Vois Sur Ton Chemin

The Fox...

So my day started out with a 3-point, $100 ticket for failing to follow through with a left turn and a Tetnus shot, continued with three hours of non-air-conditioned class and four hours of work. But that's not the point.

The point is, I went to a concert at the Fox, a local venue with cool bands. As I'm not 21, I expected simply to be relegated to the kiddie pool, often a separate section for minors. But no. They defaced my hands, both of them, with big black Vs, and they took my ID. They confiscated the bloody thing, promising to return it at the end of the night if I behaved myself and didn't make an over-21 buy me alcohol. Wierd.

Anyways, so you know how you can turn around and watch the rest of the audience during a movie, and they're completely enraptured, sitting there with slightly opened mouths and a vacant expression? Going to concerts is like that, only better. First off, people dance. That, as I will get to in a minute, is entertaining in and of itself. Then there are the remaining audience members. And the band itself can be quite fascinating.

The guy who opened was a Denver kid who quietly took the stage with just a guitar. He had a nice face, an easy smile, and a slightly threatening hairdo. Sitting alone on the stage, particularly enhanced by the slight backlighting, his eight-inch curly hair provided an interesting silohette. When he introduced a song he always repeated the title, as if to himself. "This one is called 'She Comes and Goes," he said, "she comes and goes..." And he smiled to himself, and began.

And then he picked up a guitar. And played like nothing I have ever seen or heard. For those of you unfamiliar with guitar, there is a way of playing it where you pick various strings with your fingers, James Taylor-style, with a varied and multilayered sound. This guy sounded a lot like that, but he managed it somehow with a flatpick. Amazing. His guitar style was absolutely fantastic, his fingers dancing like an Irish stepdancer on amphetamines.



So he was pretty awesome. His name is Rob Drabkin. You should check him out, somehow.

But he was only a third of the show, in my opinion. The other third was the headlining band and the audience.

The headlining band was a local-boys-made-good duo, playing bass and guitar. The singer had a sharp, cutting voice, his brother similar though less so. They had fantastic harmony, great style, playing rock-folk-blues type music. And the bass player was something else. He could take breaks like you've never seen, faster than many guitarists. At one point he was so intense he literally attacked his bass, using thumps on the instrument body as percussion, punctuated by dazzling runs, chords, and all sorts of crazy stuff, like nothing I'd ever seen or heard. It was intense.

It wasn't that packed, not like I'd seen before. I stood at the railing at the first tier, fending off small talk from the guy next to me (waxing eloquent on the merits of two-stepping). The couple in front of me, a long-haired brunette and her shinyheaded, glasses-wearing boyfiend. She looked friendly, nice enough, he as well though a bit shy and reserved. She danced, he didn't, but tapped time on his girlfriend's derierre. One guy up near the front was really into it, dancing back and forth (and I mean that--his style consisted mainly of swaying from one foot to another). Two youngerish girls up by stage left looked like their grandmoter had just died of a knitting accident. One woman accompanied two youngerish boys, she starting to dance almost immediately, the boys looking somewhat embarrased by their tie-dye-clad chaperone. A gentleman, otherwise well-dressed, had tatoos around his ankles that looked like he had been attacked by a pack of Sharpie-wielding four year olds. And then there was the Dancing Dude.

I'm pretty sure he was on something; at one point I saw him doubled over, doing something suspicious with a lighter. But otherwise he was cra-Z. He was doing disco-inspired breakdancing (think Michael Jackson without the freaky surgery, bald, short, with glasses), complete with moonwalks, much organized flailing. He had about a 10 foot clear space on the dance floor. I wish I'd've taped him. YouTube would've loved it.

The moral of the story is: a) avoid kids with Sharpies, people who dance like maniacs, and the Boulder police; b) instead of pillow punching, try bass playing; and c) it's all about the hair.

posted by Vivyenne @ 5:11 AM