A Failed Night Out

Boy, I haven't been posting much, have I? A couple of years ago, I was rigorously posting every single day, and now I'm down to two or three times a week if I'm lucky. What has happened is that I've gotten a life. Well, sort of. Nothing that result sin me being written up in the Society Pages or anything, but I'm leaving my apartment more often, which means I have less time lounging about in front of my computer.

Also, I've got a roommate, which provides opportunities to talk to a real person instead of devoting so much time to writing into the ether like this. And to top it off, the main television is in the living room, while my computer is in my bedroom. And that means that instead of writing (or aimlessly websurfing) while I watch television, I now mostly have to choose to do one or the other. And all that adds up to fewer posts.

And theoretically, I should be happy, right? I mean, back when I was posting constantly, one of the things I would say was that I wanted to go out and do more things. Like, take Monday. Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker were playing at The Crocodile, which is only two miles from my apartment. So naturally, I was going, right?

I'm a mild fan of both bands. In theory, I like Camper Van Beethoven more, because I was ticked off that David Lowery ended the band so he could go start Cracker. On the other hand, Eurotrash Girl is a great, great song. Either way, this would have been an awesome show ten or fifteen years ago, so I was looking forward to it. This was also one of the first times I was able to read the local alternative weekly rabble-rousing newspaper, see next week's shows, and just arbitrarily decide to go.

And it turns out that it was a horrible, horrible experience. The place was incredibly crowded. The population density was worse than I've ever been in, and I'm including overpopulated elevators. When I first got there, it wasn't too bad, and I decided to stand against the back wall on the theory that I'm pretty tall and this was I would be out of the mass of humanity. Wrong! By the time the show started, I was packed in, with both my shoulders touching people on either side of me and a guy standing directly in front of me, about an inch away. I was unable to applaud because I could get my hands together.

Camper Van Beethoven, as the more-obscure band, played first, and by halfway through their set, I wanted to leave. I was sore from having to stand perfectly still, and it had occurred to me that although I approve of the band in theory, I can only really name one of their songs off the top of my head ("Take the Skinheads Bowling"). Plus, the sound was pretty bad, which led me again to wonder why guitarists are such showoffs. I had to concentrate pretty hard to hear any non-solo guitar work. So I was feeling sort of claustrophobic and not really enjoying myself. My plan was to slip out and rest and then pop back in when Cracker played the two or three songs of theirs I really like.

Except it turns out that it's very difficult to leave a crowded club when you start from the back wall. To start with, nobody can see you so you have to get their attention to let you by. And since there's a band playing, you essentially have to start pushing your way past. Except that you can't even do that, because if you try pushing past the person next to you, that guy's already flat against the back wall, so you have to get the guy in front of him to move, and that guy's so wedged into the crowd that he can't really turn around to see you. I gave up because I would have had to go straight forward past two or three people and then move sideways. It wasn't really possible without just throwing all civility to the wind and bulldogging my way through the crowd, so I stayed where I was.

The set took about an hour and a half, and I was in pain. It wasn't the band's fault; they played well, and I probably would have enjoyed the show had I been able to move. But when the crowd started to disperse a little while waiting for Lowery to change shirts and come on with Cracker, I took my opportunity and fled into the night. I just couldn't face another couple of hours in there.

So apparently I don't enjoy going to concerts as much as I pretend I do. I think what I really want is "to be the sort of person who goes to concerts" while really staying home and reading P.G. Wodehouse books while watching Abbott & Costello movies. Now that I think about it, I don't even know what the Society Pages are.