You could see a counselor….naaahh, get the razor!!!
The other day I received a call from a friend of mine, (Bouff) asking if I wanted to attend an Andrew WK show. Or as Mr. WK likes to call them, “Parties”. Well, tsk tsk Mr. WK for calling this anything of the sort.
The night began with Angela and I entering a very dismal looking Harpers Ferry. The outside was normal, inside was dark, but normal. What was dismal was the crowd. I figured, “Damn, these people must be saving their energy for Andrew WK!” After about a half hour of waiting, my friends finally showed up during the opening acts set. Now that they were there, I figured we could rock out a bit. Maybe bang our heads or dance around a bit. Come to find out, I was sadly, SADLY mistaken. Here’s the scene described as best as I can.
The crowd:
The crowd consisted 40% of chicks who most definitely cut themselves, the next 58%, of whiney emo boys sharing make up tips with the cutting chicks. When the music started, the crowd went from lightly depressing murmurs, to…well…I guess I could only compare it to the look of sadness, and absolute depression that one would have on their face when they go to Somalia to finally meet the kid who you’ve been sending .39 cents a day to. Yeah, that sad. I was happy that I didn’t have to go far for a beer, so the chances of me accidentally walking into a moving razorblade was thin. The opening band began screaming about something…I think it was about him being grounded for wearing his mom’s fishnets to school. Either way, the people there really seemed to relate. And the one thing about this crowd was that every single person there was NOT like every other person there, these people were all individuals. Especially all of the girls in black and white halloween stockings, and definitely all the guys with the jet black neck length hair, eye makeup and black t-shirt with random trendy pink/white object on it.
The bands:
Opening band:
Don’t know their name, don’t want to. As a matter of fact, I’ll make one up for them. Ok, let’s start over…
The opening band, Waaaaaaaaalex and the Cuttastics started by playing the song that everyone (nobody) knows. Ok, I’ll try to give you the best audio, visual I can give you. Guitars hit high whiney power chords, the bass hits the same 2 notes over and over, drummer keeps his head down and plays the “dum dum, tssss, dum dum, tsss” rhythm. And the key person in relaying the bands pain and suffering to the already depressed crowd, the singer. Fresh from a trip to Urban Outfitters in his mom’s minivan, this kid hated his life. From what I understand, he can’t deal with the depression that hits after your girlfriend dumps you for crying more than her, and stealing all of her makeup. So he wrote a song that consisted of 3 actual words (all ended with “ughhh” because he’s so “into it”), 23 chest pounds, the ever present “Can you feel my pain” stare into the crowd, and of course the obligatory “ROOOOOAAAARRR!!!!!” Which apparently only works on stage, because when you ask the bartender for a couple of “BEEEEEEERRRSS ROOOAARRR!!!” he just looks at you wierd and threatens to throw you out. Before I knew it, Waaaaaaaaalex and the Cuttastics’ set was over. I was convinced that the band only played one song. I swore it. I still stick by my word, they played one song! But according to everyone else around me, they played 6, but they all sounded alike. PHEW! I thought I was going insane, but turns out all of their songs are the same, so that put my mind at ease.
The next band’s getting ready on the stage. So far, I see a big football player-esque type of fellah, so I have some hope that this could be some good old fashioned rock and or roll. That is, of course, until I see this guy who looks like a balding Seth Green hooking up his laptop to a voice modulator. I narrowed it down to two genres. Either this guy’s a genius and is going to blow my mind with something Coldplayish, just less gay. OR He’s setting up for a synth-metal rock out!!!
WRONG!!!!!
Another emo band. ANOTHER ONE!!! But the good thing is, they picked up where the other band left off, playing the same exact song! Which is good for me, because I like it when I shut my car off on a good song, and then, when I turn it back on, that good song’s palyin again. I like that. What I don’t like is when I turn the car off and it diesel’s out, and then screams like a baby on steroids. And sure enough, that’s what happened this time. Once again, the name of the incredibly horrid band, I cannot recall, so I shall make another up. Ok, so here….The band playing the 2nd set of the evening was named “Your internet friends are not real friends”. Each member of YIFANRF had it’s own individual characteristic that made me take the time to evaluate as if I was making a music video, here’s the result (in text, so what)
Scene opens with a shot of a linebacker crying in his helmet (rhythm guitarist) on the field with all of his football friends laughing at him. Next shot is of a young (yet incredibly balding) Scott Evil (Austin Powers) blowing stuff up in the chemistry lab, next would be the school nurse played by the drummer who looked incredibly like the guy from House. So he’d be taking care of Angus (rhythm guitar (2) player…could be Angus, could be early teen Chunk (goonies)). Angus has butt problems from being rung up the flag pole on his undies. Next the scene would cut to Mr. Peepers (the bass player, very monkey-ish. VERY!) running through the girls locker room flinging his half eaten apples and excrement all over the girls and the walls. Finally, the camera would turn to a bed head young caucasian boy, sitting at a table crying to a girl who’s listening, but not really listening. Long story short, the chick turns out to be a lesbian, and everyone ends up crying about it, and yet, discovering something about themselves along the way.
The bad part about that is, the music video I just described was 100x better than their show. Apart from the singer not knowing any of the words and having to stare at his iMac for half of the show, leaving the Angus looking guitarist to front the band. What a stage presence he had, let me tell YOU! I swear, Helen Keller had more stage presence than this kid. It was like having Al Gore standing in for…well…anyone in a rock band. Not good. Oh, and did I mention their song variety? No? Well, that’s because there wasn’t any! For the first 2 hours of that show, that “Party” I spent listening to some yuppie teens crying in their new Kohl’s special outfit. But oh, does it get better! WAY BETTER! [[sarcasm]]
Next up, and the last bit of the “party” that I stayed for was the DJ. I call him DJ 1984. With his incredible pleather members only jacket, 80’s cab driver hat, and trendy white on black tshirt, I knew this was going to be the final straw. He began his set by saying “Andrew WK will be out in about an hour!….Ok, maybe more than an hour! But let’s get those” (here’s the exact moment that I decided to leave) “BOOTIES SHAKIN!!!” Okay, terrific, I’m gone!! No f’n way, I’m gonna sit here and listen to 80’s Eddie (a CD DJ. Ironic? Yes), when all I wanted to do was rock out a bit. So I decided to get my coat, and leave. When I got to the coat room, I stood in line. Only to be cut by some flat chested, over makeup’d, middleschool lolita. I wanted to smack her, but I figure life will do that to her when she get’s pregnant by some guy who renamed himself Shilo and paints his nails daily. But I digress. I finally get to the coat room and give the gentleman my ticket, which in turn he gives to his associate (right? it’s a f’n coat room!) and his associate finds the matching number, and proceeds to hand me, what has to be a medium sweatshirt with hearts and skulls on it. I look at it, and then him, and then his associate and said “Are you kidding?” They looked at it and apologized, apparently combining color’s AND numbers isn’t the coat room assistant’s strong suit. Which would explain why he’s a coatroom assistant. As I walked towards my few remaining friends to say “Good evening” I noticed more flocks of emo’s coming in. I left immediately, sad to say, dismissing the musical stylings of one Mr. Andrew W.K.
The highlight of the evening came about 5 minutes after I got there, when Angela discovered a SoCo and Lime machine that whipped the delicous alcoholic concauction up in a matter of seconds using only one button. When I send my car into Pimp My Ride, I’m going to want one of those in the back seat. F the 50inch plasma! But all in all the night didn’t suck that bad, because I had my friends there, and luckily, they hate emo’s just as much as me.
That’s why we’re friends.
