Inauguration

I worked on my laptop most of the day Saturday, after sleeping 'til
noon. After hitting the gym for a while, I went to the Black Cat
to catch the Raveonettes show. U Street was crazy- lots of Obama
shirts for sale, lots of spontaneous yelling in the streets. The
show was sold out, irritatingly; I had checked that afternoon on the
website to see that it wasn't, but I guess I didn't take into account
out-of-towners (of which there are currently millions) making
last-minute plans.

I hung out with another dude outside the club to hustle extra tickets-
he got one pretty quickly, and after another fifteen cold minutes I
scored too. My savior was pretty pissed- it sounded like he had been
stood up. I offered him $20 for the tic ($17 fv) and he shook his
head and gave it to me. "Merry Christmas," sez I. Nickel Eye
opened up- awful name, immediately evoking Nickelback. Solid rock n
roll, good slide and hollow-body country-feel to some of the songs.
Probably 200 people watching, which was fine, but I was irritated by
the maybe seven or eight hipster chicks with SLRs jostling around the
front. That, combined with the surprising tightness of the band,
made me suspect they weren't just a regular opening band. Turns out
I was right- the frontman is the bassist from the Strokes, or
something like that.

I ended up chatting between sets with a couple, lawyer-types, who went
on about how they had seen the R'ettes at sxsw, which, great, but man,
so much indie-rock namedropping. Turns out they lived down the
street from where I lived in Boston back in 98-99, and went to grad
school at BU. Some girl next to us joined the conversation, and
they did the "I saw the Pixies at thus-and-such secret show" or "I saw
thus-and-such back then at Paradise or Avalon." I miss the Middle
East and TT the Bear's a lot, so I just basked in the Boston nostalgia
for a while. The other girl went to Clark, though, which raised
unpleasant memories (ex-girlfriend a Clark dropout).

The Raveonettes played a short set (45 min) which was fantastic. The
total loudness, think J&M Chain with a Nordic ice-queen singer,
really isn't captured on their studio work. I'd heartily recommend
them live. Some more fog would have been nice, but then again I'm a
bit of a sucker for fog machines- too many Sisters of Mercy shows.

I got out 'round midnight and was going to head to U & 12th for a
party with a friend-of-a-friend who had mentioned it to me, but by the
time I got there she was leaving. I should have just gone to Ben's
Chili Bowl, as Our Lord and Savior did the other day, but just split a
cab home and watched the Galactica webisodes with a few Longhammers.


A good night.