It's a beautiful Saturday afternoon, and I'm in total relaxation mode right now. I'm currently in the middle of Summer Concert Fun, the 2009 Edition. Here's a quick recap of the first two concerts of the weekend...
Thursday night
Chris, Jordan, Johannah and I were supposed to go another of those free Hornblower concert cruise events (courtesy of KPRI) to see Andrew Bird (an amazing artist that blew Chris and I saw perform earlier this year). Then a short series of unfortunate events happened that led to none of us going on the boat, and I ended up taking a coworker's offer for cheap tickets to see Incubus, who I've never seen but always wanted... so I took my friend Ria and met up with Ann (coworker) and her friends down at Cricket Wireless Ampitheatre in Chula Vista. My cousin also happened to be there with her boyfriend, so we chatted with them for a bit. Incubus put on a good show - not much in terms of stage intricacies, but they sounded fantastic and opened with some of my favorite songs. Two personal highlights: the audience all singing along to their uber-hit, "Drive", and then once Incubus left the stage and the PA system started playing Journey's "Don't Stop Believing", the audience started singing along as we all left the ampitheatre. Good times.
Friday night
After visiting my parents and then my cousins for the evening, I journeyed out to rock the Casbah and see Dirty Sweet. I went by myself to this one, and almost didn't go because I'd be flying solo and I was already tired and this was going to be a late show (as it always goes at the Casbah). But I'm so glad I came out! I was initially disappointed that Get Back Loretta (another local SD band) was opening, because I've seen them before and have never been impressed. But they completely won me over tonight with their energy and melodies. They've really polished up their live show and looked like they were having fun. During their set, there was this trio of cute blondes right in front of me, drinking their Pabst Blue Ribbon and posing for plenty of pictures. I laughed to myself thinking, "I'm sure Andy would've made some new friends tonight." LOL.
I almost left after GBL's set, because it was already 11 and my feet hurt and I just wanted to go to bed. Just can't hack it like I used to! But I was resolved to see the band that I came out for, even though I really didn't know a single lick of their music. I thought I'd seen them before (way back in 2004), but it must not have been the same band because the frontman I remember seeing was a pretty-boy blonde. When this band came out, I thought "hmmm, definitely not the same guy." Long brown hair, tattoos, and kinda grunge-y. But once they started rocking out, I was like everyone else in the small crowded room - banging my head with the music and having a good time. I almost had beer spilled on me, as the guy next to me was dancing along with a 3/4 full pint glass in his hand that was held up too high for my liking, but thankfully I was spared. Another drunk guy bumped into me a few times - I didn't drink anything there and was getting annoyed but kept my cool the whole time - and towards the end, when he bumped into me again, he put his arm around me and slurred something about how he was sorry for everything but that I was such a good sport. He said quite a bit more than that, but it was really loud and dark, so I just tried to smile and nod along and say "yeah it's all good, man." I did catch that he claimed to have been on the road with the band before and has known them for four years, and he was excited for them and thought that they're on the verge of blowing up. I hope they do - and now I'm glad to be able to say that I saw them "way back when." The concert finally finished up at 1am. Tired as I was, they were just so great that I didn't want to miss a single moment of it - and I think that's the mark of a truly great concert.
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