The Good, the Bad and the Queen

It's been quite an eventful week. Some might say it was a bad week. I might be that someone. I'll catch up on that later.

But for now... Scott and I went to go see The Good, the Bad and the Queen this past Wed at 9:30. (NPR has a recording of the show on their site.) It was a sold out show. I hate going to sold out shows. But there was nothing we could do about it. I guess the 9:30 is not gonna book many bands that they don't think will sell well...

Anyway, GBQ is a supergroup, or project band, or a not-full-time band made up of Damon Albarn (singer from Blur), Paul Simonon (bassist from Clash), Simon Tong (guitarist from Verve), and a dude named Tony Allen (drummer for "afrobeat" guy Fela Kuti, I think). I picked up the record a few weeks ago, and although it's something I didn't think I would listen to much, I found I was listening to it fairly often. It grew on me. It's very mellow -- atmospheric, sort of melancholy sounding, but also dub-y. Most basslines could come right out of a dub or reggae song. I don't like the term background music, but some might call it that. I'm not that someone. I don't like the term background music b/c if it's just for playing in the background, then I don't really see the point in listening to it or buying it. (This is not the last rant today -- stick around!)

Anyway, the show was good. It was especially cool to see Paul Simonon on stage as Scott and I were huge Clash fans. He was just too cool. Easily the most animated of anyone on stage. Slinking around, doing a sort of skank w/ his bass. And I guess he didn't give a damn about the DC smoking ban, cos he was smoking away. Gotta give him props for that. Some of the songs came across better than others, I thought. The slower, less beat driven songs just kinda laid there for me. But the songs with heavy dub basslines were very good, I thought. And that was most of 'em.

Damon Albarn was surprisingly not annoying. I was never a huge Blur fan, but liked several songs. I never hated them, but Damon Albarn always seemed a bit, uh, pretentious and annoying. But he seemed to be enjoying himself a lot, making sort of self effacing expressions and even smiling several times. In general he didn't seem to be taking himself as seriously as I thought he would. The sound was very good too I thought.

The crowd, on the other hand, was pretty freaking annoying. Granted, I was sick, and I have already said that I dislike sold out shows, so I was already predisposed to be annoyed. But it just seemed like so many of the people there were a bunch of yo yos. The best example I have: after one song, a guy behind me yells "don't ever stop taking risks Damon!" WTF? First of all, he had to yell that to try to make himself look cool, b/c there was no way "Damon" ever heard him. Second, that's just an idiotic thing to say. Other things: what's up w/ half way thru the show, walking into the middle of crowd and planting yourself (you're taller than I am) right in front of me?? This happened a coupla times, and once it was a girl who did it... I'm not tall, but now I feel really inadequate.

Anyway, it was a good show and it ended before 11:00, which I was quite happy about considering my aforementioned sickness. And the fact that I'm an old man and it was a schoolnight.