![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
strange_aeonsI saw Red Dragon yesterday. Good movie. Lust. That's not what this entry is about, but I wanted to get it out of the way.
What this entry is about is the Rós concert I attended today, and the assorted wackinesses I had to endure to do so.
For starters, we forgot the tickets and had to go back for them. This was not the disaster it might otherwise have been, because we were running five hours early and there's only so much a body can screw up with that kind of cushion, but it was stressful. I had to spend a few hours calming down in the Borders near my roommate's workplace before we headed out to D.C. Oh, and my roommate may have done some work or somesuch while we were there. I don't know. We were in different buildings. I do know that Douglas Adams' posthumous book is not anywhere near as bad as I was expecting it to be, and I wish I'd bought it. There are a few lines in it that are hilariously pertinent to a conversation I had with the guys on Rarr a few days ago. I also know that Dinotopia and its sequel were written for a crowd much younger than I am, and that I should stop sneering at the lackluster plot and totally asinine characterization, and just look at the pretty pictures. Which were, it must be said, quite pretty.
On the way into D.C., we spent a couple of minutes behind a G.O.D. truck -- Guaranteed Overnight Delivery. This is relevant only to those of you who have read the Interface, and those who will be amused to learn that the number on the back of the lorry was 1-800-DIAL-GOD.
I have seen Sigur Rós live once before, in D.C., at Nightclub 9:30, which is a nightmare closet that comfortably admits about five people and is impossible to find, in part because the directions on the website are wrong and in part because D.C.'s street plan was apparently laid out by a blind child with a Spirograph and really bad palsy. It was a grueling five-hour ordeal without a chair in sight, in a room just this side of the boiling point, where I was packed in like a sardine with three hundred people I wanted to kill — the guy in front of me, for example, who would not keep his hands off of his totally indifferent girlfriend, and the guy on the other side of my roommate from me, who apparently felt it was appropriate to dance. While standing within a foot of a dozen other people. Asshole.
That was 25 September, 2001. I can't be relied upon to remember my birthday, or the day of the week, or my fucking name, but I can remember that date. I hate cities and I hate the 9:30 club and I hate crowds and it was worth it. It was worth even getting lost.
We got lost again, of course, because this is mandatory, but only slightly lost, because we were in one of the few areas of D.C. that appears to have been constructed with an eye for not driving me insane. The venue this time was the Lincoln Theatre, which is lovely if slightly dilapidated. The parking garage promised on the website did not materialize, but we found a parking spot on a side street. There was a line around the block, which I don't understand at all: the seats were assigned.
There was a wait. I had expected this. Somewhere there was a smoke generator, and the theatre slowly filled with just enough smoke to make things a little hazy; I explained to my roommate that this was to make the lights stream visibly. There was, as I had feared, background music. It was better than the bad, bad Massive Attack remixes and industrial at the 9:30 club, but it was still Muzak from hell. It sounded like the Dust Brothers without all that pesky talent. Mercifully, we were subjected to less than an hour of this: it stopped at eight, to be replaced by the opening act, one Siggi Armand, who was....
Let me see. How can I put this politely?
...
I really can't. He was pathetic. He was so bad my roommate actually laughed. And then fell asleep. And, when I woke her up because she was snoring, laughed some more, then fell asleep again. His best song was a little number called Twilight Zone, the lyrics of which went something like:
Yeah. That good. The melodies all sounded like they had been composed on the spot by the child mentioned above, with the Spirograph and the palsy, who is also tone-deaf and retarded. Armand's voice wasn't unpleasant, but it wasn't strong either, and he was trying too hard. It was just him and his guitar, and the arrangements were pretty good, but his mommy must have composed them for him, because he couldn't really play them. It was sad.
Actually, when I say it was just him and his guitar, I lie. He had Kjartan, Orri, and Magnus-the-guy-who-plays-the-glockenspiel 'help him out' on a couple of songs, and god, did he need it. Predictably, those were the least bad, particularly the bits when he shut his trap.
His set was an excruciating half hour long, and then he got off the stage and there was another half-hour or so intermission. Then Rós took the stage. It ... was....
The last time it was a little like how I imagine religious experiences are. I was less than a dozen feet from Jónsi and the sound made my entire body vibrate. It was ... powerful. This time was....
Well, for starters, there are two people who are unbelievably fucking lucky to have gotten out of there with all of their bits intact: the asshole a few rows in front of me who kept standing up to conduct — badly — and the other one directly behind me who took it upon herself to sing during Ný Batterí. I took issue with this, on the principle that it said 'Sigur Rós' on the tickets, not 'Mouthbreather in Seat X15', and I wasn't paying to have some imbecile hiss tunelessly into my left ear. I told her to shut up. She did. It saved her life.
Beyond that, I'm ... not sure I'm equipped to describe this time. It was like being gently, patiently demolished and rebuilt and demolished again. They've gotten better since last year. That awes me. It wasn't just that they had the string quartet with them this time but not the last. It wasn't just that the light show was more sophisticated, though it was (and I will never look at a disco ball quite the same way again). How can anything be that good and still improve?
Last year it was incredibly sensory. Not just sound, but sight and touch. Most bands don't appreciate it when the fans climb up on stage to smell and lick them, genuine though the sentiment may be, so I had to make do without the last two senses. I was afraid that this time, since we were seated way in the back, I'd get the sight and sound but not the touch. I needn't have worried. The bass came up through my feet and resonated in my larynx, which is a surprisingly odd sensation considering it's one I cause deliberately on a regular basis.
It was comfortable. It was ... sublime. Nobody tried to dance.
