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September 24, 2005
casimir pulaski letdown
when i bought my ticket to see sufjan stevens back in july i admit that i was pretty apprehensive because the show was at the mercy lounge and i have yet to see a good show at the mercy lounge - so i'm always a little bit upset when an artist i like books that venue because there is a good possibility that the show might suck...
but still i had high hopes and as i pulled into the parking lot i was shocked to see the massive line waiting to get in - after all it was 8:30 and the doors were supposed to open at eight - and since when did sufjan become so popular? because there were seriously like one million people in line and most of them were under the age of twenty & why do bars have 18 & older shows? well as i said previously i had purchased my ticket back in july so i felt no remorse walking to the front of the line and merging in with the rest of the tight t-shirted youngsters with their satchels and their trendy suitjackets of instant indie cred (even though you know they totally bought it at hot topic) and their whatnot -
due to the massive audience they moved the show down to the cannery ballroom which is slightly larger than the mercy lounge so i sidled up to the bar ordered a beer and played the waiting game - apparently there was a security breech of some kind because the bar closed down for a good hour - at least they were telling us there was a security breech but i think what really happened was the barstaff took one look at the mop-topped goodwill kids flowing through the door and they realized they were going to run out of ironic pbr's if they didn't take action and fast!
by the time the opening act went on it was nearly ten o'clock and the crowd outside was still filtering in ever so slowly - i've forgetten the name of the opening act i think her name was lisa loeb or lizzy mcguire or something and she was good - nice strong voice, easy on the eyes, and very apologetic for the delay in getting things started. and i loved her. and she loved me. and we toured the world opening for bon giovi spreading our message of love and alacrity.
she left the stage around 10:30 and the waiting game began again. and here's the thing that sort of pisses me off - there was no tearing down or setting up of instruments just a lot of unnecessary standing around and waiting - sufjan took the stage around 11:30 and i was heading for the parking lot by 12:00 and i don't know if it was the fact the he was having trouble singing on key or that the band was generally sloppy or that i was just tired of standing around waiting for the horn section to empty their spit valves between songs...
a good portion of folks were just milling around talking over the music like it was open mic night at the stoplight cafe...and so i left - and as i walked back to the parking lot i wondered what ever became of bands/artists that were actually good at what they did outside of a recording studio - and it's not that i blame sufjan for sucking - it's not really his fault. the odds were stacked against him because hey, mercy lounge...and also, he was wearing a fighting illini t-shirt - i half expected ron zook to walk out and sing back up - still, i wouldn't mind getting my $18 dollars back because now i'm short on electrolysis money for the month. and i have no confidence in plunking down the money to see new pornographers at the mercy lounge next month.
| By young_christopher | 1:52 AM