December 18
Actual photo from actual show!
I have a love hate relationship with concerts. On the one hand, they're always fun. Who DOESN'T like a concert? On the other hand, I always kind of feel like I have no idea what to do with myself when I'm there. Unless I really LOVE the performer (case in point: Radiohead), and I can sing all of the words and sway back and forth, I never quite understand how I'm expected to act.
My girlfriend Sanju and I went to see David Bowie the other night. Now, I LIKE David Bowie, I really do. I know a lot of the words to a lot of his songs. I could probably even fare pretty well if I was on Jeopardy, and the category was David Bowie (um, no, I probably couldn't, come to think of it). I don't LOVE David Bowie. Maybe that's the problem. When I go to a concert where there are seats and it's all adult and they'll serve you beer in a glass bottle because they aren't worried that some angry fan is going to start a fight in the mosh pit and chuck it at someone else, I have absolutely no idea how to behave. When people are erupting with delight around me, I sit there sort of stone faced and weird. What do I do with my hands?! Where do I keep my feet? When everyone starts clapping along, am I supposed to, too?
Because I don't. I'm not a clapper. I don't sing along. When the performer waves the mike at the audience (in the instance of the Bowie concert, it was at "ALL THE YOUNG DUDES!!!") for the audience to finish the chorus, I NEVER sing along. Ever. I try and settle for a certain look on my face, one of utter rapture and delight, so that everyone will know I'm having a great time, but don't so much feel the need to hoot and holler like the (in the instance of the Bowie concert) guy sitting next to me, who smelled very much like he'd taken a beer and cigarette bath in his clothes.
My first true love. I know I've used this photo before, years ago.
Now this is sort of a personal issue, but, I have to say that my longest running celebrity crush (on a living person. One of my first celebrity crushes was on Danny Thomas. What? He was cute) has got to be on Bryan Ferry. Surely, you all don't know that there was a longrunning fued between Bryan Ferry and David Bowie, what with the both of them doing the glam rock at exactly the same time and I guess things got a little ugly between them. The upshot of the story is that my unwavering love for Bryan Ferry has led to a tiny little bit of hate for David Bowie. Sure, it's not reasonable, but when is love reasonable? I'd like to think that if Bryan were to be Googling himself on a boring Sunday on his island (True story. He owns an island. Of course I know where it is, but why would I tell you? He doesn't want you to visit.) that he'll come across my page and know that someone out there understands how much better he is than Bowie, and how when I saw HIM (Bryan Ferry, that is), I FLIPPED OUT, screaming and clapping and singing along, and that when I MET him (uh, again, Bryan Ferry), I was so astonished that I lost my will to speak and also live and stood there like a total doofus until my friend hissed "SPEAK!" at me. So, as we sat there at the concert, in my angry little secret heart, I was like "Oh, screw YOU, David Bowie. You can't sway me with your sexy hair or your really good voice and your 30 years of writing great music. My heart belongs to another! Your mortal enemy!"
(Please note: my machine crashed just as I was saving this, and I lost about 3 paragraphs. Recreation is a bitch)
That's why I'm always a little glad I'm too cheap to pony up the extra 20 dollars for the floor seats. You need to have true dedication to the artist to sit down there, because it's not entirely unlike finding yourself on another planet. The flailing! The estatic dancing! The singing along! Then, when the people in front of you stand up to TRULY LET THE ARTIST KNOW they're moving the crowd, it's kind of hard to say "Why don't you just sit your stupid ass down so that I can see the SHOW, not your interpretive DANCE" without people getting bent. Or maybe I'm just being weird.
Anyone who'd written requesting that we exhange cards, you're going to need to send me your address again. Yeah, I'm kind of a fool. Fortunately, I haven't sent out ANY cards yet. I'm just not up on the holiday shit this year.
the other day - home - email - soon