Happy.
Bed.
What this entry is about is the Rós concert I attended today, and the assorted wackinesses I had to endure to do so.
For starters, we forgot the tickets and had to go back for them. This was not the disaster it might otherwise have been, because we were running five hours early and there's only so much a body can screw up with that kind of cushion, but it was stressful. I had to spend a few hours calming down in the Borders near my roommate's workplace before we headed out to D.C. Oh, and my roommate may have done some work or somesuch while we were there. I don't know. We were in different buildings. I do know that Douglas Adams' posthumous book is not anywhere near as bad as I was expecting it to be, and I wish I'd bought it. There are a few lines in it that are hilariously pertinent to a conversation I had with the guys on Rarr a few days ago. I also know that Dinotopia and its sequel were written for a crowd much younger than I am, and that I should stop sneering at the lackluster plot and totally asinine characterization, and just look at the pretty pictures. Which were, it must be said, quite pretty.
On the way into D.C., we spent a couple of minutes behind a G.O.D. truck -- Guaranteed Overnight Delivery. This is relevant only to those of you who have read the Interface, and those who will be amused to learn that the number on the back of the lorry was 1-800-DIAL-GOD.
I have seen Sigur Rós live once before, in D.C., at Nightclub 9:30, which is a nightmare closet that comfortably admits about five people and is impossible to find, in part because the directions on the website are wrong and in part because D.C.'s street plan was apparently laid out by a blind child with a Spirograph and really bad palsy. It was a grueling five-hour ordeal without a chair in sight, in a room just this side of the boiling point, where I was packed in like a sardine with three hundred people I wanted to kill — the guy in front of me, for example, who would not keep his hands off of his totally indifferent girlfriend, and the guy on the other side of my roommate from me, who apparently felt it was appropriate to dance. While standing within a foot of a dozen other people. Asshole.
That was 25 September, 2001. I can't be relied upon to remember my birthday, or the day of the week, or my fucking name, but I can remember that date. I hate cities and I hate the 9:30 club and I hate crowds and it was worth it. It was worth even getting lost.
We got lost again, of course, because this is mandatory, but only slightly lost, because we were in one of the few areas of D.C. that appears to have been constructed with an eye for not driving me insane. The venue this time was the Lincoln Theatre, which is lovely if slightly dilapidated. The parking garage promised on the website did not materialize, but we found a parking spot on a side street. There was a line around the block, which I don't understand at all: the seats were assigned.
There was a wait. I had expected this. Somewhere there was a smoke generator, and the theatre slowly filled with just enough smoke to make things a little hazy; I explained to my roommate that this was to make the lights stream visibly. There was, as I had feared, background music. It was better than the bad, bad Massive Attack remixes and industrial at the 9:30 club, but it was still Muzak from hell. It sounded like the Dust Brothers without all that pesky talent. Mercifully, we were subjected to less than an hour of this: it stopped at eight, to be replaced by the opening act, one Siggi Armand, who was....
Let me see. How can I put this politely?
...
I really can't. He was pathetic. He was so bad my roommate actually laughed. And then fell asleep. And, when I woke her up because she was snoring, laughed some more, then fell asleep again. His best song was a little number called Twilight Zone, the lyrics of which went something like:
Walking in the Twilight Zone
And I have no home
(repeat twelve times, salt to taste)
Yeah. That good. The melodies all sounded like they had been composed on the spot by the child mentioned above, with the Spirograph and the palsy, who is also tone-deaf and retarded. Armand's voice wasn't unpleasant, but it wasn't strong either, and he was trying too hard. It was just him and his guitar, and the arrangements were pretty good, but his mommy must have composed them for him, because he couldn't really play them. It was sad.
Actually, when I say it was just him and his guitar, I lie. He had Kjartan, Orri, and Magnus-the-guy-who-plays-the-glockenspiel 'help him out' on a couple of songs, and god, did he need it. Predictably, those were the least bad, particularly the bits when he shut his trap.
His set was an excruciating half hour long, and then he got off the stage and there was another half-hour or so intermission. Then Rós took the stage. It ... was....
The last time it was a little like how I imagine religious experiences are. I was less than a dozen feet from Jónsi and the sound made my entire body vibrate. It was ... powerful. This time was....
Well, for starters, there are two people who are unbelievably fucking lucky to have gotten out of there with all of their bits intact: the asshole a few rows in front of me who kept standing up to conduct — badly — and the other one directly behind me who took it upon herself to sing during Ný Batterí. I took issue with this, on the principle that it said 'Sigur Rós' on the tickets, not 'Mouthbreather in Seat X15', and I wasn't paying to have some imbecile hiss tunelessly into my left ear. I told her to shut up. She did. It saved her life.
Beyond that, I'm ... not sure I'm equipped to describe this time. It was like being gently, patiently demolished and rebuilt and demolished again. They've gotten better since last year. That awes me. It wasn't just that they had the string quartet with them this time but not the last. It wasn't just that the light show was more sophisticated, though it was (and I will never look at a disco ball quite the same way again). How can anything be that good and still improve?
Last year it was incredibly sensory. Not just sound, but sight and touch. Most bands don't appreciate it when the fans climb up on stage to smell and lick them, genuine though the sentiment may be, so I had to make do without the last two senses. I was afraid that this time, since we were seated way in the back, I'd get the sight and sound but not the touch. I needn't have worried. The bass came up through my feet and resonated in my larynx, which is a surprisingly odd sensation considering it's one I cause deliberately on a regular basis.
It was comfortable. It was ... sublime. Nobody tried to dance.
Happy.
Bed.
