The Return Of The Return Of. . . .
Ozma/The Rentals//Irving Plaza//8/4/06
Oh my God! I know! The Rentals! I freaked out when I saw the show listed. I did check to see if A) This seriously was The Rentals (Please, let that be you!) and 2) There was another show that wasn’t at Irving because I haven’t been there in over a year, and I barely went there last year. Irving Plaza is a bit, uh, too rich for my blood these days, but that was their only NYC appearance, so the $20 was not a problem or an issue.
And as I was checking to see when the tix went onsale I did see Soul Asylum listed—or maybe I did notice that in the paper but was too busy freaking out about the Rentals so I didn’t really pay it much mind. And yeah, I did see Soul Asylum. $25, Irving Plaza, Soul Asylum, but what the hell, it was a birthday present to myself. (Don’t worry, I did not see Gary Numan and I’m passing on Everclear. Tho I did consider Everclear for like a sec but not for $26.50. And not at Irving. And The Gossip? Not at Irving.) When I went to get the Rentals ticket and was putting my change and ticket in my wallet, I looked up to see the guy behind me stepping up to the window and getting 2 tix. He’s balding and has graying hair. Ha ha. I’m old.
I couldn’t even find my CD when I went to look for it. I guess this is the problem with filing CDs in the order of obtaining them. Seriously, I was looking at my shelves getting late for work and I could not find it anywhere. I saw Seven More Minutes, but that came out in like 1998. I couldn’t remember when Return Of came out. I saw 100% Hockey, but that was 1995. When did Return Of come out, anyway? Was it out in 95 and broke in 96 or out in 96 and hit in 97? And The Rentals is representative of what I mean when I say that I prefer a band put out one flawless album and break up before they put out a follow-up (yep, the dreaded sophomore effort) that can’t live up to the legend that is their 1st album and piss me off. Return Of was such a transcendent album that when Seven More Minutes came out, I couldn’t help but sit there and listen to it and go, But this isn’t Return Of! You let me down, you fuckers! (Yeah, I am not always a good fan. I’ll admit that right off the bat.) But I found mine in between The Circle Jerks and B52s. Sounds about right.
Buildings were talking to me the day of the Soul Asylum show. And what I was really worried about wasn’t that the buildings were talking to me, but because I accepted this it was further proof of my cracking up-edness. But then I figured that maybe the buildings talk to everyone; it’s just that not everyone listens to them. I got to Irving for Soul Asylum (not sold out in advance) at like 6:20 (8pm doors, 9pm show) and was second on line. I got there at like 6:20 for The Rentals (same door/show, but sold out in advance) and I was just past the pay phone. Shit. That’s bad. I didn’t spend $20 to not be up front and taking pix. I figured I could lose some peeps at the coat check (unlikely in this weather), when they were getting wristbands, or at the merch table. They said no flash photography and no professional cameras (as if I could afford a professional camera), but they didn’t do squat about anybody’s flash photography.
For Soul Asylum I was “Downstage Center,” as the masking tape on the little box of outlets on the stage said. The outlets have round prongs and they looked like little faces. There are 16 of them in the box, and there are little metal tabs on the rim that said “press.” Believe me, those little faces were talking to me, daring me to press. “How’s this? You can’t get any closer unless you get on top of him,” a woman said. “That’s my plan,” her friend responded. And these women were older than me. I mean, they had lines around their eyes. Deeper than mine. (Not clean! Not clean!) For The Rentals, I was “Downstage Left,” but still front row, still able to see stuff, and would be able to get pix with my zoom.
I’ve heard of Ozma, not familiar with their stuff, and they’d broken up and reunited as well. This was their first gig in NYC since the breakup, and there were a handful singing along. Though they had CDs out in early 00, (pretty explanatory, as I had enough music/bands keeping me busy then) they sounded like the stuff that Lo-Fi Lee would book and I thought, Has nothing changed in the music world?
