The Underneath (Music Geek Night part 1)

Time yet again for a post (actually two) about an amazing night at a Robyn Hitchcock show for little ol' me. Now, you know I usually try to not let my blog become one of those boring "here's what I did today" diary type blogs, because I really can't stand those. People might not dig what I write, but at least it's not going to be because it is nothing more than just a daily accounting of my daily life. If I'm going to be hated I want it to be for being a shitty writer, not a boring one.

My thought and ideas, sure. But not just recaps of my day I hope. Unless your name is Anne Frank nobody is interested in your diary.

Well sometimes I just can't help it after I've had such a fun night out. It seems to usually involve going out to a show by one of my favorite musicians. Like here, here and here. Most of you who might read this blog on any type of regular basis pretty much know that I'm a major music geek and that my favorite things are Robyn Hitchcock, Billy Bragg and Jeff Tweedy and that REM holds an important and special place in my life and that my favorite new band to pop up in the last five years is The Dresden Dolls.

Knowing that, you'll see why Tuesday night was so damn cool for me.

So I head down to the Knitting Factory in Tribeca, rushing out the door because the show is listed at 8:00 and I wanted to see at least a little of the opener and at the time I left it meant I wouldn't get there until about 8:30. Turns out I rushed for no reason though. Seems that The Knitting Factory, without specifying it, puts on their listings and tickets the door opening time and not the show start time like everybody else. So I'm at the venue at 8:30 thinking that Robyn would be going on about 9:00 or 9:15 and find out that it won't be until 10:15. So that sucked. I also find out that because I did will call for my ticket I don't actually get a ticket stub to add to my collection, just a stamp on my hand. Kind of hard to put that in my ticket box.

I grab a Boddingtons at the bar and head into the band space to check it out since I haven't been there before. Good space in general. Nice and small, the way I like my music venues. But also really warm already and it is not even close to being full yet. I chat up with a couple of guys hanging out there for a while before the opener starts. When Johanna Kunin took the stage I watched for a while but her music was a little too mellow for the room temperature. So I took a walk to the outer bar and kind of hung out by the entrance. I started talking to a guy named Phil who was trying to unload an extra ticket he had, which is why he was hanging out by the door.

By this time Peter Buck had been walking around hanging out for a while looking like just any regular concert-going guy at a bar, just like he had at the show in November at Maxwell's, with no air of a guy who plays lead guitar for one of the biggest bands in the world and was just inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame.

So I'm talking to this guy Phil about music, he's a middle-aged music geek from Jersey and we hit it off really easily. I know I've said it before, but the great thing about not living in Boston anymore is that this kind of thing is actually possible in, well, everyplace else in the world pretty much. People in clubs will actually talk to each other and make friendly conversation. But I digress.

While I'm chatting with Phil I notice a black dude walk in with the wildest head of hair I've seen for a while. It's not really an afro because it's too straight. It's more like a black guy with a Robert Smith 'do, which was just great. He walked in with a woman that looked familiar and she told him to find the guest list and he walked toward the box office and I told him I thought it might be at the will call table (I was wrong). He started to scream toward his friend that he found out where the list was but she had walked back outside.

"Oh, she's going to go smoke, I have to wait for her," he said to me.
I said, "She looks a lot like Amanda Palmer."
"That is Amanda Palmer."
"Really, the Amanda Palmer."
"Yeah."
"No Shit?"

Amanda Palmer is the leader of The Dresden Dolls.

So when she came back in I started talking to her for a while and told her how much I love her music and that I saw her perform live several times while I was living in Boston and other such complimentary things. I was starting to tell her that the only thing I liked about living in Boston was discovering her music while I was there (that's where The Dresden Dolls are from) and I said, "I really hated living in Boston, but..."

She cut me off with, "I know doesn't it suck?"

I was so happy to find out that she hates it there too. A great musician, songwriter and a kindred spirit as well. We talked for a little while longer, about her upcoming tour this summer with Cindy Lauper, Erasure and Debbie Harry and that my wife and I would be seeing it at Radio City. I also told her that I had been out there turning people on to her music as much as I could, that my wife would be bummed that she decided not to come tonight because she was a big fan too, and we had a nice little conversation about our shared love of Robyn Hitchcock. That was the reason we were both there after all. Except I wasn't on the guest list.

She went to go get her ticket, gave me the warmest handshake and told me she would try to catch me again later.

In the meantime, Robyn walked past on his way in to the venue (Amanda pointed it out to me in a genuine fan-geek style, she was just as giddy as anybody in the place) as did Scott McCaughey (he remembered me as Gary's friend he met last time) and Phil had sold his extra ticket so we went and got a beer together. He didn't know who The Dresden Dolls were, so I told him why I was so psyched to meet her and tried to describe their music to him. That's hard to do.

Phil and I made our way back in to the performance space and it was packed to the gills and hot. We stood toward the back for the show. It's a small place and I'm tall, so why try to work in to the thick crowd and the heat?

The show was great of course. I've done enough gushing over Robyn shows in the past so I don't need to give a review here. I will say that the highlights for me were finally getting a live performance of Belltown Ramble (brings back Seattle memories), a great acoustic version of Balloon Man, an incredible cover of Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd's See Emily Play and the best rockin' version of The Underneath I've ever heard.

I was in heaven. I would be even more so after the show.

To be continued...