Freitag, 9. Sep 2005, 22:36

I have no love for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. A lot of people like them, so maybe I'm missing something. I'm pretty sure I've only heard two songs ("Y-Control" and "Maps") by them, so if anyone wants to throw me a recommendation that doesn't suck, email it to me. Much obliged. Oh, before someone bashes me for not liking them, I do think the guitarist seems pretty darn talented. That, and the outro of "Maps" blends well with the intro to Willa Ford's "I Wanna Be Bad", which is an awesome song, especially in headphones. Whoo! I have great taste.

So, History 629.

Last Friday, I went to bed quite early in preparation for our journey over the weekend. I'm talking like 7:30 early. Yeah, early. I got up at like 10, and jumped on the computer for a little bit, but for all intents and purposes, I slept well Friday night. We stopped at the Pittsfield Wal*Mart (caffeine pills, thank you Ang) and McD's for last-minute pickups, and didn't get out of the Pitts until about 9:45 Saturday morning. Gas ended up costing a total of $80 to get to DC and back, but tolls were the real killer. To cross the George Washington bridge costed better than $10 round trip. Fucking George Washington. New Jersey kills you in tolls. And stinks. Stupid NJ Burger King only serving breakfast at four in the morning… what are they thinking? All I wanted was a damn burger!

Yeah, so we got to the club by quarter after five or so. Band was already there, but they were the only ones. Russell came out of the club and asked us how the drive was and such. Dean and Doy walked by a bunch of times, but I don't know that they really know who we are, we've never talked to them, only Russell and Will. Anyways, it was about an hour and a half or so before doors before anyone else came. Oh, I went to get Shawna a water down the street (she was scared to walk around the city–can't blame her) and on my way back to the club, Laree from Will's message board (I don't actually know her, she just memorable because it's not often that a black girl is at a Fall Out Boy or Will show) was walking down the street and past me with a friend of hers and made a comment about me being a "good man", I presume because of my The Academy Is... shirt I was wearing. Will finally came out of the club after forever, but he'd snuck out the backdoor or something. He was talking on his phone, but he did the whole head-nod acknowledgement thing before getting on the bus. After the show he was like… when I seen you guys I was like, "Hey, they're from Poughkeepsie. That's crazy." I told him we were actually from further than Poughkeepsie and he said, "That's even more crazy." Show was good, but not as good as the last Poughkeepsie show, which I think will be tough to top. No "Doesn't Have to Be That Way" which a set list is just not complete without, but he ended with "Lover Tonight" completely off the mic. Pretty cool. Oh! I almost forgot about the annoying cunt behind us who kept saying in between songs "Will, I love you." Not like "WILL I LOVE YOU!!!!" But, in her little trying-to-be-seductive-voice "I love you." Gag me. Every time it would quiet down between songs, "I love you." Then she threw in lines of wanting to "have his babies" and "I could make out with him right now." Even when everything quieted down for "Someone Else's Baby", "I love you." It was all I could do not to turn around and tell her to shut the fuck up. I settled for "What are you? Twelve?" Finally, he gave her his usual "and I love you." Oooh! Orgasm!(/sarcasm) "I have chills." Good, you happy? Now fucking leave. He doesn't love you. The only one he wants to hear saying that is his mother, and she wasn't there. He probably hates you for being annoying.

Will told us about their plan to raise money for the Katrina relief effort. Since they're poor and don't really have anything they can do, they've offered to record any cover song you'd like them to record for anyone who donates $100. Donate $1000, get ten songs of your choice recorded, etc. I think it's a pretty cool idea. It'll be interesting to see how some of those turn out.

Opening bands were aenh. Again, plagued by the can't-hear-the-vocals disease. That's the shitty thing about being front and center for every show we go to, but I love being right there at the front, and will continue to show up hours early to be there. The Bicycle Thieves' guitarist and bassist were way into their music, which was cool. The guitarist is so gonna roll his ankle one night, though. Army of Me was cool, I'd probably have enjoyed them more if I was more familiar with their music. Best part of them was their drummer, who was like Dave Grohl on heroin. This guy just totally mutilated his drums.

They have the first ever Will Hoge tour tees, so we got one. It's the "Hearts Are Gonna Roll" (new song) Tour, so it's got a pretty cool design of two die against an orange flame. The lettering for "Will Hoge" is pretty hard to read, though. Brett from The Juliana Theory was staring at my shirt for their whole set, so that's what pointed out to me that you just can't read it. I wonder if he ever figured it out.

Chatted with Will for a couple minutes after the show, said bye to Russell and headed home. Got home at 10:00am, slept for two hours, showered, then left for Poughkeepsie. Got there about two and a half hours before doors. Ate McDonald's, then played catch with the football. Days Away's merch dude (sorry, don't know your name) tried to get involved, but Beth threw the ball to the van twice, instead of to him. Oops. There weren't a ton of people there, maybe 100 or so, but I think a lot of those were there for Juniper, who seemed to be local or at least a decent local following. I thought both Juniper and The Goodwill blew ass. The singer from TGW was a cock. He called the crowd whack. Join a metal band, asshole. They're the only fans who like being degraded. I don't. They both were too screamo for my tastes, but the crowd loved them both in comparison to Days Away. They got no love at all, I did hear ONE other person singing, during "Gravity." He must have that song on a sampler or something. Who knows. Keith's vocals were too quiet, again. You couldn't hear a single thing he said again. They had the mic cranked, but still… nothing. He must sing quietly in the studio. It's weird, 'cuz in the old version of "Keep Your Voices Down" it was like all-out punk and he poured his voice into it. Granted, it strained his voice, but he's got more than he puts out. So what if his voice strains or cracks a little, at least you would be able to hear him. Good thing they make a good instrumental band, and Tim is an incredible(!) drummer. It'd be cool to see them again. Don't know what their future tour plans are after this TJT shit is done with.

TJT was cool, but still couldn't hear the vocals all the time, even with their fancy-schmancy personal equipment. Wireless guitars, in-ears. The works. Good show, wish I knew more than just half of their songs. I got a pick from Josh K. Yeah, wasn't exactly overwhelmed by TJT, except for the end of "French Kiss-off." Blew me away.

Work this week sucked. I didn't miss Pearl, but I definitely missed her doing her own job. We had an insane amount of calls every single day this week. Today it got better, but that didn't help me too much since I had an assload of filing and catching up from yesterday to do. Suck.

So, our bowling league has folded at the Saints. That left Dad and I with few options for bowling this year. We went down to Valley Park last night, being the first night of that league, and we were picked up by Subway, who I fucking hate, but it's better than the other option which was to try to find a team in Pittsfield, which would have been a sucky drive every Thursday night. Don't know what Zac can do, though. It didn't seem like any teams were needing bowlers last night, and I'm not even 100% sure about his work schedule. Bowled a 353 last night. Not bad for only having bowled there a couple of times in the past two years. From what I saw, I was the best in the league for the night. Can't complain, but my average is going to start sky-high, which is poop.

I guess that's all, for now.