Dumbek's Random Stuff

So this morning I decided to completely reload my iPod for the journey up to Dear Old State later this evening. I spent a good part of my morning agonizing over the perfect playlists, adding just the right albums, individual songs, etc.

The problem is...I forgot to sync my iPod after I did all that. So I sit here at work with a completely empty iPod sitting in my speaker dock. So much for my Friday-before-a-holiday ritual of closing the door, playing my music a little too loud and dancing around the office a bit.

The silence is deafening.

Oh well...at least I still get to see the Lion and eat stickies all weekend.

Are you f--king kidding me? Row A? ROW A???? Ho-ly crap. The Ten Club randomly distributed tickets this time, rather than going by seniority. We pretty much hit the jackpot there. It's a shame they weren't allowing cameras. Security was extra-tight. I think they're putting together a DVD. Brendan Canty was filming (quite literally - he was one of the cameramen on stage all night), so I assume it's somehow related to Trixie.

The show was really good. I was expecting about an hour of mediocre guitar strumming and songs from Into The Wild, but was pleasantly surprised by how wrong I was. Who knew that Eddie could actually play guitar pretty well? Damn. Much better than I expected. And we did get most (all?) of Into The Wild, but we also got a couple of Pearl Jam songs, as well as a bunch of covers (Cat Stevens, a couple Dylan, Beatles, Hunters and Collectors). Eddie playing guitar...and ukulele...and mandolin...and banjo. And, of course, lots of talking and stories from Eddie. In all - the show was nearly 2.5 hours long.

Highlights..."Watchtower" with Brendan Canty on drums..."Hard Sun"..."No More"...screwing up "Society" and starting again from the guitar solo....just about everything, really. He made a passing reference to The Evens' song "All These Governors", but I forget the context. Everyone coming through DC loves to drop Ian's name in some context. It sounds cliche, but being about 10 feet from Eddie most of the night - it really felt like we were just sitting around in his living room while he sang and talked to us. It was that intimate. The 2.5 hours seemed like 20 minutes. It just flew by.

Best moment of the night was probably watching this little girl - maybe 4-5 years-old - right up against the stage for the last few songs. She was wearing an "I (heart) Eddie Vedder" t-shirt. Her father was holding her up, right at the front of the stage. She was clapping along, smiling and waving her arms around like crazy. She looked like she was having more fun than anyone else in the building. Eddie saw her and threw a guitar pick her way. She didn't hesitate to crawl out of her fathers arms and run about 5 feet onto the stage to pick it up - running right back to her dad and giving high-fives to everyone around her. Just adorable. At the very end Eddie walked over and gave her the flowers another fan had given him earlier in the evening. Nice.

So, yeah, Eddie Vedder rocks - even solo acoustic. Even on ukulele and banjo. One of my favorites of the year. I knew it would be good. I didn't know it would be THAT good.

Quickies.

Southern Culture On The Skids. 9:30 Club. The bass player looks like Kate Pierson might, if the B-52's weren't successful and she lived in a trailer park. Love her. My friend's birthday. He jumped on stage and threw band-provided fried chicken into the crowd. I swear I'm not making that up. Very fun show. I'm not sure if the southern thing is schtick, but these cats can play.

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra plays the music of The Grateful Dead. Meyerhoff Sypmhony Hall. Baltimore, Hon. Hippies at the symphony. Odd. We saw Mountain Girl mingling with the crowd, but didn't approach her. I didn't care for the music. They pretty much exclusively chose Jerry ballads. The beauty of Jerry's ballads was the soul he put into them. Completely missing the emotion to pull those off. They should have gone all wacky and pulled out "Dark Star" or gone with "Terrapin," which was recorded with a full orchestra in the first place. Some random kid asked me if it was "...cool to spark up a J in the Hall?" I just looked at him and said "Did you just say "spark up a J?" " He got all nervous and said he would never do that - but his friends were wondering. OK. No - I don't think it's a good idea. He took a sip out of the flask that he snuck in and walked away. At least nobody was dancing in the aisles. This was completely sold-out, btw.

We Are Scientists/Oxford Collapse. Black Cat. Oxford Collapse blew WAS out of the water. Both great bands, but OC brought their A-game. WAS brought their B-minus game. Brain Thrust Mastery is pretty dull. The live show reflects that. A shame, because With Love And Squalor is one of my favorite records of the last few years. Sold-out show though. The kids still love 'em. Oxford Collapse is coming back to The Cat again soon. Backstage, I think. Don't miss them.

You should go see Andalusians at The Cat tonight, because I'm too lazy to do it myself. Basla rules.

So, yeah, we went to the Virgin Mobile Festival in Baltimore yesterday. Details later, but I can pretty much sum it all up in 3 words:

Iggy.
F--king.
Pop.

Let there be songs to fill the air.