Wolfmother.
To think I thought I wasn't gonna see any rock bands out here. Most of them pissed off to Australia for that Large Morrow Outdoors, or whatever they call it these days.
itsmemario and I were driving over the bridge on the way to a basketball game. We got bored with the radio, so she tuned it to 107.7. I almost had a cardiac arrest when I heard it. This is it, I thought to myself as the raucus, rollicking riffs of "Woman" wove spirals down my eardrums. Brought one of those I-could-die-right-now-and-be-happy grins to my face, like lying on stage in smoke and sweat staring through the haze at the dancing rainbow of light. Sounds Wagnerian? I don't care - the deejay proceeded to announce that they would be playing on East Madison for FREE. Advance to Cloud Nine, who the hell needs two hundred dollars?
Unbeknownst to me, I was there an hour early, but I could hear them soundchecking (which for all I knew could've been the gig), so I walked through the door in expectation that I'd have to pull out my passport and...nothing. A guy walking past looked at me funny and I just asked him how he was doing in my normal Australiana and took a seat. There was nobody there yet except the support band, a few roadies, the bartenders, and the band onstage soundchecking, as I suspected. The sound was immaculate - a fat rock guitar sound that could only have come from tube amplifiers - so I pulled out my hi-tech wonder camera and recorded it. Some other woman walked in and sat down after a few minutes, and the guy who was supposed to be on security finally realised that we weren't supposed to be there and asked us to wait outside for forty-five minutes. Whether it was for public liability reasons or hype remains in question, but no biggie. I walked up to the Seven-Eleven, purchased a Dr Pepper*, and made my way back to the beginning of the queue.** All of a sudden, people started crawling out of the woodworks, giving the queue a more robust, grub-like form. I made some new friends in the queue - an American named Pat, an Australian named Pete, a Pom called James, and a Canadian called Bartek - some kind of white, English-speaking, Commonwealth/ex-Commonwealth value pack. They all came down from Canada to see the Wolfmother, presumably on the recommendations of Sydney-ite Pete. So we chat for a while, the guy comes out again and says that they'll open in three minutes. Fifteen minutes later the guy (from here on in, he shall be referred to as 'The Guy', as he seems to feature quite prominently in this story) comes out and says it will be another five minutes, and he thanked us for our patience. Having witnessed the ever-growing grub stretch around the corner, we agreed that Hype was definitely in order.
The Guy finally opened the doors and the people slowly but steadily trickled through. Pete didn't bring his passport and was unfamiliar with the stringent measures laid out by the Washington State Liquor Control Board, so luckily I gave him the heads-up on what to do***. Turns out they weren't hardasses after all so it probably didn't matter (after all, they wouldn't wanna turn away the fifty percent with foreign driver's licences). After standing around for a little bit, taking in the vibe, I went up to the bar and ordered a tequila. I asked the bartender how much and he told me it was free. I asked him if he was serious, and he told me I could give him a tip if he liked. So I did - I told him to be nice to his mother (j/k). Turns out all tequila and tequila-related products were free the entire night. Yeah I know, get off my cloud! I figured that the record company must have been paying for all this with the main goal of promoting the music, sort of like the acid parties in the sixties (except I think that had the main goal of promoting acid).
I sat down at a table with my new friends and we talked about music, Star Wars, world peace, etc. Bartek shouted us a few rounds of beers, God bless his soul. Eventually the girlfriends came along too - Australian Sarah, and Americans Marla and Olivia - so I started chatting with them too. It was a good way to pass the three and three quarter hours we had to wait to see and hear what we came to see and here - but damn, what a way to keep us there! Free grog, free entry, and stimulating conversation? I'm in! Suffice to say, I needed to go to the 'bathroom' before long. I saw a queue of guys and asked one of them if it was the queue for the 'bathroom', to which he replied "yeah, mate." I realised then that it was all-clear to start calling it the toilet again. The Australian contingent was strong indeed.
When I got back, I talked to Sarah about the things I had learned in the way of language and dialect, but it turns out I had more observations on my own dialect than anything else (but all THAT is for another post; I'll need a numpad for starters). Once the support band had finished, we deemed it time to venture down into the belly of the beast.
