Yaz Fans Are Stupid Poseurs

The week before last was a great week of concert-going for me. The wife and I saw Robyn Hitchcock out in Ridgewood, NJ on Saturday and then I saw him again on Tuesday and Wednesday. Great shows, and I met some great people there, fellow music/Robyn geeks like me. I am trying to write something about those nights in a different format than my blog, that's why I haven't gushed over those shows here. I'll let you know if something comes of it.

The week was rounded out by my wife and I going to see Yaz on Thursday and then the Broadway show Passing Strange on Saturday night, which was pretty much like going to a rock concert.

We were really looking forward to the Yaz show. Alison Moyet and Vince Clarke only made two albums as Yaz before breaking up and going on to a solo career (Moyet) and forming Erasure (Clarke) so we never got to see them live back in the day. They are doing a short reunion tour so there was no chance we would miss it.

And it was a really good show. Alison Moyet's voice sounds as good as it ever did and since it is electro-pop Vince can't really fuck up playing the music. You don't really screw up a chord or anything when you are playing a pre-programed computer.

To be able to see a group that was such a huge part of the soundtrack of my youth was just so awesome in an 80s tubular kind of way. I which I could say the same about the crowd.

I really expected that the audience would just be a bunch of middle-aged ex-dance club kids from the 80s, and while they were certainly represented, it was not the bulk of the crowd. I couldn't believe how many scenesters were infesting the crappy space known as Terminal 5.

(If you haven't been to Terminal 5, it looks like a three-tiered prison block or something out of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. They also only open one exit when the concert is over and it can take 25 minutes just to get out even though they have doors on all sides of the space)

Normally when I'm in a place filled with gay boys I'm having a good time because I always have a good time hangin' with the gays. Unfortunately, Terminal 5 was full of a bunch of Chelsea poseurs and their fag hags who were more interested in being noticed at the show than actually listening to it. The first sign we were in trouble was the fact that so many people were screaming the lyrics as loud as they could, seemingly trying to prove they knew the words more than the next guy. If they weren't singing they were turning to their friend and talking really loud, right in the middle of the song.

At one point Yaz brought the mood down for one of their softer, lesser known songs. Winter Kills is a number that really lets Moyet show off her powerful voice and she was kicking ass singing it. Yet at least half the crowd was talking at that point. I mean really talking. If you had walked in to the show not knowing who they were, you would have sworn it was the opening band. You know what I'm talking about, an unknown - or not so good - opening band is on the stage and the place basically sounds like a bar with music playing in the background. That's what it was like. During the band that everyone there paid 65 bucks to see!

And then there were the pictures. Good fucking lord, people would not stop taking pictures. There was a girl right by us that took several pictures during every single song. I'm talking an average of at least ten shots during every number. Some people were even posing in front of the cameras, so it would be a picture of them at the Yaz show.

It seemed like so many people were there to be seen instead of listen to a great music group (I'm loathe to use the word "band" since it is just a guy with a computer, not that there is anything wrong with that). I wish they would have stayed at Polly Esther's Culture Club where they belong.

I'm willing to bet that these annoying ass holes can't name half of the songs played that night.

But hey, at least they have about a hundred pictures of a singer standing in front of a microphone. Whatever that's worth.

Damn hipsters sure know how to ruin a good time.

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