When I was at Soul Asylum, I realized that $25 for a band like Soul Asylum at a place like Irving Plaza is my equivalent of going to MSG. And while that show was pretty much what you’d expect for a band like Soul Asylum at a place like Irving, not quite so for The Rentals. Starting with a dark stage and lone violin player, the band members came out one by one, ending with Matt Sharp starting Move On:
Let’s get up and leave this town
I just want to go right now
Once we get out of here
No one will notice that we disappeared
It was a very telling number to open their set with; lyrics that could’ve meant one thing 10 years ago suddenly had so much more or a different meaning.
So what do you say we go right now?
Get away from everyone that hangs around?
They seem so insincere
So why don’t we just leave them here
And move on?
(Move on)
And with the building, swelling music and all. . . .
We’ll find some new place nice
Some other city or countryside
We’ll make new friends in time
We’ll pack our bags, say good-bye
And move on
It’s been 6 long years
6 years of hanging about without a care
It don’t matter where we go
Anywhere is better, I know.
The funny thing, of course, is that we all did notice that they disappeared—it’s no coincidence that they sold out Irving. Predating synthy, moogy, indie dance rock and their seemingly simple approach to things had me thinking of Art Brut. For all one knows, they could’ve been some random band with a cool name playing somewhere (I was picturing Northsix watching/listening to them all over again) and they sounded just as timeless now as they did back then. On a few of their other songs, the lyrics seemed to have new/hidden meanings suddenly brought to light. And again I thought: Has nothing changed at all in the music world?
Maybe I was imagining things, but the battery compartment on my camera seemed to get hot—either that or it was my sweaty fingers on it making it seem so; I thought my camera was going to overheat between Soul Asylum and them. Matt came around the monitors and I thought he was going to crowd surf. I went to move people’s bags out of the way and he almost stepped on my hand. What was surprising—or maybe not—was that nobody moved during Soul Asylum. Not even when they encored with Somebody To Shove, a song that always makes me think of slamdancing, and not just because of the song title. But there was none of the usual blurring of the lines, no space invaders. Some guy came out of nowhere and ended up next to me, but one more person there and it would’ve been that one extra person in your space at a soldout show. The girls behind me who put their purses onstage also drifted up out of nowhere. By the end of their set, I had all these guys on my ass. “You shouldn’t be getting crushed. That’s not right,” one said to me. Well, can you peel yourself off my backside? Thaaanks. They encored with a cover of Walk On The Wild Side—and while I would’ve preferred to hear the band sing it and not the crowd, I knew there was no chance of that happening—which segued flawlessly into Friends Of P. and I was jumping up and down with the crowd and thinking, I’m sweaty, I’m sticky, and I smell bad. Excellent. I think I figured out what the P. stands for after all this time: Pogo. Think about it.
“Thank you very, very much, from the bottom of our gigantic hearts. I mean, we don’t have a record to promote or a video to sell. This is incredible!”
You are my thing and I love you! I raise my right hand and swear it’s true!
After, the fridges at Walgreens were completely ransacked and empty, lines of people I saw leaving Irving mobbing the place. “Where did all these people come from?” a woman asked in shock. I guess when she usually goes to Walgreens after midnight, it’s less crowded.
The guy was an asshole. I knew it before he opened his mouth. His hair was all choppy and gelled down on the sides, then forward in the front, in that asshole guy style that was popular in the mid-to-late 90s. And he smiled way too much. He asked if the train was going local, and as we made smalltalk about train reroutes and trackwork, he nodded and smiled at everything I said even though I wasn’t done with my sentence, so what was he nodding in agreement at? He said he wanted to catch a movie and asked me if I knew where the movie theatres are. Yeah, what movies are first starting at 1:15 in the morning in Queens? At least the train was going local after Jackson Heights, (it being a Saturday morning) unlike after the Soul Asylum show that morning and I had to go to Continental and wait to take the local back, standing around at 2 in the morning, sweat soaking my face, and knowing that I had another show coming up.
“Well, I think this is my stop.”
You think it’s your stop? You don’t know where you live? Since it was also my stop, I let him get off first, then I left. By the time I got upstairs, he’d slowed up.
“You want to come over?”
“No, I’m good.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
“You married or something?”
He spit the word “married” out, as if he couldn’t believe I wouldn’t accept this total stranger’s dangerous proposition and there has to be a logical reason for that, other than the one I just stated.
