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quislibetSo.
Last night was a mixed bag. We had tickets to see the somewhat Pogues-esque band Flogging Molly at the Roxy on Tremont St.
Andrew W.K., whom![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
heatray had described as all that is hateful about metal, was the advertised opening band. Doors were at 7. I called to find out when we could expect FM to play, but those at the Roxy could not say. We figured, however, we could still catch the show and get home on the 12:10 train.
I was in Salem during the day, so I got on the commuter rail around 6 or so. (I got into North Station at the time my usual train to Salem was boarding; it was odd to see the familiar faces of fellow regular commuters walking the opposite way down a different platform.) I met J. shortly before 7 at Boylston and we walked to Chinatown for dinner. We had planned to get Vietnamese sandwiches (bahn mi) on Beech St.; I assumed we were going to get them from what turned out to be called the Thai Binh Supermarket, where J. had got them before, but she had in mind a place across the street which had actual indoor seating, a bonus on a cold night -- but alas, it was closed. Seating won out over sandwiches (even two-dollar mind-blowingly tasty ones), so we ate at a different Vietnamese restaurant right across the street. I can't remember its name exactly, but it had the word "Pho" in it, if that helps. Good vermicelli bowl thingies.
Anyway.
So. We walked to the Roxy. It was around 8, and there was still a line at the door. We passed a man dressed like Batman in lots of black rubber.
Eventually we got in. A band that wished they were Green Day were playing. This did not seem like unfortunate metal. Could it be that there was another opening band? How tedious.
Green-Day-ish band played on. They weren't bad, really. We soon realized from the merchandise tables, however, that there was still yet another band to go before even Andrew W.K. came on. We began to get a sinking feeling.
The second band came on a half hour after the first had cleared the stage. Uh-oh. This band wanted desperately to be the Misfits, and that was really okay, I guess. I understand they're local boys.
Batman walked around, alone, reveling in his Batman-ness. Other costumed persons were in evidence as well. Apparently WBCN was sponsoring a costume contest. Our favorite to win was the 8-foot-tall Transformerish robot guy with built-in stilts and robotic claws and so forth, although we had to admire the guy who came as Austin Powers and had built a wooden shagmobile around, presumably, his wheelchair. People-watching in general was nicely diverse; even the un-costumed represented a wide cross-section of the club-going public. ("Oh, look," J. said at one point; "it seems Raven the wobble-head goth girl is here." But I don't think the woman in question really meant to be dressed as the toy on purpose -- more's the pity.)
Even in the midst of such diversions we began to realize that we were faced with a choice: arrange last-minute crash space, or leave without hearing much of the band we had come to see. But I didn't have my regular bag and thus my address book with me. J.'s yielded the phone number of our friends S. and P., whose LAN party Saturday I had had to skip, telling them I nevertheless wanted to see them soon.
Well, then. No time like the present. To the pay phone!
Which didn't work. Were there any other phones there? Three out of three employees "didn't think so." Nor could we leave and re-enter without buying new tickets, a vexing thing in conjunction with the broken phone. Finally J. offered a drink in exchange for the use of someone's cell phone, and the kind woman didn't even require the drink. We reached P. and verified we would be welcome.
So we could relax, just in time to enjoy Andrew W.K.
Upstairs at the Roxy, perhaps as part of the Halloween deco, there were mock canopy beds lining one wall. They did, in fact, have comfortable matresses. It was a bit sketchy in a certain respect, of course, but they seemed clean and, best of all, one was in a nice corner with no clear view of the stage, for a glimpse at A.W.K. and his band filled my head with visions of Lovecraftian hybrids, mixes of not-quite-human with something still less evolved.
I think heatray was too easy on them, and it's unfair to decent, respectable, hard-working metalheads to label A.W.K.'s music as metallic. It was big, stupid, mindless rock'n'roll (in the non-complimentary sense): anthemic stadium-rockin' soundalike tunes with lyrics like "We want fun / Everybody get wasted" (repeat, repeat). ("Is this still the same song?" "No, they're repeating different lyrics now.")
As their set came mercifully near its end, I readjusted my seated position on the "bed" and my hand found a wet spot. *Maybe* it was a spilled drink from a little earlier in the night.
I have to believe that.
I went and washed my hands, in any case.
Anyway. Finally, at the time we would have had to have left to catch the commuter train, Flogging Molly came out and put on a show that made it all worthwhile, even with the expensive taxi ride after (and if you live or have lived in the Boston area I don't need to include a rant here about the MBTA's closing hours). If the idea of Celtic punk appeals to you at all, I recommend seeing them at some point.
We were amused when FM's singer, Dave King, said, "I don't know what Andrew W.K. was up to, but the stage up here is fookin' sticky. Must be all of that hair gel he uses. But no -- Andrew's a great guy, and we want to dedicate this next song to him. It's called, 'Selfish Man.'"
S. and P. were in bed when we arrived at their place. I found out this morning that P.'s hospitality required a trip to the emergency room: while setting up coffee for us (and for S.) last night, there was a mishap with the coffee grinder's lid breaking or something that led to a nice white bandage and some stitches on one of her fingers. This had all been resolved by the time we arrived, and as they were in bed, we didn't find out about it until S. told me this morning (P. had, on her way out the door before that, shown me the bandage and said, embarrassed, that it was a coffe-making accident, but I didn't realize it was so recent until S. mentioned that yeah, it was while making the coffee we were then drinking).
So we're bummed about that.
And now I'm at work, in smokey clothes, with a pile of boring things to do.
Tonight, though, J. andelectriccat and I will walk around and reaffirm our superiority to the general mass of humanity by observing Salem Halloween-week tourism, so that will be fun. (On Thursday it will be too crowded and probably cold to enjoy same.)
