was from. I’d heard a couple of their sons on the radio before and liked them, but their 45 minute set was amazing. It’s really just guitar with the sisters’ amazing vocals and that’s it.
I was so mesmerized that I barely noticed the Guy Candy that was obviously hitting on me sat right next to me to nosh on his own sando from one of the carts.
Joseph’s set ended and the roadies started prepping the stage for The Shins. I figured I better grab another beer and stake out a place to take up two places near the stage. While I was in line, a true Portland weirdo native offered me a picture of her cat out of the blue.
My guideline when dealing with Portland’s kookier kooks is “humor them, they might be dangerous”, so I took the proffered pic. It’s now hanging over Myrtle’s food station, just to keep her on her toes. A reminder that there are other cats in the world – versus mine, who seems to believe a week isn’t complete without at least one protest poop or other non-litter box evacuation.
This was me, sipping my fresh beer in my taking-up-two-spaces space by the stage; reflecting on the Guy Candy, the Crazy Cat Lady and watching the sun set while nervously eyeballing the 20,000 crows flying around looking for a place to roost when someone tapped my shoulder.
No, it wasn’t Guy Candy guy. I’m lucky…but not that fucking lucky.
It was Sarizzle, someone I’d worked at Sur la Table with when I lived in Shittatle. I ran the market’s hero store in Kirkland (yes, it’s a real place!) and she ran the original store in the Pike Place Market. I knew she’d moved back to our mutual hometown, but we’d never managed to connect. Just two natives catching up on social media now and again. We hugged and caught up in real life a bit – while I behaved awkwardly because I was still in all my WFH glory and now turn into that person who runs into people they know wherever they go. Eventually, she said her goodbye to go back to her husband as the roadies started wrapping up and the stage hands started turning instruments.
Actually, after running into not one, but two groups I knew at the Bonnie Raitt show…maybe I am one of those people who runs into people I know figuratively everywhere I go.
Not long after Sarizzle left my to my own devices, The Shins took the stage and didn’t give it a rest for about 90 minutes. Their music has a pretty chill vibe, but the lead singer’s voice is haunting, something I figured was a product of some sort of modulator. I still think that, but was impressed that they were able to replicate it in real life.
Their set was so good that for about the first half, I was convinced at a minimum the lead vocals we lip synced. Joseph had come out to sing back up after the first few songs, so I knew it wasn’t the whole setup, but just how was it possible to recreate the lead singer’s otherworldly vocals?!? I enjoyed clicking off the hallmarks of live music that occurred in the set to disprove my suspicion that the lead was dubbed. Just crazy little tics, like singing toward Joseph at the back of the stage and losing the mic’s pickup briefly – nothing too overt.
I enjoyed watching the crowd really get pulled into some of their bigger hits and take over the heavy lifting of vocals or just get caught up in a call and response with the band.
But I’m a native Portlander and I go to shows to watch the show, not be a part of them. To that end, I stood there and tapped my foot, swayed a little and clapped after every song. That’s it. A true Portlander would never risk diminishing someone else’s experience by being overly enthusiastic. I’ve actually been to some fantastic shows where virtually all the crowd did until the end of the show was sit there and clap between songs.
Playing Portland must be an interesting experience for musicians. Well, not as weird as it was back in the day…there’s so many transplants now that the overly polite Portland crowds have been somewhat diluted. Sarizzle and her husband eventually crept closer to the stage and I saw her being true to our concert-going DNA, too. Her husband would occasionally throw an arm toward the sky or do that rhythmic hopping that people do at concerts, but she was doing pretty much the same low key sway in place as I.
The tour was basically a 21st birthday party for the band’s first breakout album, and they played it all, with a few extras sprinkled in here and there. At one point, the band riffed on Rod Stewart’s Do You Think I’m Sexy for a few lines between songs. Just, out of nowhere fun – for them as much as us. No one knew where the idle strumming was going until it careened into that pleasant little surprise.
Another fun moment happened during the encore – unlike Bonnie Raitt, I stayed for this one. No dogs to walk, no parking mess to get ahead of, so I just stayed and watched them completely blow the non-existent roof off of Pioneer Courthouse Square. The next little fun nugget was working a couple refrains of Tom Petty’s American Girl into the middle of one of their songs. I didn’t recognize the song, but I was definitely in the minority.
