as always.. im here to give you the best descriptive account of the
modest mouse show that i recently saw (making this one #2). so here goes
i wait outside in the pouring rain in front of coney island high talking
to this kid j4y that i know from irc but havent ever met until now (its
been like 2 years since we first met) and i check out kim's records
across the street and whatnot and its pretty decent considering its my
first time in NYC.
so these two kids that i was hanging out with previous to the show were
going to go but they couldnt get a ticket for their friend so they gave
me the two tickets and i scalped them to these two kids at a very good
price. and were all just standing outside and eric judy walks out with
this girl (excuse my ignorance if anyone else from the show knows who
she was and reads this) but she had black hair and looks JUST LIKE that
girl i bitched out on november 5th at Bard College MM show. but
whatever. this kid in a ups jacket comes up to eric before i can talk to
him and hes like "hey buddy did you get me on the guest list?" and
ericxs like yeah i think so and then the kid starts whining about how
his friends dont have tickets (i hadnt scalped my tickets yet) and eric
dont seem to care... so eric walks away and goes to get some teriyaki or
something and i go up to the kid to see how he got on the guestlist and
to sell him a ticket and apparently he had met them the night before and
now he was all buddy buddy or something. so whatever.
eric comes back and like a bat out of hell i walk up to him and im like
"hey man whats up" and hes like yeah nothing and i give him a free tape
version of the new Yars Revenge CD thats soon to be available on RCR. I
tell him that i slapped my cover of cowboy dan on the second side and i
hope its not embarrasing or anything. he makes a remark about Yars
Revenge being a pretty dope game, which i totally agree to, and he walks
inside.
so blah blah blah we get inside
we are all standing around and getting a free listen of the new built to
spill and you know.. generic pre concert bullshit, and finally les savy
fav (pronounced "lay sahvay fahv") comes out and the lead singer has
this cowboy hat and uhm.. "western bank robber thing" over his mouth and
hes like WERE LES SAVY FAV AND WERE FROM TEXAS or something.. so kids
are shouting all this texas stuff (they arent really from texas.. theyre
from jersey i think) and they start their set and i found them to be
quite rocking. the lead singer had a lot of good stage prescence.... he
was doing these funky dance moves and standing on the monitor platform,
hanging the mic from the rafters. at one point he took a big swig of
water and spit it in the faces of the kids in the front row (me
included). later when he asked where all the water went this lanky kid
standing next to me goes "you spit it in my face remember?". i dont
think he was impressed with les savy fav's punk rock stylings.
so i bought their disc but havent checked it out yet.
ahhh so we wait "for fucking ever" for modest mouse to come out. uhh it
looked like jeremiahs dad was taking pictures for the band.. definetly a
relative of some sort. he stood backstage and a lot of the times the
camera was pointed in my general direction so i bet i end up blurred out
in the background of a lot of modest mouse home photographs or
something. jeremiah used LSF's drumset so he had to get used to it or
something.. then isaac comes out with eric and hes got the "amish
outfit" on. and the lady or whoever doing the soundboard kept
interrupting him when he was trying to start "the stars are projectors",
saying the bass mic wasnt working.. so this roadie type guy came up and
fixed it and i shout out "crazy gnome" and isaac goes "ok well give you
some crazy gnome while you wait" and they just did this jam type thing
that wasnt crazy gnome, but i guess he was mouthing the words to crazy
gnome or something ... i didnt notice.
and then he busts into "the stars are projectors"... this was the set as
far as i can remember
the stars are projectors
trailer trash
doin the cockroach
third planet from the sun
cowboy dan
night on the sun
grey ice water
(something im forgetting right here)
encore:
truckers atlas
tundra desert
trailer trash was pretty standard but the boys were at peak performance.
isaac took the amish siut off and made a joke like "hey even the amish
guys take this shit off to work". then at one point they had to fix the
cymbals or something and isaac told a joke.. hes a very good joke
teller. it was thus:
a guy comes home from work and tells his wife "honey pack your bags i
just won the lottery" the wife, psyched out by the news goes "thats
great.. what are we packing for? the beach? the mountains?" and he goes
"i dont care just pack your fucking bags and get the hell out!"
for cowboy dan, the lead singer of les savy fav came out and sang
along.. he didnt really know the words, so he did the "doin the
cockroach yeah" part and then later on at the end he said a bunch of
shit like "cash thief.. takes your money" over and over and over.
for third planet from the sun he must have repeated the vchorus about
800 times, and for night on the sun, he stepped out in front of the
microphones and shouted THERES ONE THING YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THIS TOWN
ITS 500 MILES UNDERGROUND AND THATS OK THATS ALRIGHT THERES ONE THING
YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE GLOBE ITS BOUND AND ITS WILLING TO EXPLODE
THATS OK THATS ALRIGHT. im sure no one could hear him but i thought it
was damn cool.
he cracked some jokes about there being all this snow and asked if we
were worried about the drive home.. then said he didnt care if we were
or not, he was just trying to ruin our good time. ha ha ha.
uh... yeah.. for encore, they come out and i had stolen the setlist and
some kid urged me to put it back so i did but it was all folded up so he
didnt look at it. oh.. did i fail to mention that the kid that had
kissed their ass the night before and gotten on the list was SITTINg on
the thing the monitors was oin right in front of me the whole time?
kinda pissed me off.. like he thought he had special treatment and could
like.. just sit in front of me. friggin kid.
so some girl yells out "PLAY SUMMER!! PLAY SUMMER!!" when i thought it
was common knowledge that they hated everything off TFTAI.. so isaac
goes "summer is a joke" and she goes "its a good joke" and he goes "we
were just goofing aorund.. we cant goof twice". so me.. being the rarity
shouting idiot that i am, yells out "humpin pumpkin!" and he looks me
square in the eye for a second and goes "man humpin pumpkin was REALLY a
joke" and i go "yeah i know :o" so some kid wants to hear something else
and isaac says no and he goes "ill settle for truckers atlas" and isaacs
like "yeah?" cuz the encore written on the setlist was like Dark Center
of the Universe, Broke, and a few others, but they only played truckers
atlas and then in the middle of that he just busts into tundra desert,
talking into the pickups, jumping and stomping and shit.. it was
beautiful
and then the show ended. and i stood outside for a goddamn hour waiting
for my ride in a shitload of snow. some kid tried to sell me a car
stereo. we saw modest mouse come out, isaac was drinking JD straight up,
apparently they were all going to a place called "the kiev" and my
friend asked isaac to sign his NME 7", but it was so wet that the marker
wouldnt work, but isaac got a kick out of it. boo yeah.
russ
