: notes to self :

at the marquee, heavy glow

the rachael yamagata and ryan adams concert was kind of bizarre-in an off-kilter-jet-lagged sort of way. it started out promisingly enough-vegetarian supreme pita from Fit For Life for dinner, being super punctual at the rendezvous point, and entering the line early enough, so if seen from afar, we could be considered part of the 'devoted'.

there's not really much to say about the concert-which is pretty sad-other than these few items:

1. PRE-CONCERT: there was an abundance of boy-man hipsters there with their female high-school counterparts, which sucked most of the joviality out of the waiting-in-line experience. when pressed, one such member said the opening act was "...uh...like.. kristi ...rachel.. yamaguchi?" under normal circumstances, i wouldn't expect people to know the name of the opening act. however as this was not a normal situation-i was here to see the opening act, and had little to no interest in the headliner, except for the fact that he could possibly throw a hissy fit if a patron asked him to play "SUMMER OF '69!!!"-my hackles were shur risin' up.
2. AUDIENCE: we managed to squeeze into the second row... right behind 4 boy-men, whom i have now named, The Professor (a bespectacled manic Adams fan), Spliff (started smoking up right in front of the security guard, shielded only by The Prof's legs), Fro-boy (self-explanatory) and Rich (looked so much like Rich E from band, it was freaky). They looked like ghosts of Stouffville past, which was downright unsettling. I wondered why there were so many guys-wasn't Ryan Adams a folk-country-rocker? I didn't think hipsters went for alt-country balladeers, especially ones from Stouffville. Apparently I know nothing about the tastes of young people. These guys were rabid for Mr Adams' music.
3. ETIQUETTE: During Rachael Yamagata's set, which was cool (she had a cellist with her! and her voice sounds so amazing live), all you could hear was this infernal buzzing and ambient noise from the back because of the excessive amount of audience chatter. How RUDE. I bet she could've rocked out even more if the audience wasn't so LAME. unforgivable man.
4. PERFORMANCE: Rachael was great. And Ryan was...well... let's just say this: It takes a special guy to command such dedication from alpha males to the point they're shouting their affection and thanks to Mr Adams for playing really average and sometimes boring music. His second set took FOREVER. i wanted to scream. and this is coming from someone whose first response to any guy playing acoustic guitar is "be still my beating heart."




he's like the ben affleck of alt-country...but weirder.




to be fair, there were one or two songs that caught the ear...but was it really that underwhelming? i really had to force myself to pay close attention, trying to find something redeemable. was i really checking my watch repeatedly? how could I not like alt-country?! gah.


thanks to the Tam sisters for trekking down with me, and for stifling most of their yawns during the concert. =)