Eh. Vacation aborted. I wasn’t trying to kill it or anything — like I said, if I was going there, I’d have deleted the whole thing — but I’m over the metaness of how it is right now (says she, being meta). It’s just not fun for me anymore. It’s like “peek into the head of a girl, 24 going on 14.” I hate it. I’m vain and angsty and blah enough in real life without having randoms across the lands know it also. The coming up on 2 year anniversary rule: less meta, more fun.
Anyways, Trendvickster and I took in Prefuse extravaganza #2 at the Bowery. In continuing the “I can’t go anywhere without running into someone I know” thing, Friday night was a HS girl and Saturday was a gaggle of Wes kids. One in particular I knew well back in the day since our radio station time slots were back to back senior year. I hate the torture of formalities you have to go through. It’s like a pissing contest. “What do you do?” as code for “let me tell you why I’m so fabulous.” I don’t even have a shitty job on paper (in terms of mentally, it’s asstastic), but I hate how those conversations are just gauge if you’ve become a “loser” or not since your escape from school/wherever. And he further bugged me by hating on the new Prefuse and saying that he’d only gotten into him via One Word (what did I say yesterday about neophyte hipster fucks?) and though every album was progressively worse since Vocal Studies(!!!!), he decided to check out the show anyway. Around then, we moved away because I thought my head would explode.
Bowery Ballroom is hands down best live venue in town. I adore that place. I’ll see anyone play there. We staked out a place near the front for the show. We loved Beans — how I’ve managed to avoid him/his shows/his music for so long is actually a major mystery to me. He had something everyone else on the bill lacked: stage charisma and interplay with the audience. Though I guess, when it’s you and your music player standing in the corner of the stage, I guess you have to interact. I love his voice — both rapping delivery and speaking voice. He talks from the stage like “hey, I’m up here performing right this minute but after this, I’m gonna like take my videos back to Blockbuster and maybe we can hang out, so I’ll catch you later.” And after his set, he was just in the lobby hanging out. We had been on our way to check out the merch table (You know what would be a nice belated bday or happy blogiversary present, the “I Have Battles In My Life” bag. What the fuck does that even mean(?!), but damn I want one! Anyone catching a later tour date, let me know and I might send you the $20 to cover that) and we were pissed that there was no Beans CDs. We spotted him and I encouraged Trendvickster to go yell at him. She did just that and he was like “sorry, but you can get it at the store. I make more money that way. Don’t be mad, give me a hug!” And I was like “ha!” hanging back and he said, “don’t be shy, you. Come get a hug too!” Hilarity! I even ran into him later when The Director and I went into the afterparty and he said, “oh, I remember you. Give me another hug!” He’s great.
Battles were awesome again and I was surprised that their set was mostly different from the night before. On one hand, thank god, but on the other, I liked those fucking songs and I think they were just slighty more fun than the ones they picked — minus a repeat or two I recognized. We marvelled at the rail-thinness of most of the band — probably with the exception of the drummer who is like a super ripped giant man. I’ve never heard anyone hit a drum kit so hard — not even at the Deftones show! And then the random cymbal like 6 feet in the air that he hit without even shifting that much. He’s a monster.
Another thing I noted between the two shows were how fast they were on stage. Friday, it seemed there was always dead space between setting up and playing that just dragged, but last night was like clockwork. I don’t even think there was 10 mins in between Beans and Battles. They must have a stern taskmaster at Bowery. Another cute thing was everyone wearing each other’s shirts. Beans had a Battles shirt, Tyondai of Battles was wearing a Prefuse one, and the Prefuse drummer was wearing a Beans one (though I might have just made the last one up. It’s fuzzy now that I think about it.). I’d say the Prefuse set was better than the night before. The only different song I noticed was Choking You but I think the band was tighter this time around. I also thought about how much I hate the “let’s go offstage like we’re just gonna leave, but instead come back and play another song so the crowd will think they had some effect on us” thing.
Post-show, pizza and we got latched onto by a random Australian who wanted to talk our ear off about the Jet/Oasis double bill (erm, no thanks) and The Director popped up. Trendvickster called it a night and we wandered uptown in search of other friends and the show after party. (Oh, did you know I’m not only a hipster, but a snob too? News to me!) They killed Openair!!! I loved that place. When I first moved back to town, it was one of the first places I went to where they were playing the electronic music that I liked to listen to at home. The changeover is especially annoying because all they did was strip away the flat screens and put some pseudo-APT wallpaper up. Wack but the drinks are still cheapish. Like I said before, Beans was there and chatting near me to some guy who was like “dude, you’re great. I love that fucking Karate Kid line!” and misquoted it, but was lovingly corrected. It reminded me of how I laughed when I heard it. We then cabbed it back to BK, drop off in Williamsburg for him, and straight down Whythe/Franklin to my hood. I’m becoming addicted to cabbing it in my old age. Living closer to everything has only made me more lazy.