man what a busy weekend.
On Friday night Erica went out with friends for a girls night, and since she wasn't coming home I decided that the only responsible thing to do would be to go out drinking with my new friend Chris. It was one of those kinda stupid benders that takes you to like 6 different bars, and leaves you completely wrecked. We hopped from one seedy Mission district bar to the next and ended up at Zeitgeist which is by all accounts a great look at the kinda dirty yet still hip SF bar scene. It is not a place to go and stay sober though.
I got pretty trashed, and eventually just took off. See there's one thing you'll have to understand about me and drinking if we ever go out on a bender. I sometimes get really really drunk. Not that I can't handle my alcohol, I think I'm actually a pretty good drunk. I get chatty, and sometimes a bit loud; but no ones ever told me I'm obnoxious. And I've only a handful of times gotten belligerent drunk; but that was always after drinking for like 10 hours straight. Once in a while though I will just take off. No 'goodbye', no 'I have to get to bed now'. No explanation at all. I don't really know why I do it; somehow it just seems easier that way. Screw explanations, I'm too drunk for that. So I ended up leaving Chris at the bar, which was the right thing for me to do.
The next morning I was completely wrecked, still drunk , leading into a hard hangover. I actually got a text from Chris around midday saying that he thought I probably got out at the right time. Not sure how things went after I left but I assume the word destroyed might apply.
Anyhow I had to get up at 6:30am to make it on the Caltrain and down to Mountain View for an all day concert being puty on by a local radio station. It was Live 105's BFD festival. BFD stands for Big Fucking Deal. And I have to tell you, despite being in pain for most of the morning it was really cool. After meeting Erica down the peninsula and heading over to the Shoreline Amphitheater I ended up planting myself on the lawn and for the most part just trying to keep my stomach settled. Although necessary this was unfortunate as I missed a bunch of the smaller bands I had wanted to see. I did manage to catch a few snippets of songs from The Lovemakers, Street to Nowhere, Silversun Pickups, and The Faint. There we're 3 stages and the big lawn is out behind looking onto the actual amphitheater stage. But that was the mainstage and wasn't up and running until later in the evening. So I spent the morning staring at an empty stage, trying to regroup.
On Friday night Erica went out with friends for a girls night, and since she wasn't coming home I decided that the only responsible thing to do would be to go out drinking with my new friend Chris. It was one of those kinda stupid benders that takes you to like 6 different bars, and leaves you completely wrecked. We hopped from one seedy Mission district bar to the next and ended up at Zeitgeist which is by all accounts a great look at the kinda dirty yet still hip SF bar scene. It is not a place to go and stay sober though.
I got pretty trashed, and eventually just took off. See there's one thing you'll have to understand about me and drinking if we ever go out on a bender. I sometimes get really really drunk. Not that I can't handle my alcohol, I think I'm actually a pretty good drunk. I get chatty, and sometimes a bit loud; but no ones ever told me I'm obnoxious. And I've only a handful of times gotten belligerent drunk; but that was always after drinking for like 10 hours straight. Once in a while though I will just take off. No 'goodbye', no 'I have to get to bed now'. No explanation at all. I don't really know why I do it; somehow it just seems easier that way. Screw explanations, I'm too drunk for that. So I ended up leaving Chris at the bar, which was the right thing for me to do.
The next morning I was completely wrecked, still drunk , leading into a hard hangover. I actually got a text from Chris around midday saying that he thought I probably got out at the right time. Not sure how things went after I left but I assume the word destroyed might apply.
Anyhow I had to get up at 6:30am to make it on the Caltrain and down to Mountain View for an all day concert being puty on by a local radio station. It was Live 105's BFD festival. BFD stands for Big Fucking Deal. And I have to tell you, despite being in pain for most of the morning it was really cool. After meeting Erica down the peninsula and heading over to the Shoreline Amphitheater I ended up planting myself on the lawn and for the most part just trying to keep my stomach settled. Although necessary this was unfortunate as I missed a bunch of the smaller bands I had wanted to see. I did manage to catch a few snippets of songs from The Lovemakers, Street to Nowhere, Silversun Pickups, and The Faint. There we're 3 stages and the big lawn is out behind looking onto the actual amphitheater stage. But that was the mainstage and wasn't up and running until later in the evening. So I spent the morning staring at an empty stage, trying to regroup.
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That said I managed to hear some good stuff too. This was one of those big all day dealios where they featured like 25 bands. And I DID get up and go see teh two bands I really wanted to catch. Cold War Kids, and The Bravery. Both were cool but I was impressed especially with The Cold War Kids live and would really like to see them in a smaller venue. And I think that would be good for them too. They mentioned a few times that they were, or at least felt like, the tiny small band who all of a sudden was in the big leagues. I also think maybe the lead guy from CWKs got into a fight or something with the Sum 41 guys, cause there was some a little completely serious sounding smack talking going on. For the Bravery it was a really weird experience. I actually took some video with my camera, maybe I'll post that later. But the weird thing was just how they performed. You know how some bands sound better live, and some sound worse? Well I thought The Bravery definitely fell into the latter category. It wasn't that bad, just really different. It had a very dirty, visceral, overlapping, and somewhat over modulated sound that they just don't have on their albums. But while that was cool at times, I think they sound much better after being 'produced a bit. That wasn't the weird part though. A lot of bands sound different live, and sometimes you really can't blame them if its not as good. What I thought was super strange was that they played not all, but most of their songs totally different. I mean it wasn't just live, it was that they emphasized different words, sang at a different rhythm, and generally played the same songs from their albums in a completely alternate way than I've ever heard. Oh sure the chorus for Honest Mistake was the same, and most of the new stuff felt intact as much as I know it.... But it would be like if the first time you heard Jane's Addiction, they played their Kettle Whistle live album.
After those guys played, I was feeling pretty good and the main stage got going. There was a pretty decent lineup, opened by a local band Scissors for Lefty who I've heard on MySpace and liked but wasnt oevrly impressed with live. Although I've heard said that they are much better in a bar setting, which I would believe. After they opened, we were treated to a very solid performance by Kaiser Chiefs, followed by a moody but great Interpol as the sun went down. Then it was time for Queens of the Stone Age, who while I didn't really like their music were very impressive musicians. Seriously they were playing up a storm; unfortunately I wasn't overly into that storm, but I can see how you might be... The night ended with performances by Social Distortion, who are a local band that was big about 5 - 10 years ago and I think would also be better at a smaller venue. And finally we watched a really excellent closing performance by UK sensation Bloc Party.
What a night, seriously just tons of bands. And a bunch of em really cool. Check out the rest of these pics, and maybe I'll post some of that video later on. If the line up is this good next year I will definitely be up for another BFD. Even though there were a lot of kids around, and the sets were all pretty short (mostly 30 mins) I was very impressed overall. Espe4cially seeing some of these smaller bands. I just hope next year I'm in better shape to enjoy it.
Since we'd had such a big day on Saturday Sunday was pretty chilled. We went over to my folksd house and I built their new patio furniture. But today is my birthday (I'm 29), so we did have some cake which was very yummy. Anyhow, this post is getting to long and rambly. I'm gonna head out. Talk to you all later.
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1 comment:
That was a very nice day indeed... In fact, it was so nice that I ordered the last Bravery album and the last Cold War Kids album. I didn't know anything about these two groups and I found them pretty cool. What is cool about Geoff is that when he proposes to go to a concert, it is always super fun and super nice...
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