4... 3... 2... 1...
compression. deep down in the brain, in the chest, behind the eyes. shrinking of the skin, the skeleton, the nerves. it all hits you. you can go and go and go for hours on hours on basically nothing in 95 degree heat and humidity and get home and sit in a chair and close your eyes and it hits. breathing stops becoming natural, you can stop if you like. motion is excessive. stillness, tightening, knotting. my feet hurt. my head hurts. my ears are ringing. i have no money. my clothes smell like cigarettes and pot smoke.
and i am happier than i have been in a long, long, long time... :)
i got back home from tripping in the jeep in time to get the message. i had gone out in search of a wedding card and an overdue inspection, blasting ben lee over the four-speaker stereo. hot. i turned it off to gun down a bumpy rocky wonderful deep country road loop that took longer than driving the regular way but was a helluva lot more fun. hills and valley's, a one lane dust and rock road winding through dense jungles of growth, corners over hills - i had no idea if anyone else was coming. it was a road i wanted badly to get in a race car and drive as fast as i could. eventually this emptied back out onto pavement and went a good ways further so i could fire back up the stereo and sing again. i got home in time for the invitation.
danielle wanted someone to go with... in an hour. i wasn't sold, really. i've never been a huge fan of guster but, then again, i've never really listened to them either so i didn't have anything to lose. i didn't have thirty-five dollars, though. so i asked who else was playing. well, turns out ray lamontagne was the secondary act at which point i responded, shit, if ray's there i'm going. she didn't know whether i was being sarcastic or not. so i got her to drive and whatnot and thought i might try it. we got there and parked far away, at the koka booth, which i had never been to before. stood in line outside the gate which was to open at five. got to talking to the guy behind us ~ danielle thought he had a boyfriend who met him later when they left, i didn't think he was gay ~ whom we conversed with for a while about live music and bands and whatnot. he had folding chairs. the lawn tickets we got, i figured, were good for sitting on the grass wherever that was. i had only ever been to alltel at raleigh so i figured there was a closed pavilion with numbered seats ~ expensive ~ and cheaper lawn seats. we get down there quick as we could, wanting good seats on the grass. there was grass behind a patio with a bunch of white seats set out and we were about to sit on the grass when we saw our buddy from the line walking up and setting his chairs down under the seats. we went up and asked him and he said none of them were numbered and he thought this was all there was. so danielle and i, we sit down on two of three seats adjacent to four "reserved" seats on the front row center. i have never been to a concert with front row center seats before. this was fucking cool. there was our chairs, a barrier, steps and the stage. fucking right.
so after a while the opening band comes on to no claps at all, the 'fruit bats'. the fruit bats were from seattle and weren't bad at all. some guy even yelled "who are you??" which is a good sign the opening band was decent. after them, ray came on, was wonderful and got a couple people to scream many times. large, red-shirt wearing guys jumping dancing and yelling. holding signs, blocking our view. it was a party. i tried to record both ray and guster with the mic of my mp3 player which of course didn't work. but it was lovely anyway. the last song nearly made me cry, beautiful. ray was awesome too. wore a blue shirt and a large animalistic beard. quite sweaty he was. looked like he walked out of the mountains with a guitar. never spoke much, just played his songs and whispered 'thank you' a couple times. he was the man, i tell you. worth the price of admission.
as soon as ray left, people started crowding the stage, which meant that we had to abandon our chairs to stand fourteen inches in front of them. but we stood at a chest-high railing, which meant that no bastards could inch in front of us. and we were probably fifteen feet away from the band but this wasn't a small venue and with nobody in front of us, it was entirely comfortable and loud and bright and amazing. i could look around and see a kid or two from high school and not want to talk to them, really, but wish they would see me so they could be jealous of where i was standing. i've never had a better view of a concert.
i gained a lot of respect for guster, too. i like them a lot now. especially joe. i wish i was joe. special things, too. they played 'either way' which they said they only play once a tour. lead singer guy told us he'd always thought it would be interesting to be boo'ed instead of cheered off stage. so after the last song we all boo'ed and cursed and sang "nah nah nah nah, goodbye" and all kinds of shit and he loved it. and they played more songs and left and when they did half the people cheered and half boo'ed because nobody knew what to do anymore. and they came back and he thought it was like some kind of strange psychology experiment going on. and they left for the final time and we boo'ed and cheered like it was our job. said it was the biggest crowd they had ever played to as headliner in a southern venue. which was cool. and we had amazing seats, did i mention?
afterwards we stayed glued to our fence and yelled at the roadies until one gave danielle a setlist and me a ping-pong ball that was thrown up onto the stage. we wandered back up to the gear booth where i caught the eyes of a beautiful timid girl with curly blonde hair who helped me with my t-shirts and took my money. while we were standing in line a woman came up behind us and said "anybody want sausages" to which i replied "are they free?" turns out they were going to be trashed so we both took a kielbasa in a hotdog bun, happily and free. and i took my two t-shirts - $40 more i didn't have... - and walked over to the after-party because we didn't have to be vip's to get in anymore. some band played one more song and i asked the bartender woman if water was free in here. she said it wasn't so i said "fine, i'll just choke on my sausage then". i was eating the sausage at the time. that was before i went to the most glorious bathroom i have ever seen. it was like a warehouse with rows upon rows of stalls and urinals. i think i've had a dream before about bathrooms like that. it was fucking amazing.
we walked back to the car and headed home in the muggy dark. i was already sticky with sweat from the entire night. at which point i got here and collapsed. i didn't really feel like composing anything really nice sounding tonight, just what i thought about the whole thing. i will post shitty pics from my phone whenever i can get the damned thing to work. maybe video from danielle's if she ever gets it online. it was a great night. to all those people i called: hope i didn't call to often. maybe joy was spread, i guess that's all i can hope for.
