Thirty-five Years On...

...and those guys still have it.

Moving backwards in time:

The night before the beach vacation, I, the GC, and two members of the SSR/Geek BBQ crew saw Kurt Vile and the Violators and Pixies. It was incredible.

I'm primarily familiar with Kurt Vile by being a Courtney Barnett fan, and through the Vile and the Violators stuff that gets played on SiriusFM radio and...that's about it. (The War on Drugs was one of those groups that I knew about but never managed to listen to.) But I liked the Sirius stuff enough to be willing to check out the entirety of their set, which was by no means a given because when we bought the tickets Spoon was listed as the opener.

And, well. They are no Spoon 😠 But I can see why they're the replacement opener for this leg of the tour: they sound like a slightly more countrified version of vintage Pixies. This is not a bells and whistles group, but they put on a solid live show, Vile's "look at my glorious tresses" Rock God^(TM) hair flips are entertaining, Pretty Pimpin' rocks live, and I will happily listen to more of their album-only stuff based on this experience.

And omg Pixies. We were able to get our favorite spot in the back (with the best acoustics), and because the venue was crowded but not full we also had really good sight lines on the stage. Now, I've seen Pixies three times previously and each show was excellent. But this one was something else. Previously they've done a mix of the big hits from Doolittle and singles from their post-reunion albums. But this time, they played all of Bossanova. And then they played all of Tromp le Monde. Bossanova is kind of neck-to-neck with Doolittle as my favorite Pixies album and hearing all of it (Cecilia Ann! Rock Music! Is She Weird! All Over the World! Dig for Fire! Ana! Down in the Well! Stormy freaking Weather!) was epic. And then Tromp le Monde! ("Ooh, what is that one?" said one of the Geek BBQers after Planet of Sound--excellent taste.) And just, gah. I didn't think I was ever going to hear very many of the tracks from these albums live, and now I've seen them all!

They wrapped up with two crowd pleasers: Here Comes Your Man and Where Is My Mind ("Oh, the Orange Cassidy song," said the Geek BBQer who's more of a wrestling fan. "Oh, the Thunderbolts* song," said the Geek BBQer who's more of a Marvel fan. And, lol.) Then they played Into the White and I--and a sizeable majority of the audience--lost our minds. People pretty obviously thought we'd never hear that song live, and now we have. And then.

The venue doesn't really do encores and neither do the Pixies based on the previous shows I've seen. But the house lights came up and they stayed on stage...and then played a rager version of Debaser that was the best I've seen and I dunno. Maybe it was all a work, but it felt like an honest to god we-are-doing-this-because-this-show-was-amazing unplanned encore, and we left the venue on such a freaking endorphin high. What a freaking show.

これで以上です。

Moving back even further in time:

Wednesday evening Irish step resumed after the summer break. But instead of 10 am on Saturday, class is now at 7:30 pm on Wednesdays. As someone who's usually in bed by 9:00 I was a bit concerned about whether I'd have the energy for this, but having slept through almost the entire day (more on this later) I certainly did.

About half of the core group from the previous three sessions is back and it was great to see everyone again. There are a lot of new people who also seem very cool, so that's nice. I had not been practicing as frequently as I should have been (especially toward the end of the break) but previously tricky stuff came more easily; it's good to know that my brain had been consolidating everything we learned during the break instead of forgetting it all.

Tuesday evening was Weird Al Yankovic, which, it goes without saying, was fabulous. As a bonus he performed at a venue that lets lawn ticket holders bring their own food and drinks, and I cannot tell you how wonderful this is. You can get to the venue before doors, grab a good spot once you're in, and just relax and enjoy a massive picnic until the show starts instead of going hungry and thirsty for 2+ hours or cursing the world because they're somehow charging $40 for a 12 ounce can of the shittiest domestic "beer" and heat lamp tater tots.

We went with M.O., a party member from Oldest D&D Game (alas his wife stayed home with a recovering kiddo), and two of the Geek BBQ crew (a third had a seat in the arena, so we never managed to catch up him) and spent the time between doors and the opener chatting D&D and Assassin's Creed Shadows.

The opener was Puddles Pity Party, who we were vaguely aware of as a previous opening act for Primus. He was very entertaining and I would definitely see him again. He has stage presence, a great voice, and a wickedly sly sense of musical humor. For instance, he added little musical quotes from Disturbed's The Sickness to his cover of Little Roger and the Goosebumps' Stairway to Gilligan's Island...but you had to already know Disturbed to catch them; he did not point out what they were. There were a bunch of other moments like that, too, and I just really appreciate people with the confidence to trust that the audience will either get the punch line without rubbing their nose in it, or enjoy the performance without realizing there was a joke at all. I'm sure there were a bunch of other musical references I did miss, and I enjoyed the show anyway.

And then, holy crap, Weird Al. This was the third time we've seen him live and he just gets better. He is so talented, and such a consummate performer, and you can tell he is having the time of his life on stage. He opened with Tacky--a personal favorite--and things just got better from there. I was really hoping he'd play Foil, which I've never seen live but thought there was a good chance would be on the set list as Lorde has a new album out. But alas, it was not to be. (Maybe it's too expensive to perform now that Lorde has a new album out?) But he did do Mission Statement, Party in the CIA, Smells Like Nirvana, and Dare To Be Stupid, which I loved given that Devo were local heroes when I was growing up. Then he performed Fat, complete with the costume, at which point the GC turned to me and said, "...This has not aged well, has it?"

And no, it hasn't. I know it's historically one of your biggest hits, dude, but maybe retire it?

Anyway, after that he played eBay, Stop Forwarding That Crap To Me, White & Nerdy (for which I popped), and Amish Paradise. The encore included Yoda and The Saga Begins (for which the Geek BBQ crewmembers popped). And then it was time to go home.

We got back to the car and out of the venue in under 15 minutes--record time, compared to the hour+ it's taken us after previous shows we've seen there. We drove M.O. to congenial place to grab an uber sans surge pricing and then headed home, congratulating ourselves on how early it all was.

( Haha. )

Which was why I slept through most of Wednesday. So that was a bit of a damper on an otherwise fabulous show, but at least we ended up waiting somewhere relatively safe and came out of it having lost nothing more than several hours out of of our lives and a good night's sleep.

これで以上です。