Saturday, June 4, 2005

Satisfying.. Exponentially.

So, concert.

We ended up leaving around.. 6, I'd guess. We had a half day of school, so one of my friends came over and we just wasted time until around 5:00. Due to.. Something, Friend B was unable to attend, and to make use of the $45 ticket my brother ended up going. The ride down was fairly uneventful. I was under the impression that the famous Wiltern Theatre would be in a very upscale, swanky area, but no, it's on the fringes of ghetto Koreatown, but it seemed safe enough. We parked, and I surveyed the crowd.

I'm aware that the Pixies fanbase does not consist of people my age, but I did not see one person anywhere near my age. I saw a 17-year-old, maybe, but that was it. Kind of freaky.

(Later on, in the show, there were a bunch of drunken bitch-women who kept standing up and dancing in front of us. Oh, and some potheads. The second they started Where Is My Mind you could virtually see the smoke cloud rise above the Loge.)

As we were walking, avoiding scalpers and trying to make sense of Korean Engrish on signs, a car pulled up to the back entrance of the building. I turned around, and wouldn't you know it, there was Joey Santiago. Joey Goddamn Santiago, lead guitarist of the band, trying to explain to the immigrant traffic guy that he was in the band and had to get in. He was just sitting in his economy-friendly crap-car.. Perfect voyeur photo oppurtunity.

And this happens just after I handed my dad the camera and he went back to the car to put it away (they were doing pat-downs on people, and our camera.. Isn't very compact). He stood outside the back entrance (right by the parking complex) for about ten minutes, but there wasn't time to get the camera out of the car. We had to get in line to get in.

And what did we get in line for? An irritatingly long opening act by a band called the Bell Rays. For those of you who don't know them (I had never heard of them, but Friend B used to be into them), they're a sort of.. Thrash-rock punk band with a large-and-in-charge soulful black woman with an afro and a tambourine. We got in just as they were coming out, and when we saw the black woman facing away from the stage, we all thought Kim Deal had an afro.

Which didn't make sense. We were scared and confused.

Our seats were actually kind of far in the back. I'd say there were six rows behind us, six in front of us, plus the Loge and standing room, but they were still great seats. It's a cool little hall.

The stage setup was simple. The amps were pretty small, and there were odd lighting fixtures in the back that reminded me of this scene in Devil May Cry 3. There was some pretty nice light work, though.

According to Pixiesdiscs.com, the track list went:

In Heaven, Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf), Here Comes Your Man, Where Is My Mind, Mr. Grieves, Bone Machine, Broken Face, Isla de Encanta, Gouge Away, I Bleed, Monkey Gone To Heaven, Gigantic, Ed is Dead, Cactus, I'm Amazed, Nimrod's Son, Vamos, Dead, Tame, The Sad Punk, Hey, Caribou, UMass, Wave of Mutilation.
Encore: Debaser.

Kim sang In Heaven, like Tony said. In the middle of Isla de Encanta Frank Black messed up the lyrics, stopped the song, laughed embarrassingly for a moment, and they started the song over. During the Vamos solo the drummer threw one of his drumsticks at Mr. Santiago and he played using that.

The crowd went nuts when Frank Black shouted "HEY".. Including me, which is interesting because I rarely show excitement in public.

Friend A, on the other hand, was gaily headbanging and screaming the lyrics. Friend B had to sit next to him and pretended she didn't know him.

When we were exiting the building the manager came up, opened a fire escape and told us to exit through there. We asked about the live-recorded CDs, and he said that we would be able to go around the front entrance and get them from there.

That, of course, didn't happen. By the time we got around to the front people were already lining up for the second show. I just bought the CD online when I got home.. It should be here late-July.

On the way back we stopped at Denny's and had crappy pancakes at 11:30 at night. By the time everyone was dropped off and I was home it was 12:30. I fell asleep rather quickly.

--

God, it must have been "Perverted Suspense Flick" on television tonight. I turned on the TV about halfway into One Hour Photo, in which Robin Williams plays a crazy stalker guy that works in the photo department of a Walmart-like store. It was an entertaining movie.. I wanted to see it when it came out, but I never did.

Something interesting: The kid had a Gundam model early on, and later Robin Williams buys the kid an End of Evangelion action figure. I also noticed several Hello Kitty items. There was some sort of weird animephile thing going on there with the director, I think.

And after that was "The Glass House," a movie in which these kids get orphaned and have to live with this pedophilic, drug-abusing mobster neighbors. It wasn't a very good movie, though it did remind me of A Series of Unfortunate Events (another non-good movie.. Good books though).

So there you have it. Two entirely unrelated stories mixed together in a poorly organized blog entry for your reading pleasure. *takes a bow*

EDIT: I have a piano recital tomorrow.. I have the song down fine, I just don't feel motivated to play. I'll do it and get out of there quickly, I think.
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