I can't really describe it outside of two words that I reserve for sublime moments such as this: freakin' awesome. Holy crap it was so good. Euphoric rocking out to the most awesome live rock music I had ever heard. Period. I was moshing again; I hadn't moshed in so long, it felt so good. And I was there enjoying the music with my new friends. I was so proud to be an Australian right there, listening to them share their music with the world. Good on them. Man, there wasn't a soul inside that building that wasn't converted. It was sweaty, it was moving, it was thick whirlwinds of sound enveloping us all. And the band had that serious old school seventies mojo when they played, recalling the days of Zeppelin and company. Once it was all over, I shook hands with my compadres, got their email addresses, and left with a smile and a super-good feeling. I'm not the type of person that says I'm going to stay in contact and doesn't follow through. Otherwise I wouldn't have been to any of the places I've been. I formed meaningful connections with people who were complete strangers to me nought but five hours before. And I have to admit that as awesome as Wolfmother were, it wouldn't have been nearly as awesome if I didn't have friends there to enjoy them with.
Once again, with all the experiences I've had in the last three years (and particularly in the last two months), don't even try telling me that world peace isn't achievable. Sure, there are people in every country that are jerks, but every person I have talked to in Japan and America for a minute or longer has been a dead-set champion, and that's the truth. I have near-blood bonds with my family in Japan, and I made good friends with at least thirty people from all over the world.
Freakin' awesome.
* Dr Pepper has become my soft drink of choice since leaving my homeland, as my homeland (or whoever decides these things) saw fit to axe it due to its overwhelming unpopularity amongst my fellow countrymen. I recall such reviews as "tastes like medicine!" and "tastes like ant-killer mixed with battery acid". In fact, I don't recall anyone else ever liking it (let me know if you are or know an Australian that enjoys drinking Dr Pepper).
** The queue at that point being a physical entity, consisting of a few poles and ropes, as there was no-one there until I 'rejoined' it.
*** The Washington State Liquor Control board has legislated that venues serving alcoholic beverages cannot accept any form of I.D. outside of the U.S. or Canada that isn't a passport. This may or may not be an 'anti-terror' method. I can't imagine inebriated terrorists posing any real threat, but I suppose clubs could be a good target for some kind of bombing or Molotov attack. The best course of action is to simply not draw attention to your foreign status even as a concession and to allow the bouncer to match face with license photo. Chances are, he doesn't know what any country's coat-of-arms is, or that Queensland isn't a state in the U.S.
itsmemario and I were driving over the bridge on the way to a basketball game. We got bored with the radio, so she tuned it to 107.7. I almost had a cardiac arrest when I heard it. This is it, I thought to myself as the raucus, rollicking riffs of "Woman" wove spirals down my eardrums. Brought one of those I-could-die-right-now-and-be-happy grins to my face, like lying on stage in smoke and sweat staring through the haze at the dancing rainbow of light. Sounds Wagnerian? I don't care - the deejay proceeded to announce that they would be playing on East Madison for FREE. Advance to Cloud Nine, who the hell needs two hundred dollars?
Unbeknownst to me, I was there an hour early, but I could hear them soundchecking (which for all I knew could've been the gig), so I walked through the door in expectation that I'd have to pull out my passport and...nothing. A guy walking past looked at me funny and I just asked him how he was doing in my normal Australiana and took a seat. There was nobody there yet except the support band, a few roadies, the bartenders, and the band onstage soundchecking, as I suspected. The sound was immaculate - a fat rock guitar sound that could only have come from tube amplifiers - so I pulled out my hi-tech wonder camera and recorded it. Some other woman walked in and sat down after a few minutes, and the guy who was supposed to be on security finally realised that we weren't supposed to be there and asked us to wait outside for forty-five minutes. Whether it was for public liability reasons or hype remains in question, but no biggie. I walked up to the Seven-Eleven, purchased a Dr Pepper*, and made my way back to the beginning of the queue.** All of a sudden, people started crawling out of the woodworks, giving the queue a more robust, grub-like form. I made some new friends in the queue - an American named Pat, an Australian named Pete, a Pom called James, and a Canadian called Bartek - some kind of white, English-speaking, Commonwealth/ex-Commonwealth value pack. They all came down from Canada to see the Wolfmother, presumably on the recommendations of Sydney-ite Pete. So we chat for a while, the guy comes out again and says that they'll open in three minutes. Fifteen minutes later the guy (from here on in, he shall be referred to as 'The Guy', as he seems to feature quite prominently in this story) comes out and says it will be another five minutes, and he thanked us for our patience. Having witnessed the ever-growing grub stretch around the corner, we agreed that Hype was definitely in order.
