We need a friend who won't push us around
Do you know what it feels like to meet someone you’ve not spoken to for a long time (half a year in this case) and then it suddenly hits you how awesome they are when you see them again? Exactly that happened to me.
On Tuesday, we went to Hannover to see Land Of Talk. We casually walked from the station to the club and went to sit inside (it was free, woohoo). After a couple of minutes I see Liz, Land Of Talk’s singer/songwriter/guitarist/front person, emerging from out of the back stage area. She sees me as well and all of a sudden there’s massive squeeing and hugging and all of that. We talk for one and a half hours, she introduces me to the new drummer, we swap stories about The Decemberists’ now ex-(!!)tour manager (and talk lots of shit about him to be honest). Then we start talking about anything and everything: touring Europe, the fact that lots of people think frontwomen need to have a sexy image, the internet, her boyfriend’s band (Bon Iver) that suddenly got massive in the US and how girls give her love letters for him with drawings of two people kissing in a rocket, them recording in Arcade Fire’s church, more touring mementos, having Owen Pallett’s children, University towns, haircuts, merch sellers, drummers and lots of stuff I don’t remember now.
It was one of the most exciting and genuinely interesting conversations I’ve had in a long time. Then she notices she’s got to get on stage in five minutes.
They’re playing in the middle of a dance floor and most of the audience sit on various sofas and chairs. We have gotten ourselves seats at a small table directly in front of the stage. They start and you can feel the room falling in love with them. Lots of people start swaying and miming instruments and everybody’s so entranced that after they’ve finished a song it takes the audience a couple of seconds to start applauding and cheering. They leave the stage, the audience keeps cheering, they come back to play a few more songs. The audience keeps cheering until Liz announces that they actually haven’t got anything else, they played the entire album and all of the new songs. ’Chris (the bassist) knows a few wicked covers, though.’
The merch table is crammed, everybody wants a piece of what they just saw. The merch girl, who’s the bassist’s girlfriend, recognizes me and after I buy the album, the new L’Aventure Acoustique (which is their album + a new song and a cover done acoustically with hand-drawn artwork by Liz), a poster and a few pins I haven’t got any money left, but it feels good because I’d literally give this band all I have, they deserve it so much. They got 100€ for the gig, which is a joke and doesn’t even pay the gas, but they’ve still played one of those amazing intimate shows you always dream of attending.
Liz then gives me a bag they’re selling for free (so I have something to carry all the stuff I bought, lolz) and runs backstage saying she’s got something else for me. She comes back with a notebook and asks me to write the name of my city and some clubs in it. We’ve been talking about how she’d love to do a tour of smaller University towns earlier on and I told her that my town was exactly like that, with a huge student population. I write everything down, even that one of the clubs is in the basement of a theatre and then she asks me, for whatever reason, to write my full name under it. (I wonder what that’s about). Then she gives me a t-shirt of hers (freshly washed, of course) that they’ve been selling in September when I first saw and met them, I say I’m kind of embarrassed that I get so much stuff for free, she answers: ’You deserve it, you’re special, you really love music.’
I’m really glad the club was dark and you couldn’t see me blushing, because that’s really one of the nicest things I have ever heard. For some time now, bands I see and their merch people/tour managers have always been incredibly nice to me in so many ways and I never knew why, and her telling me that one can tell that I honestly love music really struck a cord within me.
Then Chris the bassist came with some Chinese food they had ordered earlier and it was perfect timing for some reunion pictures. They didn’t turn out very well, my flash is too bright, I look like a midget and Liz looks a bit weird as opposed to her usual almost unnatural prettiness. But they’re a lovely memory nonetheless and who says memories have to be perfect?
It was time for us to leave because we were going to be picked up by a friend of my family, it was already late and we had a politics exam to write the next day.
Liz walked outside with us and brought us to the car (which once again was so nice because she wasn’t wearing a jacket and it was quite cold and also a bit of a walk). The friend picking us up first thought she was a friend of mine and didn’t believe she was the singer of the band, haha. I guess I wouldn’t have believed it either, though, if I was him. Then there were a lot of hugs and me promising I won’t tell some of the ‘top secret’ things she told me concerning The Decemberists and her promising she will get me on every guest list I want to, this also being a hint at them supporting Tapes ‘n Tapes in Europe in the summer XD
We got in the car and drove through the night, the dark freeways almost deserted and the stars visible from the windows. My friend Anna said she was so tired and wished she was in bed and ended up falling asleep in the car (precious). I couldn’t get my eyes to close even if I wanted to and kept thinking about how unfair it is that people you feel such a strong connection with, people you’d like to be your best friends, are so far away. I would’ve liked nothing more than just to have stayed there with them, eating Chinese food and writing into the tour diary and then going to another city and then another and then some more.
