Halloween, October 31, 2024
"Hey, isn't that Old Man Vedder's place?"
"Yeah, I think so. You wanna Trick Or Treat there?"
"You've heard about Old Man Vedder, right?"
"No, what?"
"Well, they say, that on November 9th, 2004, he played a song during the encore with Death Cab For Cutie"
And, yes, it was fucking amazing. My first Seeing-Eddie-Vedder-Live experience will not be forgotten. However, I'm pretty sure the song they played is forgotten. I know that the lyrics at the end, they were singing, "Open Your Mind" but I can't be sure it it's a cover of any number of songs with that lyric or if it's an original and if it IS an original, then who's responsible for it . . . you get the drift.
However, Old Man Vedder or no Old Man Vedder, the concert itself ruled all around Big Sarah's ass. Seriously, that's quite the orbit. Death Cab is DEFINITELY not a Bumbershoot kinda deal. Gotta be seen in that intimate setting that only the Paramount, Moore, Graceland, uhh . . . OK, so I don't know that many venues in the Seattle area . . . has to offer.
The only problem, and I can't really harp on this too much, but where it really doesn't deviate from Bumbershoot is the consistency of Teeny Bopping high school girls there. And they ALL have their cell phones and they ALL either take pictures with them or broadcast the concert to their loser friends who couldn't dish out 30 bucks. This one girl particularly, in front of Big Sarah and me, she looked like she was orgasming over every song they played that she recognized, which was just about every damn song. She had Man-Hands to beat the band and she was trying at various intervals to actually talk to someone while the band was playing. Scream to someone, really, and I don't think it was working unless her main objective was to annoy the people next to her.
Now, I like my Death Cab for Cutie very much, but I gotta say the opening act, Pretty Girls Make Graves, was pretty damn impressive. It's kinda funny to see performers on stage and the dancing-type moves they impliment while playing. The lead guitarist ("The hot black dude" according to Big S) looked like he was walking in place as he was playing. The drummer, who looked like John Kerry's younger brother with a beard, was all elbows as he was playing. The bassist was kinda spazzing out like most bass players usually do (for Bass Players, they have the two signature moves. 1 - Staunch and cool, just playing and hardly moving at all; or 2 - something like an old-school Krist Novoselic, just twisting and writhing around). The hot keyboardist (who really was just a hot chick with a boss hoss tattoo on her arm standing behind a keyboard, hitting some keys every once in a while) couldn't make up her mind as to what she wanted to do. She was upright the entire time, she didn't really want to bend any limbs, but she kinda had that full body jerking motion down trying to look as cool as possible. That leaves the female lead singer who I really couldn't see too much, 'cause I had a tall person right in my way blocking my view.
But, you know, the concert going experience doesn't stop with simply watching the band. There's the audience. They didn't seem too familiar with the opening act at all, but there were still a few hardcore fans out there. Big S is pretty big into the Pretty Girls and I gotta admit, I gotta get one of their cds next time I hit the Tower Records. Seriously, though, I gotta think there were a ton of kids out there experiencing their first live show. I feel so god damned old in an audience full of annoying teens. But, not as old as the ACTUAL old people in the audience, thinking to themselves how cool they must look because they're in their 40s and 50s and they're still down with the hip local music.
Old people, get this, you do NOT look cool in an audience full of frumpy teenage girls. And, believe you me, frump was, in fact, the word of the night. I was dismayed to find, several times throughout the Death Cab set, that I was sorta half-dancing exactly like the frumpy bass player in the band. The Death Cab singer started out the night with a cotton/polyester-looking button down shirt and ended up the night in a shiny, silk-looking button down shirt. Oh, and he never changed clothes; he just sweated so much that he literally covered every inch with his bodily excretions.
But, hey, I know all about being hot and sweaty. My outfit was fucking tight, even though Big S said my old-man pants looked like they were made out of carpet.
In other news, I want you all to go read "The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams. The book's fuckin' funny. I don't wanna give too much away, but if you read it, you will get the answer to why we are all here and what it all means. The answer will shock and amaze you. You might even crap your pants, I don't know. We all react differently to having our minds fucking BLOWN.