Backtracking... out of Snowden mania... Friday night found us at the Mercury Lounge, post Mary Ann's Margarita chugging, to see the boys we all wish we had taken to our prom, the Madison Strays. We planted ourselves in front of the stage, vodka tonics in hand, so as not to miss any of Belvy's stage antics (I'm partial to the back-to-audience ass shaking myself). And the Strays didn't disappoint, in terms of their dark dance music as well as onstage flair ("Grace" is still my particular favorite, but everything else is a close close second).
No one got into the show more, however, than a strangely out of place older man who just couldn't get enough of the Strays, especially drummer Joe Z who he seemed to want to get on stage and drum with the entire time. Throughout the set he got so seemingly caught up in it all that he was jumping around, flailing his arms in the air, and at several points got down on one knee and saluted the band whole heartedly. We didn't really know what to make of this, although when Alex asked me after the show if the guy was making fun of them, I told him that I think instead they may have found their Madison Strays superfan. I know ideally that role would go to some young eager female, but this guy was all about the band and hey.. he bought us drinks so he gets my vote! Alex Chow also gets our vote for nicest guy ever. Mercury Lounge wins for best venue. And so on... Unfortunately we are not going to be able to take the trip to see the boys down in Virginia Beach this Thursday with Elefant, so I won't be able to judge the Belvy vs. Diego boogie board showdown. My loss, clearly.
The only thing that could have possibly been acceptable to follow this up was the oh-so-fantastic Moving Units. It's like someone combined The Faint, Hot Hot Heat, Radio 4, The Rapture, etc. etc. etc. into one band and got the drummer to randomly get up and dance! There wasn't a cowbell but I didn't even care, this band is so much FUN.
Saturday... we decided to take our hangover to Siren Fest. BAD BAD IDEA. DO NOT REPEAT! Seriously, this was the worst organized event maybe ever. And perhaps, since it's free, we should have just expected as much and ok.. so we were also warned about the cattle herding of people and the lousy sound. But good lord. We managed to see fully Blonde Redhead, which was nice but some of the sounds were just too "sleepy" and would have been much better enjoyed whilst lying on grass somewhere as opposed to crammed in like sardines with hundreds of other people next to a loud rollar coaster. I still really love this band though, and hope to see them again soon. A girl in one of my photo classes in college once did a really moving slideshow to one of their songs and I've been a fan ever since.
Finally the last thing we managed to deal with before getting the hell out of Coney Island (not before eating some hotdogs though... c'mon it's a requirement even if you have to wait in line for half an hour), was Death Cab For Cutie.
I have a hard time expressing how emotional of an album Transatlanticism is for me, but hearing it live makes me all wishy-washy and Siren Fest was not really a good place for this either. Still, they were great.
And according to the Barsuk website, the song "Transatlanticism" which makes Nora cry is going to be featured on Six Feet Under, the show that also makes Nora entirely overly emotional -- but yet in a way that is SO DAMN GOOD. I thought it couldn't get any better after they played Radiohead's "Lucky," so I can't wait to see what they do with this epic song.
That's all I think, the rest of the weekend was spent catching up on much needed Z's. Phew, that was a long blog.
thanks to jasper for the fantastic madison strays photo. he has many more on his website that made me ohh and ahh this afternoon. what a talented guy!