It was supposed to be so easy, volume II

The fall concert series continues. Last night was Interpol. I've blogged about the band before and I've used a lot of their song titles and lyrics as titles for my blog entries. In the History of Bryton they are one of the most important bands. I've now seen Interpol three times, and I think I'm done for a while.

I first saw them in 2003. I still remember everything about that night. Waiting in line on West Temple with Mike C. and April and her blonde friend, making fun of Ben Franklin, wearing my black shirt and my favorite jacket, talking to Emily on the phone back when I barely knew her at all, finally getting inside the club (on Carlos D's guest list, no less) missing the opening act, finding a spot up in the balcony (maybe I should admit that I wasn't on Carlos D's guest list, Mike was, and I was his plus one), drinking a weird Czech Beer (Lev Black Lion) and seeing a great show.

The next time I saw them was opening for the Cure on the Curiosa tour. Disappointing. Outdoor venue, and we were a mile from the stage and the sun hadn't even gone down yet and the sound was bad and I was with my ex-girlfriend at the time (actually at the time she was my girlfriend) and she wasn't really into Interpol and blah blah blah.

This time Interpol was headlining. Originally scheduled for the crappy McKay Events Center, they changed venues to the crappier In the Venue. Seriously, what a dumb name for a club.

Irritation #1: when I bought my ticket it was $35. I don't care what side of the tracks you come from, that's a lot of dough for a concert. I guess sales were low because last week they dropped them to $10. That'll teach me to be a fan and buy tickets early.

Irritation #2: on the way to the show I stopped for some cash and my remaining balance was... unnerving to say the least. Surely there's been some kind of mistake. Surely my identity has been stolen. Nope. Turns out I'm just bad at balancing my checkbook. Go B!

Irritation #3: no cameras allowed. I guess that makes sense. Cameras at concerts are a very recent phenomenon. Time was you wouldn't even think about bringing a camera. Tai and I talked about this at Arcade Fire. We logicked that the prevalence of camera phones made it so authority types didn't bother disallowing cameras since everyone had a camera phone anyway. Not this time though, as the venue wouldn't even allow camera phones inside. I felt so naked without my phone. Guess how many important texts I missed? Six. How important were they? A sampling: "I just fell asleep on the couch." "Wow, go Rockies!" "Andrei played well tonight."

Non-irritation #1: at the last minute Swedish band The Shout Out Louds were added as an opener. These kids were good. I really enjoyed their guitar driven keyboard pop.

Incredulity #1: middle act, The Liars. If I had liked their music, I would have thought they put on a great show. But I didn't. And I didn't know what to expect so I was surprised when the singer turned out to be a seven-foot tall monkey-faced man dressed all in white and prancing around like an even more effeminate Mick Jagger. I was frightened by him.

Interpol finally came on. They sounded good. They looked awesome. They had cool lights and smoke. But I don't know, kind of didn't do it for me. It was a great performance, they played almost all the songs I wanted to here, but didn't really get me "pumped" like the other shows I've talked about. And their music isn't very diverse so every song, especially the newer stuff, sounds exactly the same.

Irritation #4: I was standing near the front of the stage when Interpol came on. Now, I'd be a complete tool to think that the people up front weren't gonna dance and bop around, but this was ridiculous. All these broad-shouldered plaid-shirted bone-heads pushed their way up front and started dancing around like it was a punky reggae party. Have you heard Interpol? They're not 311. You don't skank around with one finger in the air to Interpol. You just don't.

Irritation #5: Over testosteroned bouncers. I left the idiot pit and found a good view in the back. This bouncer hassled me to get out of the walkway, as though if there was a fire we weren't all screwed anyway. I started to move as requested and this dude pushed me, hard. Not like a shove, but like both hands on me, pushing me like I'm a heavy filing cabinet or something. Despite his noticeable size advantage I said "F*** you!" and he didn't like that. He got all up in my grill with his crazy eyes. "Huh? Huh?" he said over and over. I just glared back at him, trying to look tough but probably looking like a frightened rabbit. In retrospect, I'm glad he didn't strike me.

Irritation #6: I got myself a couple parking tickets. One of them was for being in a "parallel only" zone which is total bullshit because I looked up and down that street for any sort of posted parking rules, of which there were none. The second one was for having expired registration. Totally my fault. It's been expired since August but it's more damn important to me to sleep in on Saturdays than take care of my car (see, I have to get it inspected before I can get it registered and I have to fix my check engine light before I can get it inspected so the whole thing has to be a big production). Bottom line is I'm a big-time screw up, des temps en temps. C'est la vie, non?