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May 11, 2007

We Found The Light!

Last night I saw the Arcade Fire at the Orpheum. It was awesome. It was bliss. They didn't hit the organ as hard and loud as I had hoped for the opening of Intervention, and it was clear that they were way more comfortable with their older stuff, but man it was cool. Being a person that loves to sing along but doesn't want to be that person at concerts and frequently holds back, I was really happy that so much of their stuff you just have to sing/shout along with. As hoped and expected Neighborhood #3 was off the charts with energy. The only bad part? The idiots in front of us.

At first it was kind of cute. This guy and girl were late teens, maybe early early twenties and were dancing. He did the subdued guy thing with a few fist pumps, and she was just sort of doing the indie chick jumping and spazzing thing. Who could blame her, right? The beats in Arcade Fire are hard not to spazz out to, and who hasn't done a little living room grooving to some of their songs? But she got worse. Way worse. She started jumping and flailing so much that she switched places with her grooving guy so she could conduct her epileptic fits in the aisle. When they started singing Ocean of Noise, she finally stopped, but then proceeded to loudly chat with her dumbshit boyfriend (I turned on both of them for their inappropriately wild thrashing during My Body is a Cage), and then there was kissing and laughing and ass-grabbing. Shut. Up!

Next to me was another young couple, who were so nice that it balanced things out. The girl was shorter than the spazzy dancer, and did much eye-rolling and/or laughing since the spazz was in front of her. She could have gotten seriously pissed, smacked a bitch and been justified, but she had a great attitude. The guy - bless his heart - couldn't keep a beat to save his life. He was fine as long as the crowd was clapping, but whenever he tried to keep it up afterward it was a mess. He was gloriously out of tune when we would sing along, but he was so sincere and excited that it made it more awesome.

The dumbshit duo left during the first encore, securing my utter disdain for all time. Jeff, meanwhile, was establishing a little crush on Régine Chassagne. She's totally cute and crazy fun to watch perform, plays every instrument, and has a fantastic voice. My husband has great taste, I must say.

* Forgot to mention the (not expected) raging cheer that erupted after the lyric "I don't want to live in America no more." Hahahahahahahahaha! People are stupid.

| By heidi | 11:04 AM

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Comments

Yay, my debut on Atlas Hugged! Ah yes I remember my first Arcade Fire concert, at the Paramount in Seattle...I was dumbfounded. It remains the best show I have ever seen, I can't wait to see them at ACL, although it will lack the coziness of a theatre I'm sure they will come up with something amazing. As a side note, I accidentally took a very chatty friend to the Decemberists concert a few weeks ago, I had no idea he would talk loudly the whole time about his weekend/what he ate for breakfast etc. things that certainly could have waited until AFTER the show! People were turning around and staring, I tried to give them the silent 'I'm sorry!' grimace. How does a 'non-talker during shows' politely shush their talker friend, this is what I want to know! Needless to say I will not be attending any musical events or movies with this guy....

Posted by: Janna at May 15, 2007 12:58 PM

Janna Grace, if I may call you that (because, honestly, I feel like I know you due to our mutual friend Chris' propensity to drop your name into polite conversation every three minutes), I've found the best way to silence the Concert Talker is with 1) an elbow placed sharply in the ribs, or 2) a confession that you are pregnant with their child. Obviously #2 only works some of the time, so use it, but don't abuse it. Best of luck!

Posted by: Micah at May 15, 2007 5:23 PM

Heidi, this article is for you: www.theonion.com/content/node/39283 By the way, I love being that guy.

Posted by: Nick at May 15, 2007 6:37 PM

my philosophy is - why waste time concert talking when you can sing the words to every song as loud as you possibly can. i always feel it's my mission to let people in the audience know that should some mishap happen onstage i would be willing and more than able to take the spot behind the mic and continue rocking their faces off.

Posted by: young_christopher at May 15, 2007 8:33 PM

Welcome, Jan! Chris, I used to think it would be way cool if we could go to concerts together, but um...this information changes things.

Posted by: heidi at May 15, 2007 10:04 PM

don't judge me.

Posted by: young_christopher at May 15, 2007 11:40 PM

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