The following Sunday, I had to set an alarm to wake up and drive out to Hood River – by far the more scenic piece of our wine country. Little Buddy had two tickets to an event at one of their wine clubs called Reds, Whites and Blues. No, we haven’t started making blue wine in our notoriously blue state – the event featured a blues band to listen to whilst stuffing your face with BBQ and sipping on the vineyard’s reds and whites – not in that order.
Sadly, her husband, 2.0, had been tapped for a two-week trip to Germany for work and had to leave that morning, so Little Buddy had a – wait for it…free ticket. Fuck yeah, I went! I even set an alarm to make a day of it – we got a hike in before the event, which was just idyllic.
They set up the event beneath oak trees that are hundreds of years old in the middle of their vineyard and we drove up, parked by some vines and sat under those trees stuffing our faces and listening to blues in the middle of a sea of vines. Not even a barely visible Mt Hood through the smokey haze from our minimal forest fires could dampen the epicness of being immersed in such gorgeousness.
I’d love to sit around and let more of these experiences wash out of my memory and into my blog, but my drinking buddy’s buddy backed out of their plans to go to The Doobie Brothers show tonight this past Thursday. Luckily, I was sitting a barstool away when the text came in, so I’ve got to get ready for another show.
Another free show.
Second row from the floor on the stage side of the second section from the damn stage. It is going to be…epic!
No, this is not a nostalgia post about my Columbia House membership.
Whilst working from home yesterday, I was planning out my weekend. The focus was getting my weekend blogging goal back on track as well as my exercise regimen – which has been off track since my vacation. Add into that the Silver Fox’s return to town. And this is still on top of wanting to maintain my regular weekend misadventures.
But it was also Flashback Friday on my local radio station. Back when I was living that #LyftLife that meant I listened to the weekly Party Out of Bounds radio show from 8-midnight while driving Friday nights.
All 80s and 90s music for four hours? Yes, please.
Now that I’m living the WFH life, I listen to the morning show until 10 Monday-Friday and maybe switch to a pandora station later in the day. But on Flashback Friday I might put in a little longer on the show because they give away tickets to upcoming live shows from 80s and 90s bands every hour.
I’ve set my limit at 5 calls per hour, if I’m able to call when they throw it out. Sometimes I’m on a Teams or Zoom call and can’t.
It’s fine. I’ve already won seats at their free in studio performances twice this year, so if I miss out, I’m still having a pretty good live music year. Some of the shows though…Jane’s Addiction, Garbage, Crowded House. There’s about five shows to choose from each week at a variety of venues: The Moda Center (where the Blazers play), Edgefield (one of our larger outdoor venues), Crystal Ballroom (if you wanna experience a concert on the third floor of a hundred+ year old building, this is your place – and let’s hear it for feeling the floor move beneath your unmoving feet!), or Pioneer Courthouse Square (aka: Portland’s Living Room).
Moda CenterInside the Moda during concert modeEdgefield – looking back from the 4th row. More on that in a minuteCrystal Ballroom – home of the “Floating Dancefloor”.Pioneer Courthouse Square from the air…or an office tower across the street
I’ve been to shows at all of these venues over the years, but my attendance was stagnant recently – pandemic closures notwithstanding. I’ve been to Moda many times, including Fleetwood Mac on three separate tours. I saw Everclear back in the late 90s or early aughts at the Crystal and was “recently” (aka: five-ish years ago!) invited to Echo and the Bunnymen there. Pioneer Courthouse has a couple different summer music events each year. The first is just a “Portland is awesome” type of thing…a free Lunchtime Concert Series every Thursday at noon. Back when our downtown had businesses operating in it, people would throw open their windows in the neighboring non-skyscraper buildings to lean out an watch. People on the streets would be drawn to this packed city block brick plaza. I’ve seen several shows there, too. Notably, the Indigo Girls back in the 90s and I was sad to miss their return to this venue this year. There have also been a couple of community concerts featuring our local Pink Martini to mark holiday tree lightings or punctuate a local event – like a protest concert or to honor the life of a colorful former Mayor.