Last night was a mixed bag. We had tickets to see the somewhat Pogues-esque band Flogging Molly at the Roxy on Tremont St.
Andrew W.K., whom
heatray had described as all that is hateful about metal, was the advertised opening band. Doors were at 7. I called to find out when we could expect FM to play, but those at the Roxy could not say. We figured, however, we could still catch the show and get home on the 12:10 train.I was in Salem during the day, so I got on the commuter rail around 6 or so. (I got into North Station at the time my usual train to Salem was boarding; it was odd to see the familiar faces of fellow regular commuters walking the opposite way down a different platform.) I met J. shortly before 7 at Boylston and we walked to Chinatown for dinner. We had planned to get Vietnamese sandwiches (bahn mi) on Beech St.; I assumed we were going to get them from what turned out to be called the Thai Binh Supermarket, where J. had got them before, but she had in mind a place across the street which had actual indoor seating, a bonus on a cold night -- but alas, it was closed. Seating won out over sandwiches (even two-dollar mind-blowingly tasty ones), so we ate at a different Vietnamese restaurant right across the street. I can't remember its name exactly, but it had the word "Pho" in it, if that helps. Good vermicelli bowl thingies.
Anyway.
So. We walked to the Roxy. It was around 8, and there was still a line at the door. We passed a man dressed like Batman in lots of black rubber.
Eventually we got in. A band that wished they were Green Day were playing. This did not seem like unfortunate metal. Could it be that there was another opening band? How tedious.
Green-Day-ish band played on. They weren't bad, really. We soon realized from the merchandise tables, however, that there was still yet another band to go before even Andrew W.K. came on. We began to get a sinking feeling.
The second band came on a half hour after the first had cleared the stage. Uh-oh. This band wanted desperately to be the Misfits, and that was really okay, I guess. I understand they're local boys.
Batman walked around, alone, reveling in his Batman-ness. Other costumed persons were in evidence as well. Apparently WBCN was sponsoring a costume contest. Our favorite to win was the 8-foot-tall Transformerish robot guy with built-in stilts and robotic claws and so forth, although we had to admire the guy who came as Austin Powers and had built a wooden shagmobile around, presumably, his wheelchair. People-watching in general was nicely diverse; even the un-costumed represented a wide cross-section of the club-going public. ("Oh, look," J. said at one point; "it seems Raven the wobble-head goth girl is here." But I don't think the woman in question really meant to be dressed as the toy on purpose -- more's the pity.)
Even in the midst of such diversions we began to realize that we were faced with a choice: arrange last-minute crash space, or leave without hearing much of the band we had come to see. But I didn't have my regular bag and thus my address book with me. J.'s yielded the phone number of our friends S. and P., whose LAN party Saturday I had had to skip, telling them I nevertheless wanted to see them soon.
Well, then. No time like the present. To the pay phone!
Which didn't work. Were there any other phones there? Three out of three employees "didn't think so." Nor could we leave and re-enter without buying new tickets, a vexing thing in conjunction with the broken phone. Finally J. offered a drink in exchange for the use of someone's cell phone, and the kind woman didn't even require the drink. We reached P. and verified we would be welcome.
So we could relax, just in time to enjoy Andrew W.K.
Upstairs at the Roxy, perhaps as part of the Halloween deco, there were mock canopy beds lining one wall. They did, in fact, have comfortable matresses. It was a bit sketchy in a certain respect, of course, but they seemed clean and, best of all, one was in a nice corner with no clear view of the stage, for a glimpse at A.W.K. and his band filled my head with visions of Lovecraftian hybrids, mixes of not-quite-human with something still less evolved.
I think heatray was too easy on them, and it's unfair to decent, respectable, hard-working metalheads to label A.W.K.'s music as metallic. It was big, stupid, mindless rock'n'roll (in the non-complimentary sense): anthemic stadium-rockin' soundalike tunes with lyrics like "We want fun / Everybody get wasted" (repeat, repeat). ("Is this still the same song?" "No, they're repeating different lyrics now.")
As their set came mercifully near its end, I readjusted my seated position on the "bed" and my hand found a wet spot. *Maybe* it was a spilled drink from a little earlier in the night.
I have to believe that.
I went and washed my hands, in any case.
Anyway. Finally, at the time we would have had to have left to catch the commuter train, Flogging Molly came out and put on a show that made it all worthwhile, even with the expensive taxi ride after (and if you live or have lived in the Boston area I don't need to include a rant here about the MBTA's closing hours). If the idea of Celtic punk appeals to you at all, I recommend seeing them at some point.
We were amused when FM's singer, Dave King, said, "I don't know what Andrew W.K. was up to, but the stage up here is fookin' sticky. Must be all of that hair gel he uses. But no -- Andrew's a great guy, and we want to dedicate this next song to him. It's called, 'Selfish Man.'"
S. and P. were in bed when we arrived at their place. I found out this morning that P.'s hospitality required a trip to the emergency room: while setting up coffee for us (and for S.) last night, there was a mishap with the coffee grinder's lid breaking or something that led to a nice white bandage and some stitches on one of her fingers. This had all been resolved by the time we arrived, and as they were in bed, we didn't find out about it until S. told me this morning (P. had, on her way out the door before that, shown me the bandage and said, embarrassed, that it was a coffe-making accident, but I didn't realize it was so recent until S. mentioned that yeah, it was while making the coffee we were then drinking).
So we're bummed about that.
And now I'm at work, in smokey clothes, with a pile of boring things to do.
Tonight, though, J. and
electriccat and I will walk around and reaffirm our superiority to the general mass of humanity by observing Salem Halloween-week tourism, so that will be fun. (On Thursday it will be too crowded and probably cold to enjoy same.)
