Show Date: April 11th, 2011
Ticket Price= ~$12
Pics by ChrisT
So, the next night. Chris asks me “if it wasn’t for everything going on around us, how can you say that show was gay?”
I dunno what the vibe was. I got hit on by a dude 10 years younger than me. So I got to do the dance of saying without saying that I was a waste of his time.
Not a common happening for me. So. You know. Typical. Expect the unexpected. I’m at The Joy Formidable and I feel like a hidden camera participant being forced to participate in a flash mob on Fire Island. Added on top? Very indie rock vibe happening. Hipster kind. My least fave. It was a humbling experience. People made fun of how I looked. It really was the first time in a long time in PDX that I got a flash of indie rock snobbery that used to be very Seattle. To top it off, ChrisT made outrageously complimentary comments about the opener Lonely Forest. After he leaves me alone, I get him back by screaming loudly that I’m punching him in the face when he returns. I’m really off my game and I’m blaming ChrisT for my own failing at not getting floor Bad Religion/Rise Against tickets tonight. Chris is usually on and I’m not hearing it. Bummer. At. All. Like a rock.
Lonely Forest is going to open for Death Cab on their will call only small club tour. So. I go back and listen to some recorded stuff, and I get it now. “I Don’t Want To Live There” is a gem and stoodout live. But, in the moment? I was lost. And I was lost the first time I saw them. Lost, lost, lost.
But look. I’m one clueless yo-yo. I’m only a minute past figuring out that for an entire opening set, the guys around me weren’t just the most friendly touchy-feely guys I’ve ever seen at a show (how cool)! But, indeed…dating (still cool, but I was clueless how cool for a long time!). I’m such a hick. ChrisT identifies the problem as I have never fully appreciated early period REM. We have a diagnosis.
Just a night I wasn’t hearing it.
The Joy Formidable. ChrisT should write this. But he won’t. The music was loud. Interspersed with very nice Welsh-accented chit chat (we have a nice city, they couldn’t make it last tour, etc). Somewhere along the way it has become fashionable for the lead singer to whip themselves up into a frenzy and start wailing on the cymbal with a remarkably handy spare drumstick. This is done while the drummer bashes away, of course. Totally fine. Perfectly natural, perfectly healthy. I’d like to do that sometime. I might as well be Huey Lewis in this crowd. Might as well start chugging shampoo to top it all off.
I’m kinda spacey. I’m overdosing on allergy medicine and a Robotussin-Everclear cocktail. But the show seemed like punk rock. What I like to call new punk rock. Less riff. More melody and fill. Blah blah. I’m off my game and should be at the Bad Religion/Rise Against show, but the Rose Quarter sucks. So I’m not going to bash this show. It was loud as hell. Energy all over the room. The drummer was the shit.
The upside? Mississippi Studios represents. Every show I go to here, the staff is always friendly and the access and pricing to/of booze is fair. I like the room as well. Suitably quirky, not overboard, dark enough, and good sound. Props it up. Then you can go outside on the Ave and get something ranging from vegan to artery clogging sludge.
Let’s close this up. At the end of The Joy Formidable’s set, there was play violence and instrument bashing. That’s always good. ChrisT thought there would be an encore. That’s high praise from him. I think it is just another night of rock and roll. Better than not rock and roll. So. At the end of the evening. Here is the score:
Cool PDX Peeps Seeing The Joy Formidable = +1
Immature ass pushing his friend into man-piles randomly = -10