This is our former Mayor, Bud Clark. I missed his memorial at Pioneer Square, but if it was half as entertaining as he was…
Which leaves us with Edgefield out of the venues listed above. It’s a 7000 “seat” outdoor venue at the edge of town, owned by the same family that owns the Crystal Ballroom, so the music gene is strong. The official name of their music program is Edgefield Concerts on the Lawn…hence the apostrophes around the word seat earlier. I’d been decades ago when it first opened. It was fun to go and cop a squat on a patch of grass with a date or maybe as a foursome with another couple.
But that was decades ago, and my lawn squatting days are behind me.
Enter my drink buddy neighbor. He’s kind of my spirit animal for having a life as a single old man. I don’t know why this eludes me so. I think it might partially be a willful ignorance on my part. It was only a few – ok, closer to ten than five – years ago that I regularly wrote under the blog theme I called the Yes Game. Now I’ve got Jessla fresh off her divorce and recently moved back to the city from the coast talking about her Year of Yes as well as my drinking buddy reminding me that life is meant for living, not waiting for the end.
Anyway, my drinking buddy has adult children with a couple of grands that keep him busy, which is a resource I don’t share. Outside of that, which is plenty for most people, he also has this great life of solo adventures that have inspired me recently to do more than just carouse my way to the grave.
He’s the one that invited me to the Loverboy/REO Speedwagon/Styx show a couple months ago. That, in turn, motivated me to not be resigned to the sidelines of life. I remembered when doing things alone was a source of empowerment for me when I was younger. As I’ve aged, I’ve avoided that source of power while eschewing the source of one of my biggest frustrations: people.
It was good to be reminded that I can do both by planning strategically. While it will take a lot to get me back to the Moda Center for a show, post-pandemic. It was the show that I lucked into last week at Edgefield that highlighted the reality I’d been missing out on.
My drinking buddy ended up triple-booked on a Friday night: a family thing, a Timbers match (he’s a season ticket holder) and a show at Edgefield that he’d been raving about for weeks. It was the last-minute realization that he had a match that Friday and the laster-minute family thing that ended up with me being gifted his tickets to the Edgefield show.
To Bonnie-freakin’-Raitt, no less.
I couldn’t possibly say no! Even though I’d already said yes to walking the Silver Fox’s pooch while he was at the same show. And yes to walking Jessla’s dogs while she was out of town for the weekend.
On top of having a lunchtime doctor appointment…this was going to be quite the Friday. So at lunchtime I put my Out of Office on and hood it over to my doctor. That runs late, so I go right from there to Jessla’s pups afternoon walk. I’m back in my chair just before 130. At 430, I set my status to offline and head up to Jessla’s for a quick pee walk and dinner for her pups. Then I hop in the car and head east to Edgefield.
Did I mention that this free seat is in the 4th row of Reserved Seating?!? But I still have to wait in line with all the picnickers before the show starts at 630, thanks to this post-9/11 mass shooter gun violence world in which we live.
Getting 7000 people through metal detectors takes a minute. Factor in Bonnie pulls a Boomer crowd and you’ve got a real shitshow of a line scenario.
The venue is up there in that stand of trees, this grass will soon be covered in cars
The Fox had been insisting my seats were good, but the seats he had in the Sponsors Section – courtesy of his nephew, owner of Wyld, a cannabis edibles manufacturer – were better. Well, they came with reserved parking and free tacos and drinks, so he was partially correct. Otherwise, we both learned that they had moved the Sponsor Se ruin sometime in the past couple of decades. Here’s a view from my not-worse-than-his seat.
He’s under that white tent…
But that reserved parking was legit. After standing in a line for 45 minutes, what was I finally greeted by when I was able to branch off the mainline to the two measly metal detectors dedicated to Reserved Seating ticket holders?
I’d know that snow cap anywhere. He hadn’t responded to my bored-in-line inquiries about his whereabouts. Probably because he was driving out so he could walk right up to the Reserved Ticket Holder’s entrance. But it amused me – while I was ignoring my darker inner thoughts that he’s seen me and was ignoring me – that he was so focused on the venue that he didn’t notice me until moments after I sent this…
Remember the basement scene in Silence of the Lambs where Bill is reaching out in the dark behind an unsuspecting Clarice?
