Mad Brain Disease
The system at work went down at exactly 5 today, so I got to go home on time for once. Hooray for small victories! This also means I finally have time to tell you all about Beirut.
I could actually start this recap with a list of everything that went wrong with Monday night, but it's better to paint a picture of my grumpypants mental state (here is a picture: it is of my mental state portrayed by a single but disproportionately large pair of grumpypants). The tall-grumpypants my state of mind was sporting were so large, in fact, they made the Congress Theater's little annoyances into something akin to personal affronts. The website said doors were at 6:30. In fact, doors happened at about 7:15 and 6:30 was Giant Line Time instead (mercifully, my line-bound cohorts weren't as judgey as I was expecting, though there was a lot of bandying about of the word "indie"). Then it was another forty-five minutes before the opener came on, and the sound wasn't right yet and the crowd was mean to her. This was yet another case of the opening act not quite being suited to the crowd. Leatitia Sadier was a bit too quiet (and, later, annoyed with the people who wouldn't shut up) for everyone's mood. (And possibly too French, though honestly that's not a critique I could levy against an artist. Except maybe Jacques Brel... but then again, he was Belgian, so the point is moot.) And after she left the stage we waited nearly an entire hour before Beirut came on. It was agonizing, and I was well on my way to being completely consumed with dread for work the next day and I was busily composing a theory on the length of the wait as a function of how obnoxious people had been to Leatitia before they finally came on.
And then everything was okay. Then everything was good, and even great. The improvement it caused in my mood was probably measurable on a seismic level. There's something about having an energetic horn section blaring at you that simply compels you to return the favor by dancing and singing along (though I settled for mouthing the words--no one paid to hear me sing, and I have doubts about the taste of anyone who would). The sound issues from the opener were all gone. Zach Condon sounded amazing. Everyone on stage was smiling and bouncing about. The drummer had one of the best drummer-faces I've seen since Hillside (it was permanently between ecstatic and grimacing). The strings of lights hung above the stage made the whole thing feel like a back-yard summer concert. It also helped that, despite being near the end of the Giant Line, I was only about five people back from the stage and, in an astounding twist of fate for me, there wasn't a 6'10" guy in plaid standing directly on top of my feet. No one pushed, no one was a jerk, and even if not everyone was dancing, at least no one seemed to be judging me outwardly for dancing. And I finally settled in enough to forget about the Congress' thousand tiny injuries to me and take in its giant, gorgeous expanse (huge, dome-like ceiling; filigreed woodwork; massive brick backing to the stage. It was an awesome sight).
So, basically I spent the entire set falling in love with Zach Condon (welcome to my list of artists I want to kidnap, sir) and wishing that the show wouldn't end... Aside from a two-songs-long mini existential crisis in which Zach started to remind me very, very strongly of one of my friends (a complicated issue that I'm not likely to go into in an un-locked setting) which somehow spiraled down into a soul-searching question about whether or not I was being a hedonist by bumming around Chicago and continually putting off grad school so I can enjoy good concerts pretty much whenever I want and bike around and eat cheap sushi in the rain along the Chicago river at the border between Ritzyville River North's skyscraper apartments and the beginnings of Industrial Nowhere, basking in the delicious smell of the Blommer Chocolate Factory's flagrant EPA violation. (And, by the way, for whatever reason Scenic World is now intrinsically linked with that scene.) But I got over that, too, because the show was just that good. He even played some of the songs off the Realpeople EP, and, given my unabashed love for his voice over electronica (and my inexplicable love for erstwhile-electronica played live on real instruments) I proudly admit that I even pumped my fists in the air for those, despite the potential for being judged by my peers.
The evening was capped off with two encores... which is probably the only reason I was okay with letting them leave. Two encores demonstrates a level of mutual adoration between band and crowd that I was totally cool with, and was interested in maintaining by allowing the band its freedom. If you love something let it go and all.
So, in conclusion: Beirut. Good show. Very good show. Would attend again. The only major drawback is that the live show sounds better than the albums, and now I know... (My life, it is oh-so-difficult.) In fact, being the massive stalker dork I am, I'm already making tentative plans to go see him in Pittsburgh in December or something.
