February 16, 2007

The Fire

I saw Arcade Fire play last night at Judson Memorial Church. While it certainly isn't a great acoustic space, physically the Church is beautiful and is a great place to see a band you really like. With only a few hundred people in the audience, and a good bit of space to move around, it made for a good time.

The formula for having a "good time" looks like this.

Less People = Less chance of annoying people being near you = Good times

In fact, I could only spot one annoying person in the entire place. It was That Dude. If you've been to a lot of live shows you know who I'm talking about. It's the guy, wearing a worn baseball hat, who comes out of nowhere a few songs into the show and pushes himself in front of you. He is almost always holding a beer in one hand and a cell phone in the other. He is using said cell phone to try to find his friend via text messages. The message exchange undoubtedly goes like this:

That Dude: yo i'm here. where you at?
Dude's Bud: in front of some fat chick
That Dude: lol. be right there
Dude's Bud: word
That Dude: i see fat chick but not you
Dude's Bud: maybe different fat chick?
That Dude: fat chicks all look alike to me
Dude's Bud: all chicks look fat to me
That Dude: lol
Dude's Bud: lol
That Dude: god i'm lonely
Dude's Bud: huh?
That Dude: nothing

Somehow, That Dude will eventually find his Bud. When he does they will give each other a hearty "Sup, Bra?" knuckle shake. More knuck shakes will come after every old song that the band plays. There will be much arm pumping, hooting, and heavy metal worthy head bobbing, even when the band is playing slow songs. That Dude will leave at some point to get more beer, most likely while the band is playing a new song that doesn't deserve the honor of knucks. When he comes back, pushing through the crowd with the grace of a drunk walrus, his arms will either be wrapped around several beers or a whole keg.

That Dude always seems to find me. If you're reading this, That Dude, I want you to leave me alone. Stop following me, or you will eventually face the wrath of my kung fu.

After the encore, the whole band came out into the middle of the crowd and played an acoustic version of Wake Up with Win Butler signing into a megaphone. Someone (as is always the case these days) got video of it. See if you can spot a white-shirted Genoa Salami in the upper left corner grinning like an idiot at the fact that the band decided to set up shop right in front of his fat face and sing one of his favorite songs.

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.chrisgenoa.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/238