Irony and Self-Deprecation

I just got back from the Andrew Bird concert, and holy shit it was amazing. Let's start with the venue and my spot. I've seen Wolfmother and Interpol at that venue, and the Wolfmother show was kind of 'meh', and I'm sure I would have liked it more if I was into the band more and if I could have actually seen the stage, but alas. The Interpol show was astounding because I just love that band so much, but I wasn't that close to the stage. This concert though, was perfect. I got there an hour early so I got my spot right in front of the stage so I had no tall people standing in front of me. I was really tired today so standing for about 4 hours was not pleasant, but at least I had a rail to lean against.

Opening band: OMG they were awesome. They were a Swedish band called the Loney Dears, they were so adorable and so freaking good. I have a tendency to be disappointed with opening bands, but I totally enjoyed everything about them. The lead singer was so cute and so was the keyboardist. I think Jasie said it best in regards to the keyboardist, "I want to put him in my pocket!!" The drummer looked kind of like a sad Dave Grohl, and he was quite hot. Especially since he kept on shooting this sexy grin to the lead singer and the bass player. Yum.

Andrew freaking Bird: That man. Oh, that man. He is so beautiful and amazing and just, GAH! I just loved that he played Plasticities, Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left, and Armchairs. Oh, Armchairs. That was so magnificent and gorgeous and just perfect. At one point in the concert the people around me were clapping along, and they messed up Andrew and he stopped and said, "Sorry, but you guys are going to fast. Now I'm flustered." SO adorable. Later on the drummer was having troubles starting a song and Andrew said it was too slow, so a guy right next to me said, "Do you want us to speed it up for you?" lolz.

After the concert my mom met the lead singer of the Loney Dears and he signed a CD for her and she told him about how much we love him. XD

And now, I must study for a quiz I have in the morning. I would rather just collapse and die at the moment, but I'll be sort of responsible and study.

Damnit all, I don't have an Andrew Bird icon. I will have to fix this.

EDIT: It's actually Loney, Dear. Not Loney Dears. Woops. (Not that anyone will read this again, but I just wanted to make sure the correction was in there)

When you see this, quote Douglas Adams in your journal.

The world is a thing of utter inordinate complexity and richness and strangeness that is absolutely awesome. I mean the idea that such complexity can arise not only out of such simplicity, but probably absolutely out of nothing, is the most fabulous extraordinary idea. And once you get some kind of inkling of how that might have happened, it's just wonderful. And . . . the opportunity to spend 70 or 80 years of your life in such a universe is time well spent as far as I am concerned.

I've been wanting to post, but I feel like I have nothing of interest to post. So I'm going to talk about my bathroom. That's interesting, right?

The bathroom has been disgusting me more than usual lately. Our bathroom doesn't have a window and is very badly ventilated, so mold tends to form in the shower. I could never scrub it off, and today I cleaned the bathroom and I finally got rid of most of the mold! Huzzah! I just sprayed the shower down with bleach and water and it's gone. I also finally cleaned the floor, mirrors, sink and toilet. The bathroom is so shiny now, and I feel like I accomplished something today. :D I kind of have a headache from the chemicals, but other than that I am very pleased.

I'm going to the symphony tomorrow because they're doing Beethoven's ninth and my mom gets all fangirly over the Utah Symphony and Beethoven.

I'm going to go see Sigur Ros on the 28th! WOOOO!

Okay, I think now I'm going to either clean the living room, or take a nap. Hmmmm. What to do, what to do.

I saw Josh Ritter and Andrew Bird tonight with Flora, Staci, Kiry, Jasie, Jaime and my mom. IT WAS SO INCREDIBLE! I never listened to Josh Ritter, but he was really good and super adorable. He was always smiling!

It was a free concert at Gallivan Plaza, which is an open public area with a stage. So today around 2:30 Staci, Flora and I were wandering around downtown and went to the plaza early, and Andrew freaking Bird was practicing. There were about 20 other people there sitting on the grass watching him, and we got to see him play about 5 or 6 songs and it was so so so awesome. Since we got there so early we got really good spots too. We didn't stand up quick enough when people started coming, so we were a few people behind the barricade. I was standing a few feet away from the stage for most of the show, but it was still awesome.

Something really really cool happened too, I was standing there waiting for the show to start, and a girl right behind the barricade tapped my shoulder and asked if I had WILCO on my license plate. I said no, but my sister does. They recognized me from the Wilco concert in Colorado, so that was a pretty cool coincidence. We talked a bit through the show and towards the middle of Andrew's act she turned around and said, "Do you want to take my spot? I'm taller than you." So I got to be right in front! I saw Andrew Bird perform his beautiful beautiful music FROM THE FIRST ROW! I hope I see that girl again at another concert, she's really nice, and obviously has fantastic taste in music.

He played Nervous Tick Motion Of The Head To The Left! I wanted to hear Opposite Day and Sovay, but the fact that he played the other song totally makes up for not hearing those other two. It was such an amazing show, and I have a lot of pictures I'm going to post soon. :)

Right so I'm going to rest a bit before we go see The Dark Knight. OMG BATMAN!!!! :D

Sooo, it wasn't as terrible as I expected it to be. The first part was just god awful, the two opening acts were country singers and they were just so incredibly bad. Have I mentioned lately how much I hate new country music? No? Well I hate it so so much. The two opening acts were contestants for a country version of American Idol. Who knew that someone could make the concept of American Idol worse? I sure didn't, until tonight.