Oh my God! I know! The Rentals! I freaked out when I saw the show listed. I did check to see if A) This seriously was The Rentals (Please, let that be you!) and 2) There was another show that wasn’t at Irving because I haven’t been there in over a year, and I barely went there last year. Irving Plaza is a bit, uh, too rich for my blood these days, but that was their only NYC appearance, so the $20 was not a problem or an issue.
And as I was checking to see when the tix went onsale I did see Soul Asylum listed—or maybe I did notice that in the paper but was too busy freaking out about the Rentals so I didn’t really pay it much mind. And yeah, I did see Soul Asylum. $25, Irving Plaza, Soul Asylum, but what the hell, it was a birthday present to myself. (Don’t worry, I did not see Gary Numan and I’m passing on Everclear. Tho I did consider Everclear for like a sec but not for $26.50. And not at Irving. And The Gossip? Not at Irving.) When I went to get the Rentals ticket and was putting my change and ticket in my wallet, I looked up to see the guy behind me stepping up to the window and getting 2 tix. He’s balding and has graying hair. Ha ha. I’m old.
I couldn’t even find my CD when I went to look for it. I guess this is the problem with filing CDs in the order of obtaining them. Seriously, I was looking at my shelves getting late for work and I could not find it anywhere. I saw Seven More Minutes, but that came out in like 1998. I couldn’t remember when Return Of came out. I saw 100% Hockey, but that was 1995. When did Return Of come out, anyway? Was it out in 95 and broke in 96 or out in 96 and hit in 97? And The Rentals is representative of what I mean when I say that I prefer a band put out one flawless album and break up before they put out a follow-up (yep, the dreaded sophomore effort) that can’t live up to the legend that is their 1st album and piss me off. Return Of was such a transcendent album that when Seven More Minutes came out, I couldn’t help but sit there and listen to it and go, But this isn’t Return Of! You let me down, you fuckers! (Yeah, I am not always a good fan. I’ll admit that right off the bat.) But I found mine in between The Circle Jerks and B52s. Sounds about right.
Buildings were talking to me the day of the Soul Asylum show. And what I was really worried about wasn’t that the buildings were talking to me, but because I accepted this it was further proof of my cracking up-edness. But then I figured that maybe the buildings talk to everyone; it’s just that not everyone listens to them. I got to Irving for Soul Asylum (not sold out in advance) at like 6:20 (8pm doors, 9pm show) and was second on line. I got there at like 6:20 for The Rentals (same door/show, but sold out in advance) and I was just past the pay phone. Shit. That’s bad. I didn’t spend $20 to not be up front and taking pix. I figured I could lose some peeps at the coat check (unlikely in this weather), when they were getting wristbands, or at the merch table. They said no flash photography and no professional cameras (as if I could afford a professional camera), but they didn’t do squat about anybody’s flash photography.
For Soul Asylum I was “Downstage Center,” as the masking tape on the little box of outlets on the stage said. The outlets have round prongs and they looked like little faces. There are 16 of them in the box, and there are little metal tabs on the rim that said “press.” Believe me, those little faces were talking to me, daring me to press. “How’s this? You can’t get any closer unless you get on top of him,” a woman said. “That’s my plan,” her friend responded. And these women were older than me. I mean, they had lines around their eyes. Deeper than mine. (Not clean! Not clean!) For The Rentals, I was “Downstage Left,” but still front row, still able to see stuff, and would be able to get pix with my zoom.
I’ve heard of Ozma, not familiar with their stuff, and they’d broken up and reunited as well. This was their first gig in NYC since the breakup, and there were a handful singing along. Though they had CDs out in early 00, (pretty explanatory, as I had enough music/bands keeping me busy then) they sounded like the stuff that Lo-Fi Lee would book and I thought, Has nothing changed in the music world?
When I was at Soul Asylum, I realized that $25 for a band like Soul Asylum at a place like Irving Plaza is my equivalent of going to MSG. And while that show was pretty much what you’d expect for a band like Soul Asylum at a place like Irving, not quite so for The Rentals. Starting with a dark stage and lone violin player, the band members came out one by one, ending with Matt Sharp starting Move On:
Let’s get up and leave this town
I just want to go right now
Once we get out of here
No one will notice that we disappeared
It was a very telling number to open their set with; lyrics that could’ve meant one thing 10 years ago suddenly had so much more or a different meaning.
