I was really looking forward to yet another lazy Friday…until Sly asked sometime mid-afternoon if we had a concert to go to at night. I racked my brain. Concert? What concert? Never mind that these tickets had been bought sometime last summer and have been hanging on the refrigerator door staring me in the face for about six months now. I had even been thinking about it the week prior, yet somehow, week of, day of, it totally hit me by surprise.
We both asked one another the next question half-jokingly at the same time, “do we have assigned seats? And then were both extremely relieved to find out we did. We are at that stage in our lives (two old people) where we no longer dress up for concerts (remember that? why?) and after seeing Nero with a bunch of neon/fur-wearing pupil-dilated 18 yr olds we both kind of decided we were not mosh pit type concert goers anymore. We are now the old people at the concerts that wear sensible shoes, sip on wine, and hope for a nice place where the music isn’t too loud.
The crowd consisted of oldies (like us!) and was probably the least diverse crowd of people I have ever seen in my life. Lots of swaying (girls), head bopping with overbite (guys), and the occasional heavy metal satan fingers (drunkies). Given the band’s “cult-like status’ there were also a few awesome crazies in attendance. Like amazingly awesome. Imagine the guy from The Scream dancing in a Salvador Dali painting and you have a pretty good idea of how this guy was dancing. Like he was half-melting or sliding off something. Like you were watching an old-school tv and the vertical hold was off. The best part was when the music was faster, he wiggle-melt-danced faster. When the music was slower, he melted soooo slow, at a rate of one wiggle-melt per 20 seconds.
Ahem, anyway.
The concert – Neutral Milk Hotel – was awesome live. People watching was awesome. Venue was awesome. We had a great time.
Afterward we hurriedly walked through the freezing cold, passing all the (young) girls in their concert wear (short skirts, no tights, lightweight jacket???, high heels) to nearby Old Ebbitt Grill where we ate a dozen oysters (late night oyster happy hour!) and a burger. We hadn’t planned on a date night, but were really glad to be out of the house, out in the city.