Anyway, we were both entertained by his level of surprise. A phenomenon I would repeat as I beat a hasty retreat during the encore to get back to Jessla’s pups for their evening walk and ran into the Fox’s former partner’s parents – with whom he’s still friends. The dad was wearing his Timbers jersey, showing support for his team as a season ticket holder since he’d made a different decision than my beneficiary. So we got to chat a bit until we made for our separate grassy parking spaces – turns out, they left early to get home to their dog, too. Since it’s an outdoor venue, I put down the windows and opened the moonroof to listen to the encore as I queued up to exit the lot.
I’m not the guy who runs into someone I know everywhere I go. I’m always the guy with the person who runs into someone everywhere there go. Seriously, it happened at the top of the Eiffel Tower. But in between this happening to me twice in one night, I saw an incredible show. A week later, I’m still in awe.
Mavis Staples was the opener. Let me tell you, at 83 this woman is absolutely killing it. She’s not tall enough to have ever ridden a roller coaster in her life, but onstage? Well, let’s just say that you can’t miss her – even though it was a good minute or two before I saw her head because it was behind a mic-mounted iPad.
What? I didn’t see her take the stage because I was getting a beer! The McMenamin’s brothers started out as beer makers, not concert promoters.
I watched Mavis in awe. Her band and back up were amazing on their own, but in no way making up for any diminished capacity in Mavis’ talent or skill. She might have had to sit down a couple of times during the set – 83 years old! – and the band didn’t lose a beat, but when she was ready to come back, she let ‘em know that the stage was hers again.
I will never not think of this performance when I hear a cement mixer’s engine idling while its tumble turns. That a voice that big comes out of such a small human. Epic.
If that was all there was to this show…it was still a bargain at twice the price. But wait…there’s more!
Bonnie-freakin’-Raitt!
In my concert-going career I’ve been to myriad shows. Folks touring to promote a recent album, storytellers on tour, spectacles of a show that hid lipsyncing artists, intimate venues, stadium tours, has-beens on the State Fair circuit, perennial favorites, career touring acts…and much, much more!
And it’s not like those options are mutually exclusive. It’s more of a Venn diagram.
I’d always thought of Bonnie as a storyteller on tour given my knowledge of her history touring with the likes of Lyle Lovett and John Prine. In this instance she was that storyteller on tour, touring to promote a new album and perennial favorite. I wasn’t super-excited to learn about the new album since that usually draws focus from the library I’m familiar with. For someone whose first album came out 50+ years ago, though? She is still creating amazing content.
Case in point, after talking about touring with Prine and reminiscing about them performing Angel From Montgomery together and how she can’t imagine performing it without him since his death, she tells how that history and loss inspired her to write a song with a similar story behind it. She’d heard a story about a man who showed up on a woman’s doorstep years after she lost her son in an accident…to thank her for the gift of life her son’s heart gave him.
Being an emotional sap is another good reason to go to these types of shows alone.
A few songs later, she performed Angel From Montgomery, and I think everyone was crying when she hugged her guitar to her like it was her lost, dear friend.
Starting the encore
Like I said, I beat feet at the encore, but didn’t miss anything but a 45 minute wait to exit the lot in doing so. Hearing her voice through the trees in the night air of a perfect PNW summer evening while idling in a grass field? It gave me time to think about what I take for granted: the future. Not for granted, so much, more something I look forward to with a sense of dread or contempt.
But this coming-up-on-73 year old and her 83 year old touring companion showed me that people can continue to give to the world around them well into the years of life when others have left their careers. And my Generation Jones aged drinking buddy is giving me an example on how to live life as a single-person without waiting for someone to live it with to enable it – and without caring what others think of my solo-status.
I am kind of happy about my reluctance to return to larger venues for this reason, too. Fringe benefit of going solo to smaller venues alone? I stand out as alone easier in a smaller setting. Hey, if I’m going it alone, I want credit for the finger I’m giving my failure at achieving an enduring relationship. Can’t get that in a crowd!
All of this is by way of telling you that on my fifth attempt at winning tickets in the Flashback Friday offerings yesterday, I succeeded!
Jessla would point out the time was a triple number as an indicator of this luck
You’ll notice it took 22 attempts – versus the weeks of effort that came before yesterday – but someone finally answered the phone! A few minutes later, I was the proud owner of a pair of tickets to the upcoming Shins show at Pioneer Courthouse Square and could not have been happier. Until a few minutes later when the texts started rolling in…
atleastihaveafrigginglass 