So what do you say we go right now?
Get away from everyone that hangs around?
They seem so insincere
So why don’t we just leave them here
And move on?
(Move on)
And with the building, swelling music and all. . . .
We’ll find some new place nice
Some other city or countryside
We’ll make new friends in time
We’ll pack our bags, say good-bye
And move on
It’s been 6 long years
6 years of hanging about without a care
It don’t matter where we go
Anywhere is better, I know.
The funny thing, of course, is that we all did notice that they disappeared—it’s no coincidence that they sold out Irving. Predating synthy, moogy, indie dance rock and their seemingly simple approach to things had me thinking of Art Brut. For all one knows, they could’ve been some random band with a cool name playing somewhere (I was picturing Northsix watching/listening to them all over again) and they sounded just as timeless now as they did back then. On a few of their other songs, the lyrics seemed to have new/hidden meanings suddenly brought to light. And again I thought: Has nothing changed at all in the music world?
Maybe I was imagining things, but the battery compartment on my camera seemed to get hot—either that or it was my sweaty fingers on it making it seem so; I thought my camera was going to overheat between Soul Asylum and them. Matt came around the monitors and I thought he was going to crowd surf. I went to move people’s bags out of the way and he almost stepped on my hand. What was surprising—or maybe not—was that nobody moved during Soul Asylum. Not even when they encored with Somebody To Shove, a song that always makes me think of slamdancing, and not just because of the song title. But there was none of the usual blurring of the lines, no space invaders. Some guy came out of nowhere and ended up next to me, but one more person there and it would’ve been that one extra person in your space at a soldout show. The girls behind me who put their purses onstage also drifted up out of nowhere. By the end of their set, I had all these guys on my ass. “You shouldn’t be getting crushed. That’s not right,” one said to me. Well, can you peel yourself off my backside? Thaaanks. They encored with a cover of Walk On The Wild Side—and while I would’ve preferred to hear the band sing it and not the crowd, I knew there was no chance of that happening—which segued flawlessly into Friends Of P. and I was jumping up and down with the crowd and thinking, I’m sweaty, I’m sticky, and I smell bad. Excellent. I think I figured out what the P. stands for after all this time: Pogo. Think about it.
“Thank you very, very much, from the bottom of our gigantic hearts. I mean, we don’t have a record to promote or a video to sell. This is incredible!”
You are my thing and I love you! I raise my right hand and swear it’s true!
After, the fridges at Walgreens were completely ransacked and empty, lines of people I saw leaving Irving mobbing the place. “Where did all these people come from?” a woman asked in shock. I guess when she usually goes to Walgreens after midnight, it’s less crowded.
The guy was an asshole. I knew it before he opened his mouth. His hair was all choppy and gelled down on the sides, then forward in the front, in that asshole guy style that was popular in the mid-to-late 90s. And he smiled way too much. He asked if the train was going local, and as we made smalltalk about train reroutes and trackwork, he nodded and smiled at everything I said even though I wasn’t done with my sentence, so what was he nodding in agreement at? He said he wanted to catch a movie and asked me if I knew where the movie theatres are. Yeah, what movies are first starting at 1:15 in the morning in Queens? At least the train was going local after Jackson Heights, (it being a Saturday morning) unlike after the Soul Asylum show that morning and I had to go to Continental and wait to take the local back, standing around at 2 in the morning, sweat soaking my face, and knowing that I had another show coming up.
“Well, I think this is my stop.”
You think it’s your stop? You don’t know where you live? Since it was also my stop, I let him get off first, then I left. By the time I got upstairs, he’d slowed up.
“You want to come over?”
“No, I’m good.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
“You married or something?”
He spit the word “married” out, as if he couldn’t believe I wouldn’t accept this total stranger’s dangerous proposition and there has to be a logical reason for that, other than the one I just stated.
posted by heather @ 10:28 PM
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