Despite all of that, it was a perfect evening. It’s still unbelievable to me how someone who is a girl just like me, my friend, can write such enchanting music and have such a wonderful voice. When she goes on stage, it’s like she’s someone so different and totally disconnected from the world. The way she moves, the way she closes her eyes, what she does with her guitar and above everything, that voice and those words that just come out, flowing so naturally as if they have always been there with her, from the day she was born. You can feel the emotion and meaning behind every word she sings, even more so on the Acoustic record, I could never lay my soul out for everyone to see like that. It’s not show business, it’s real, it’s art, it’s beautiful and I feel honoured to be part of it on some level. It’s just really fulfilling and inspiring to know someone like that.
I’m aware of the jumping between present and past tense, but I’d like to keep it like that. I wrote it all down in a whim when I had the urge to express what that evening meant to me and I don’t feel like changing it now.
Pictures:
Getting my sexy on at home (except not really).
At the venue before the show - Christmassy tree!
Obligatory feet photo.
Liz, the spectacular one
Chris with his rockstar bass
Some turned out quite dark due to the lighting
Anna forced me to take lots of pictures of the drummer because she wanted to get into his pants as soon as she saw him play
I love how into it they all are here (look closely, ha).
Look at the drummer! Awww.
Hahaha, Liz looks so creepy here. Chris is like a real model though, look at that smile!
My flash is far too bright, but it's a lovely pic anyway.
Reunion! Look how tiny I am, oh my God.
Drum tower!
Getting my real sexy on in the bathroom after the show. Absolutely love taking pictures in club bathrooms, all the posters and stickers make a great background.
Look what I found!
LOL.
Seems to be a real anti-emo bathroom.
CDs I got.
There's a robot on the inside of L'Aventure Acoustique. Cute.
Poster of a fat naked alcoholic (which of course completely represents all the band stand for).
The bag Liz gave me! It's so pretty, the drawing is of a dream she actually had.
And of course, le t-shirt. It says Summer Special on the side, which is one of the songs on their album. And it fits!
On Tuesday, we went to Hannover to see Land Of Talk. We casually walked from the station to the club and went to sit inside (it was free, woohoo). After a couple of minutes I see Liz, Land Of Talk’s singer/songwriter/guitarist/front person, emerging from out of the back stage area. She sees me as well and all of a sudden there’s massive squeeing and hugging and all of that. We talk for one and a half hours, she introduces me to the new drummer, we swap stories about The Decemberists’ now ex-(!!)tour manager (and talk lots of shit about him to be honest). Then we start talking about anything and everything: touring Europe, the fact that lots of people think frontwomen need to have a sexy image, the internet, her boyfriend’s band (Bon Iver) that suddenly got massive in the US and how girls give her love letters for him with drawings of two people kissing in a rocket, them recording in Arcade Fire’s church, more touring mementos, having Owen Pallett’s children, University towns, haircuts, merch sellers, drummers and lots of stuff I don’t remember now.
It was one of the most exciting and genuinely interesting conversations I’ve had in a long time. Then she notices she’s got to get on stage in five minutes.
They’re playing in the middle of a dance floor and most of the audience sit on various sofas and chairs. We have gotten ourselves seats at a small table directly in front of the stage. They start and you can feel the room falling in love with them. Lots of people start swaying and miming instruments and everybody’s so entranced that after they’ve finished a song it takes the audience a couple of seconds to start applauding and cheering. They leave the stage, the audience keeps cheering, they come back to play a few more songs. The audience keeps cheering until Liz announces that they actually haven’t got anything else, they played the entire album and all of the new songs. ’Chris (the bassist) knows a few wicked covers, though.’
