![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
emchyLast night after a cozy day of watching the extras on the new Twin Peaks boxset and making turkey soup. Rooster and I gussied ourselves up a bit to go meet her classmates at a show Rooster kept calling the opening of the lesbian season. The band Uh Huh Her was playing at Bottom of the Hill. Their claim to fame - one of the actresses from the L Word is in the band. She was also in the Murmurs. She is a good musician - but somehow after we arrived - I don't think that most of the attendees were there for the music as much as for the competitve sport of celebrity spotting. One of Roosters classmates (who is a big hoohoo) has been wanting to go do gayrod stuff with us for a while. She got super excited about us all going to the show and Rooster and I are both fans of hers so we were all... sure.
Now first let me say - there were two opening bands. We saw one - Origami. And they were good Le Tigre inspired gurl rock. They were fun. They had beats that worked it out and a fun stage presence. I bought one of their records. It was yay. During their set the band members (aka L Word celebrity and bandmate) stood next to me to check out Origami. I noticed them right away - mostly because I saw the L Word gurl hoisting up their drinks as she brought them over and was concerned that she was as drunk as everyone else there and was going to spill it on me. She didn't (yay) and they just watched the show for about 10 minutes. Within four minutes people started realizing OMG OMG OMG. The band members were chill about it and just trying to watch the band. But soon they gave up and went into the back patio to smoke and make phone calls. How do I know this? Half of the people we were there with went out back to see if they could "randomly" meet them.
Fast forward to the actual headliners. The crowd is drunk. The scene is a medley of Shane (L Word character) lookalikes, other random L Word fashion look a likes, bad suburban 80's fashion, some sort of Sylvester Stallone in the first Rocky fashion and hipster geeky college students. I haven't smelled so much crunchy hair product or seen so many wipeouts and randomly dropped drinks (without the realizing that they were dropped) in a long time. The fashion I mention because most of the people there seemed so uncomfortable in it. Like they were still hunting for who they were and trying to take their cues from a television show. A television show is a product that the network is trying to sell you. Each character - is someone else's idea of how to package market and sell a personality that you will connect or identify with. I saw all of these people pulling on this marketed suit of identity and wearing it around trying to hide who they were underneath it and a strong coating of alchohol. It was weird. I am used to people in many types and walks of fashion and aside from a "damn gurl that's hot" reaction - I really don't notice as long as people inhabit their skin. I felt like I was in a room of people masquerading in their own skin. It was just so disorienting.
Best moment of the night was all about how not prepared to be on tour the band was. Their rythm section was an ipod and there were techinical difficulties galore. Finally someone yelled "you need a drummer" which they agreed with and invited the yeller up onstage to airdrum. Not only was this awesome - the person was actually a drummer so the airdrums were right on track. It was awesome and one of the few moments where the band really had the audience in the palm of their hand. The band was good - but with only an ep under their belt, a temporary guitarist and the aforementioned ipod, they didn't seem quite ready for prime time. Which I actually think was part of the issue with the audience. The band is too "in development" to have a core following of music fans yet, and so all of the attendees were really just there to see "that chick from the L Word." Without an actual tie to the music or the musical aesthetic of the band, the crowd was disjointed fan folks, uninspired by the opening acts (bored really is the word I would use for what I saw - even though the band rocked) and getting themselves progressively drunker and drunker to kill time.
We left a little early after, even when standing in the back with lots of room we were getting nearly knocked over from the stumbling people, and the band had more tech issues, frustrated banter about what they DIDN'T have happening up there then they had songs. Mental note: the songs should always be longer than the in between song banter unless you have amazing stories ala Tom Waits or Patti Smith.
So that was my night. Got home too late. Tired this morning. I still like Origami, but I will be waiting until Uh Huh Her is a little less green until I listen again.
Now first let me say - there were two opening bands. We saw one - Origami. And they were good Le Tigre inspired gurl rock. They were fun. They had beats that worked it out and a fun stage presence. I bought one of their records. It was yay. During their set the band members (aka L Word celebrity and bandmate) stood next to me to check out Origami. I noticed them right away - mostly because I saw the L Word gurl hoisting up their drinks as she brought them over and was concerned that she was as drunk as everyone else there and was going to spill it on me. She didn't (yay) and they just watched the show for about 10 minutes. Within four minutes people started realizing OMG OMG OMG. The band members were chill about it and just trying to watch the band. But soon they gave up and went into the back patio to smoke and make phone calls. How do I know this? Half of the people we were there with went out back to see if they could "randomly" meet them.
Fast forward to the actual headliners. The crowd is drunk. The scene is a medley of Shane (L Word character) lookalikes, other random L Word fashion look a likes, bad suburban 80's fashion, some sort of Sylvester Stallone in the first Rocky fashion and hipster geeky college students. I haven't smelled so much crunchy hair product or seen so many wipeouts and randomly dropped drinks (without the realizing that they were dropped) in a long time. The fashion I mention because most of the people there seemed so uncomfortable in it. Like they were still hunting for who they were and trying to take their cues from a television show. A television show is a product that the network is trying to sell you. Each character - is someone else's idea of how to package market and sell a personality that you will connect or identify with. I saw all of these people pulling on this marketed suit of identity and wearing it around trying to hide who they were underneath it and a strong coating of alchohol. It was weird. I am used to people in many types and walks of fashion and aside from a "damn gurl that's hot" reaction - I really don't notice as long as people inhabit their skin. I felt like I was in a room of people masquerading in their own skin. It was just so disorienting.
Best moment of the night was all about how not prepared to be on tour the band was. Their rythm section was an ipod and there were techinical difficulties galore. Finally someone yelled "you need a drummer" which they agreed with and invited the yeller up onstage to airdrum. Not only was this awesome - the person was actually a drummer so the airdrums were right on track. It was awesome and one of the few moments where the band really had the audience in the palm of their hand. The band was good - but with only an ep under their belt, a temporary guitarist and the aforementioned ipod, they didn't seem quite ready for prime time. Which I actually think was part of the issue with the audience. The band is too "in development" to have a core following of music fans yet, and so all of the attendees were really just there to see "that chick from the L Word." Without an actual tie to the music or the musical aesthetic of the band, the crowd was disjointed fan folks, uninspired by the opening acts (bored really is the word I would use for what I saw - even though the band rocked) and getting themselves progressively drunker and drunker to kill time.
We left a little early after, even when standing in the back with lots of room we were getting nearly knocked over from the stumbling people, and the band had more tech issues, frustrated banter about what they DIDN'T have happening up there then they had songs. Mental note: the songs should always be longer than the in between song banter unless you have amazing stories ala Tom Waits or Patti Smith.
So that was my night. Got home too late. Tired this morning. I still like Origami, but I will be waiting until Uh Huh Her is a little less green until I listen again.