gnite :)
and i am happier than i have been in a long, long, long time... :)
i got back home from tripping in the jeep in time to get the message. i had gone out in search of a wedding card and an overdue inspection, blasting ben lee over the four-speaker stereo. hot. i turned it off to gun down a bumpy rocky wonderful deep country road loop that took longer than driving the regular way but was a helluva lot more fun. hills and valley's, a one lane dust and rock road winding through dense jungles of growth, corners over hills - i had no idea if anyone else was coming. it was a road i wanted badly to get in a race car and drive as fast as i could. eventually this emptied back out onto pavement and went a good ways further so i could fire back up the stereo and sing again. i got home in time for the invitation.
danielle wanted someone to go with... in an hour. i wasn't sold, really. i've never been a huge fan of guster but, then again, i've never really listened to them either so i didn't have anything to lose. i didn't have thirty-five dollars, though. so i asked who else was playing. well, turns out ray lamontagne was the secondary act at which point i responded, shit, if ray's there i'm going. she didn't know whether i was being sarcastic or not. so i got her to drive and whatnot and thought i might try it. we got there and parked far away, at the koka booth, which i had never been to before. stood in line outside the gate which was to open at five. got to talking to the guy behind us ~ danielle thought he had a boyfriend who met him later when they left, i didn't think he was gay ~ whom we conversed with for a while about live music and bands and whatnot. he had folding chairs. the lawn tickets we got, i figured, were good for sitting on the grass wherever that was. i had only ever been to alltel at raleigh so i figured there was a closed pavilion with numbered seats ~ expensive ~ and cheaper lawn seats. we get down there quick as we could, wanting good seats on the grass. there was grass behind a patio with a bunch of white seats set out and we were about to sit on the grass when we saw our buddy from the line walking up and setting his chairs down under the seats. we went up and asked him and he said none of them were numbered and he thought this was all there was. so danielle and i, we sit down on two of three seats adjacent to four "reserved" seats on the front row center. i have never been to a concert with front row center seats before. this was fucking cool. there was our chairs, a barrier, steps and the stage. fucking right.
so after a while the opening band comes on to no claps at all, the 'fruit bats'. the fruit bats were from seattle and weren't bad at all. some guy even yelled "who are you??" which is a good sign the opening band was decent. after them, ray came on, was wonderful and got a couple people to scream many times. large, red-shirt wearing guys jumping dancing and yelling. holding signs, blocking our view. it was a party. i tried to record both ray and guster with the mic of my mp3 player which of course didn't work. but it was lovely anyway. the last song nearly made me cry, beautiful. ray was awesome too. wore a blue shirt and a large animalistic beard. quite sweaty he was. looked like he walked out of the mountains with a guitar. never spoke much, just played his songs and whispered 'thank you' a couple times. he was the man, i tell you. worth the price of admission.
as soon as ray left, people started crowding the stage, which meant that we had to abandon our chairs to stand fourteen inches in front of them. but we stood at a chest-high railing, which meant that no bastards could inch in front of us. and we were probably fifteen feet away from the band but this wasn't a small venue and with nobody in front of us, it was entirely comfortable and loud and bright and amazing. i could look around and see a kid or two from high school and not want to talk to them, really, but wish they would see me so they could be jealous of where i was standing. i've never had a better view of a concert.
i gained a lot of respect for guster, too. i like them a lot now. especially joe. i wish i was joe. special things, too. they played 'either way' which they said they only play once a tour. lead singer guy told us he'd always thought it would be interesting to be boo'ed instead of cheered off stage. so after the last song we all boo'ed and cursed and sang "nah nah nah nah, goodbye" and all kinds of shit and he loved it. and they played more songs and left and when they did half the people cheered and half boo'ed because nobody knew what to do anymore. and they came back and he thought it was like some kind of strange psychology experiment going on. and they left for the final time and we boo'ed and cheered like it was our job. said it was the biggest crowd they had ever played to as headliner in a southern venue. which was cool. and we had amazing seats, did i mention?
afterwards we stayed glued to our fence and yelled at the roadies until one gave danielle a setlist and me a ping-pong ball that was thrown up onto the stage. we wandered back up to the gear booth where i caught the eyes of a beautiful timid girl with curly blonde hair who helped me with my t-shirts and took my money. while we were standing in line a woman came up behind us and said "anybody want sausages" to which i replied "are they free?" turns out they were going to be trashed so we both took a kielbasa in a hotdog bun, happily and free. and i took my two t-shirts - $40 more i didn't have... - and walked over to the after-party because we didn't have to be vip's to get in anymore. some band played one more song and i asked the bartender woman if water was free in here. she said it wasn't so i said "fine, i'll just choke on my sausage then". i was eating the sausage at the time. that was before i went to the most glorious bathroom i have ever seen. it was like a warehouse with rows upon rows of stalls and urinals. i think i've had a dream before about bathrooms like that. it was fucking amazing.
we walked back to the car and headed home in the muggy dark. i was already sticky with sweat from the entire night. at which point i got here and collapsed. i didn't really feel like composing anything really nice sounding tonight, just what i thought about the whole thing. i will post shitty pics from my phone whenever i can get the damned thing to work. maybe video from danielle's if she ever gets it online. it was a great night. to all those people i called: hope i didn't call to often. maybe joy was spread, i guess that's all i can hope for.
gnite :)
posted by sunshine at 11:57 PM
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