The Guy finally opened the doors and the people slowly but steadily trickled through. Pete didn't bring his passport and was unfamiliar with the stringent measures laid out by the Washington State Liquor Control Board, so luckily I gave him the heads-up on what to do***. Turns out they weren't hardasses after all so it probably didn't matter (after all, they wouldn't wanna turn away the fifty percent with foreign driver's licences). After standing around for a little bit, taking in the vibe, I went up to the bar and ordered a tequila. I asked the bartender how much and he told me it was free. I asked him if he was serious, and he told me I could give him a tip if he liked. So I did - I told him to be nice to his mother (j/k). Turns out all tequila and tequila-related products were free the entire night. Yeah I know, get off my cloud! I figured that the record company must have been paying for all this with the main goal of promoting the music, sort of like the acid parties in the sixties (except I think that had the main goal of promoting acid).
I sat down at a table with my new friends and we talked about music, Star Wars, world peace, etc. Bartek shouted us a few rounds of beers, God bless his soul. Eventually the girlfriends came along too - Australian Sarah, and Americans Marla and Olivia - so I started chatting with them too. It was a good way to pass the three and three quarter hours we had to wait to see and hear what we came to see and here - but damn, what a way to keep us there! Free grog, free entry, and stimulating conversation? I'm in! Suffice to say, I needed to go to the 'bathroom' before long. I saw a queue of guys and asked one of them if it was the queue for the 'bathroom', to which he replied "yeah, mate." I realised then that it was all-clear to start calling it the toilet again. The Australian contingent was strong indeed.
When I got back, I talked to Sarah about the things I had learned in the way of language and dialect, but it turns out I had more observations on my own dialect than anything else (but all THAT is for another post; I'll need a numpad for starters). Once the support band had finished, we deemed it time to venture down into the belly of the beast.
I can't really describe it outside of two words that I reserve for sublime moments such as this: freakin' awesome. Holy crap it was so good. Euphoric rocking out to the most awesome live rock music I had ever heard. Period. I was moshing again; I hadn't moshed in so long, it felt so good. And I was there enjoying the music with my new friends. I was so proud to be an Australian right there, listening to them share their music with the world. Good on them. Man, there wasn't a soul inside that building that wasn't converted. It was sweaty, it was moving, it was thick whirlwinds of sound enveloping us all. And the band had that serious old school seventies mojo when they played, recalling the days of Zeppelin and company. Once it was all over, I shook hands with my compadres, got their email addresses, and left with a smile and a super-good feeling. I'm not the type of person that says I'm going to stay in contact and doesn't follow through. Otherwise I wouldn't have been to any of the places I've been. I formed meaningful connections with people who were complete strangers to me nought but five hours before. And I have to admit that as awesome as Wolfmother were, it wouldn't have been nearly as awesome if I didn't have friends there to enjoy them with.
Once again, with all the experiences I've had in the last three years (and particularly in the last two months), don't even try telling me that world peace isn't achievable. Sure, there are people in every country that are jerks, but every person I have talked to in Japan and America for a minute or longer has been a dead-set champion, and that's the truth. I have near-blood bonds with my family in Japan, and I made good friends with at least thirty people from all over the world.
Freakin' awesome.
* Dr Pepper has become my soft drink of choice since leaving my homeland, as my homeland (or whoever decides these things) saw fit to axe it due to its overwhelming unpopularity amongst my fellow countrymen. I recall such reviews as "tastes like medicine!" and "tastes like ant-killer mixed with battery acid". In fact, I don't recall anyone else ever liking it (let me know if you are or know an Australian that enjoys drinking Dr Pepper).
** The queue at that point being a physical entity, consisting of a few poles and ropes, as there was no-one there until I 'rejoined' it.
*** The Washington State Liquor Control board has legislated that venues serving alcoholic beverages cannot accept any form of I.D. outside of the U.S. or Canada that isn't a passport. This may or may not be an 'anti-terror' method. I can't imagine inebriated terrorists posing any real threat, but I suppose clubs could be a good target for some kind of bombing or Molotov attack. The best course of action is to simply not draw attention to your foreign status even as a concession and to allow the bouncer to match face with license photo. Chances are, he doesn't know what any country's coat-of-arms is, or that Queensland isn't a state in the U.S.