I could actually start this recap with a list of everything that went wrong with Monday night, but it's better to paint a picture of my grumpypants mental state (here is a picture: it is of my mental state portrayed by a single but disproportionately large pair of grumpypants). The tall-grumpypants my state of mind was sporting were so large, in fact, they made the Congress Theater's little annoyances into something akin to personal affronts. The website said doors were at 6:30. In fact, doors happened at about 7:15 and 6:30 was Giant Line Time instead (mercifully, my line-bound cohorts weren't as judgey as I was expecting, though there was a lot of bandying about of the word "indie"). Then it was another forty-five minutes before the opener came on, and the sound wasn't right yet and the crowd was mean to her. This was yet another case of the opening act not quite being suited to the crowd. Leatitia Sadier was a bit too quiet (and, later, annoyed with the people who wouldn't shut up) for everyone's mood. (And possibly too French, though honestly that's not a critique I could levy against an artist. Except maybe Jacques Brel... but then again, he was Belgian, so the point is moot.) And after she left the stage we waited nearly an entire hour before Beirut came on. It was agonizing, and I was well on my way to being completely consumed with dread for work the next day and I was busily composing a theory on the length of the wait as a function of how obnoxious people had been to Leatitia before they finally came on.
And then everything was okay. Then everything was good, and even great. The improvement it caused in my mood was probably measurable on a seismic level. There's something about having an energetic horn section blaring at you that simply compels you to return the favor by dancing and singing along (though I settled for mouthing the words--no one paid to hear me sing, and I have doubts about the taste of anyone who would). The sound issues from the opener were all gone. Zach Condon sounded amazing. Everyone on stage was smiling and bouncing about. The drummer had one of the best drummer-faces I've seen since Hillside (it was permanently between ecstatic and grimacing). The strings of lights hung above the stage made the whole thing feel like a back-yard summer concert. It also helped that, despite being near the end of the Giant Line, I was only about five people back from the stage and, in an astounding twist of fate for me, there wasn't a 6'10" guy in plaid standing directly on top of my feet. No one pushed, no one was a jerk, and even if not everyone was dancing, at least no one seemed to be judging me outwardly for dancing. And I finally settled in enough to forget about the Congress' thousand tiny injuries to me and take in its giant, gorgeous expanse (huge, dome-like ceiling; filigreed woodwork; massive brick backing to the stage. It was an awesome sight).
So, basically I spent the entire set falling in love with Zach Condon (welcome to my list of artists I want to kidnap, sir) and wishing that the show wouldn't end... Aside from a two-songs-long mini existential crisis in which Zach started to remind me very, very strongly of one of my friends (a complicated issue that I'm not likely to go into in an un-locked setting) which somehow spiraled down into a soul-searching question about whether or not I was being a hedonist by bumming around Chicago and continually putting off grad school so I can enjoy good concerts pretty much whenever I want and bike around and eat cheap sushi in the rain along the Chicago river at the border between Ritzyville River North's skyscraper apartments and the beginnings of Industrial Nowhere, basking in the delicious smell of the Blommer Chocolate Factory's flagrant EPA violation. (And, by the way, for whatever reason Scenic World is now intrinsically linked with that scene.) But I got over that, too, because the show was just that good. He even played some of the songs off the Realpeople EP, and, given my unabashed love for his voice over electronica (and my inexplicable love for erstwhile-electronica played live on real instruments) I proudly admit that I even pumped my fists in the air for those, despite the potential for being judged by my peers.
The evening was capped off with two encores... which is probably the only reason I was okay with letting them leave. Two encores demonstrates a level of mutual adoration between band and crowd that I was totally cool with, and was interested in maintaining by allowing the band its freedom. If you love something let it go and all.
So, in conclusion: Beirut. Good show. Very good show. Would attend again. The only major drawback is that the live show sounds better than the albums, and now I know... (My life, it is oh-so-difficult.) In fact, being the massive stalker dork I am, I'm already making tentative plans to go see him in Pittsburgh in December or something.