i couldn't find my good eyeliner and was having a fit over which dress to wear. marc smoked outside my apartment waiting for me. we drove down central with the windows wide open enjoying the lingering summer heat and i had to keep pulling down on my short purple minidress. i was also wearing the turquoise-cubes necklace my parents' gave me for graduation last december and the slouchy brown boots. marc wore his usual. white tee, dark jeans and scuffed skateboard shoes. and his lovely somewhat crooked teeth.
we got there slightly after mgmt had started and the whole room was dark and loud and moving. we were ushered to our seats which were not great but not terrible. we were on the far right of the auditorium but closer to the middle aisle than most others in our section. mgmt was on stage and was an absolute hipster mess. you've heard their songs kids, time to pretend and electric feel. i'm sure you have. go look em up.
i'm not lying when i tell you we were sitting right next to the five most fucking psychotic dancers. not the feel good, let it loose, free love dancers. these girls were insanely jabbing their elbows around our heads, spinning their arms in circles and kicking their legs in the air. one of them pressed her fingers into the chair in front of us so she could jump off her seat into a wild attempt of doing running man into the air.
i was already in the usual prissy no nonsense mood i do when forced to be in a crowd of dorm rats but the dancing adderall-addicted psychopaths were pushing me further and further into a dark and serious bout of intolerable grief. it's one thing to enjoy the music at a concert and get involved, dancing without awareness. i love that! i love just being inside my brain dancing around but it's a whole other thing to rub your crotch on the chair in front of your drool soaked charlotte russe dress. if i ever run into those psycho dancing girls i swear to god i will grab their shoulders and head butt my unbrushed head into their overly polished skull.
but yeah. mgmt was pretty awesome in that hipster je ne sais quoi kind of way.
intermission! jay and lisa were there. t and lukey were there. m and i played nasty people-watching games and made fun of nerds buying the $9 cups of bud lite and $12 glasses of piss wine. we made fun but only for want of alcohol. note to self: invest in a flask. 15 minutes went by and the lights dimmed.
beck was dressed in layers and layers of black and white clothes. long stringy blond hair and rosy red cheeks. he adjusted his guitar and walked on stage. his guitarist wore a cheap looking native american headdress. grrrrrr. and his keyboardist dj stood on a raised platform in the back. there was also a drummer and bass player.
he played chemtrails, my favorite favorite song off the new album, modern guilt. i was hoping he would also play replica off the same album but i don't think he did. it's hard to recall. he would play several songs off his older albums in between playing stuff from his new record. in the middle of the show, his band mates and he took off their instruments and plugged themselves into microphone headsets and handheld scratchers and other tiny electric musical devices. i think it was choreograped musical mayhem.
the ushers were unbelievable assholes. there were two standing at the front and end of each aisle and then another two or three rushing back and forth looking down each row. they would shine a flashlight in your face if you looked like you were using a camera or a camera phone. even the kids just texting on their phone got screamed at and shook. i'm not joking. marc and i got yelled at and had the flashlight jammed in our faces. like, take a chill pill, man, you've been fooled into thinking this job means THAT much to you.
i think i wanted to be cynical about the psycho dancing girls and how beck was so far away that it might as well have been an imposter. but i got warm and melted when beck started talking about how the desert just outside of town reminded him of a song off the sea change album. the golden age.
he must have seen the pink purple clouds in the orange sky that day. the sunsets here always make me feel alone and heartbroken and happy too. albuquerque, we have confusing sunsets don't we?
his encore consisted of four or five wildly popular songs. marc danced like a robot and i danced like an awkward teen. it just seemed to fit the environment and everyone around us sang the lyrics and clapped.
all the pictures were found on last.fm.
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