Coax Me Sloan was the most amazing concert experience I've ever had. I seriously thought my heart was going to explode as soon as they started playing. At first I was being really fussy (sorry Fent) about everything, because I was so....missing the point. But when I just stopped thinking and stood and listened to the music, it totally hit me how amazing it was to be there in that instant on that floor, listening to the band that almost had a hand in teaching me how to approach my life with their lyrics.

That must sound lame, but I have seriously beeen listening to Sloan since the dawn of my music loving life. I think the first song I ever heard from Sloan was "the good in everyone" off One Chord to Another. One of my most favorite songs of all time is "Underwhelmed" from Smeared though. From a very young age, I realized that I was sort of like the girl in that song. A melodramatic artsy fartsy wild child with brains = an often frustrating person to be with. I just love everything in that song, and I suppose I always half wished that I'd end up with some guy that sure, maybe I did drive crazy, but would still be irresistably attracted to me nonetheless because of it. Attracted to annoyingness- YESSSS!

Anyways...Fenton and I ran into Benjammer there, so we ended up watching most of the show, if not all of it, alongside, and that sort of compounded huge feelings of guilt about Mr. Smith not being able to come. Mr. Smith probably likes Sloan much better than Benjammer does. *Guilt*

The first band that played front for Sloan was called Columbus. Big fucking deal. The lead vocalist was the only really enigmatic performer there, and by enigmatic, I mean painfully erratic in the quality of his singing. He seemed to pull it together by the last three sets though, while his keyboardist fought off imminent narcolepsy with painfully bored expressions. They weren't the most brutal band I've ever heard, I just didn't like them. No pop. No zing.

The Mark Birtle Project however....shock and awe! So good! Mark Raymond just totally blew rad gas out of his butt for the whole show with his vocals. The whole band had awesome stage presence, and obviously more important: tremendous talent. The thing that grabbed me the most was that there were some distinctly new age quirks to some of their compositions, but with a great old feel to them, much like the Clash, the Pistols and the Kennedies gave off. In fact, after buying their demo and giggling over the duct tape squares protecting the cd from the staples on the lunchbag paper cover of the slip, I really realized that the future needs them. We need more 'Never mind the Bollocks'. It made life easier to understand, and it made you angry and want to do something about the thing you were angry about. Thus is classic punk.

And the piece de resistance...It took what seemed ages for them to show their plain alt-rock-circa-the-nineties faces, but when they did....I was surprised at the amount of new stuff they didn't play, but elated at the amount of old stuff that they did. As I'd mentioned earlier, I was initially being very fussy about whether I could see the band or not, but I found that just catching a glimpse of Chris Murphy (my favorite band member) doing his thing every once and awhile was perfect as obviously hearing him belt out primarily lead vocals was orgasmic enough in the first place. So awesome! The sound was great, and they were just so incredibly LIVE. In front of me. And I enjoyed that everyone around me was equally a fanatic.

I wasn't the only one singing along. It's embarrassing, but I don't care: I usually am quite a "this is my space, here me roar" sort of person, even at rock concerts, and sometimes go through great pains to keep it that way and still enjoy the show, rocking out in my unobtrusive hip wiggling foot tapping kind of way. Enthusiastic and enjoying the show, but not too enthusiastic mind you. Not the case at Sloan. It started out that way, but by the middle of the show, I was like, hands in the air, waving them around, singin' real loud- just all over the place. But it was so great. And they had sing-along, just like they did at Palais Royale. I sort of wish that they'd done it with "The lines you amend", but the ones they chose were also great. More recent too, I suppose. The only real complaint that I did have was that they didn't play "Underwhelmed." But at the same time...maybe it's a good thing. It's sort of "my" song still then, not the song of a hundred other screaming girls.

I sort of thought I'd listen to Sloan while I posted, but somehow Taylor Mali wound up in there and I can't even concentrate on anything else when I listen to that man speak. So good!

I went to my first CLIT 266 class today, and who should share that class with me, but the Talker hisself. The Talker is a good aqquaintance of mine who writes for A & E sporadically, and I was pretty psyched to see him there, because he's really animated and thoughtful in class, and I enjoy hearing what he has to say. I was supposed to actually stay friends with the Talker during the summer, but well....the Talker still thinks I'm interested in him, despite the fact that he has a girlfriend that he might as well be married to. And I was never... I"m thinking I should invite him out to coffee with me and the men sometime though, when financial restraints get balanced out. He's a little more...I'll use "straight-edge" over the word "boring", but we'll see how it goes. As for the class itself, other than a Morrison novel, the reading material looks awesome. Awesome! What a nice day I'm having.

I went and bought food for Elaugh this afternoon though, which was a little bit sick at first. Well, there is nothing not sick about mice frozen in mid-wheel-run, with their eyes still open. Yuck. I should think that for the amount this is going to traumatize me while I feed the snake, that the little dead mice should be less than $2.75 a pop too.

Something to be said about Shaw cable: They make a mean mix cd. More news on that later. I have to go get all dolled up for dinner suga face.


  ¶ 5:21 PM