They sang covers for most of their sets, but there was a song that wasn't a cover about growing up listening to country music, which I could relate to a little bit. I did listen to a lot of country music when I was little before my sisters started listening to The Beatles. The song referenced songs ranging from classic country to 80s country, I think I remember lyrics mentioning Walk The Line and Strawberry Wine (get it? line and wine rhyme!). So, I don't understand how people can claim to love country music that was made before the 90s, and yet, other than the fact that they sing with a twang, sound nothing like old country music. It's like it wasn't even an influence on them. It's the same with pop music of course. It's like these people think to themselves, "I really love all of the classics of this genre, but what if we took the general idea of the genre's music, and made it incredibly bland and mediocre? Cha ching!"

Anyway, the main act though, that folk band, wasn't that bad. It was just happy, inoffensive folk music that I didn't really care about either way. I was kind of expecting some terrible christian rock, but there weren't that many religious lyrics. It was just happy and bouncy, but it was a bit too happy. I don't think I could listen to it regularly. They also did a great 80s pop medley, which was pretty amusing. Halfway through the set, I remembered that agnespennyworth used to listen to the band. Yes, my indie lovin sister used to listen to Mormon Folk music. We all have our past music sins though. From the ages of 10 to 14 I listened to utter shite most of the time.

Anywho, I texted her and said, "You used to listen to this guy!" and she texted me back with just one word: "Whore."

I got a B+ in American Institutions, and I am pleased with this grade. So far this term I have a 3.58 GPA, and I just have to wait for my Gender and Social Change grade to be posted, and unless I totally bombed my final, I am going to get an A in that class, which means I'll maintain a GPA above 3.5 and I'll get to stay in the Honors College. I am very pleased. :D

So, the concert. The concert was in a movie theater, a large movie theater, but it was a movie theater so as concert venues go it was pretty small. We were in the balcony and we were in seats with absolutely no leg room, it sucked. But the view of the stage was fantastic and the acoustics in the venue were astounding. Retribution Gospel Choir opened, and I had never listened to them before, they were pretty good.

Wilco was incredible. They sounded so beautiful and it was just astounding. Nothing will beat the Arcade Fire concert I went to in amazingness, but this was a very close second. It was weird sitting down the whole time, I don't remember the last concert I went to where I wasn't standing the whole time and wasn't pretty close to the stage. They played all of my favorite songs in a row (Shot In The Arm, Via Chicago, California Stars), and the only songs that they didn't play that I wanted to hear were Radio Cure, Nothing'severgonnastandinmyway (Again), and Muzzle of Bees. But I wasn't disappointed because the concert was soooo fucking good. Also, they are going to be in Salt Lake on August 18th, so hopefully they'll play those songs then. :D

We parked behind the theater and we noticed the tour bus, so we decided that we'd wait and see if we could meet the band after the show. We decided to get out there before the encores so we wouldn't get caught in the crowd and we waited in the rain for 30 minutes. Then when the show was over the security guys said that the band wouldn't be signing stuff outside of the bus, but they would go to the after party across the street. So we went across the street and discovered that the after party was 21+, so I couldn't go in. We sat outside and talked for awhile and Jaime went back to the venue to see if they came out, and then ran back to us to tell us they were out of the tour bus talking to fans and signing stuff.

I literally ran back to the theater. When we got over there we met Glenn (the drummer) Mike (the piano player) and Jeff Tweedy (the awesome). We talked to Glenn for awhile and he is just so incredibly adorable, awesome and approachable. Haley and Jaime talked to him more than I did, but eventually he noticed me standing there smiling like a fool and he shook my hand. I mentioned that they played my favorite songs in a row and he was pleasantly surprised and said, "And then it all went down hill from there huh?" "OH no no no!" XD He's so cute and awesome.

I didn't really talk to Mike, I kind of just pushed my way towards him and asked if he would sign my ticket. It was kind of rude of me because he was talking to someone at the time, but I tend to be rude if I'm not thinking clearly, and I really wasn't at the time, so woops!

We got Jeff to sign our tickets and then we backed away so other people could get their stuff signed. Haley decided to go back up to him and she asked if she could shake his hand and he said sure. Then she told him how much the band means to her, and he said that was sweet of her, and she mentioned her WILCO license plate. Then he went into the photo pose with his arm around her shoulder and she said that we didn't have a camera, and then a guy said he'd take the picture and email it to her. So I got in the picture and the guy couldn't take the photo because flash on the camera wasn't working. So Haley and I had our arms around Jeff Tweedy for several seconds while the guy was getting the flash to work. :D Eventually he got the camera to work properly and hopefully he'll email the picture to Haley.

After that Haley and I thanked him and calmly walked a few feet away, and proceeded to squee like a couple of crazy fangirls. XD

Man, last night was just so kick ass. :D (I really need a Wilco icon)

Oh, I'm watching TCR right now and it reminded me of something, Tweedy wasn't wearing his wrist strong bracelet!