The merch table is crammed, everybody wants a piece of what they just saw. The merch girl, who’s the bassist’s girlfriend, recognizes me and after I buy the album, the new L’Aventure Acoustique (which is their album + a new song and a cover done acoustically with hand-drawn artwork by Liz), a poster and a few pins I haven’t got any money left, but it feels good because I’d literally give this band all I have, they deserve it so much. They got 100€ for the gig, which is a joke and doesn’t even pay the gas, but they’ve still played one of those amazing intimate shows you always dream of attending.
Liz then gives me a bag they’re selling for free (so I have something to carry all the stuff I bought, lolz) and runs backstage saying she’s got something else for me. She comes back with a notebook and asks me to write the name of my city and some clubs in it. We’ve been talking about how she’d love to do a tour of smaller University towns earlier on and I told her that my town was exactly like that, with a huge student population. I write everything down, even that one of the clubs is in the basement of a theatre and then she asks me, for whatever reason, to write my full name under it. (I wonder what that’s about). Then she gives me a t-shirt of hers (freshly washed, of course) that they’ve been selling in September when I first saw and met them, I say I’m kind of embarrassed that I get so much stuff for free, she answers: ’You deserve it, you’re special, you really love music.’
I’m really glad the club was dark and you couldn’t see me blushing, because that’s really one of the nicest things I have ever heard. For some time now, bands I see and their merch people/tour managers have always been incredibly nice to me in so many ways and I never knew why, and her telling me that one can tell that I honestly love music really struck a cord within me.
Then Chris the bassist came with some Chinese food they had ordered earlier and it was perfect timing for some reunion pictures. They didn’t turn out very well, my flash is too bright, I look like a midget and Liz looks a bit weird as opposed to her usual almost unnatural prettiness. But they’re a lovely memory nonetheless and who says memories have to be perfect?
It was time for us to leave because we were going to be picked up by a friend of my family, it was already late and we had a politics exam to write the next day.
Liz walked outside with us and brought us to the car (which once again was so nice because she wasn’t wearing a jacket and it was quite cold and also a bit of a walk). The friend picking us up first thought she was a friend of mine and didn’t believe she was the singer of the band, haha. I guess I wouldn’t have believed it either, though, if I was him. Then there were a lot of hugs and me promising I won’t tell some of the ‘top secret’ things she told me concerning The Decemberists and her promising she will get me on every guest list I want to, this also being a hint at them supporting Tapes ‘n Tapes in Europe in the summer XD
We got in the car and drove through the night, the dark freeways almost deserted and the stars visible from the windows. My friend Anna said she was so tired and wished she was in bed and ended up falling asleep in the car (precious). I couldn’t get my eyes to close even if I wanted to and kept thinking about how unfair it is that people you feel such a strong connection with, people you’d like to be your best friends, are so far away. I would’ve liked nothing more than just to have stayed there with them, eating Chinese food and writing into the tour diary and then going to another city and then another and then some more.
Despite all of that, it was a perfect evening. It’s still unbelievable to me how someone who is a girl just like me, my friend, can write such enchanting music and have such a wonderful voice. When she goes on stage, it’s like she’s someone so different and totally disconnected from the world. The way she moves, the way she closes her eyes, what she does with her guitar and above everything, that voice and those words that just come out, flowing so naturally as if they have always been there with her, from the day she was born. You can feel the emotion and meaning behind every word she sings, even more so on the Acoustic record, I could never lay my soul out for everyone to see like that. It’s not show business, it’s real, it’s art, it’s beautiful and I feel honoured to be part of it on some level. It’s just really fulfilling and inspiring to know someone like that.
I’m aware of the jumping between present and past tense, but I’d like to keep it like that. I wrote it all down in a whim when I had the urge to express what that evening meant to me and I don’t feel like changing it now.
Pictures:
Getting my sexy on at home (except not really).
At the venue before the show - Christmassy tree!
Obligatory feet photo.
Liz, the spectacular one
Chris with his rockstar bass
Some turned out quite dark due to the lighting
Anna forced me to take lots of pictures of the drummer because she wanted to get into his pants as soon as she saw him play
I love how into it they all are here (look closely, ha).
Look at the drummer! Awww.
Hahaha, Liz looks so creepy here. Chris is like a real model though, look at that smile!
My flash is far too bright, but it's a lovely pic anyway.
Reunion! Look how tiny I am, oh my God.
Drum tower!
Getting my real sexy on in the bathroom after the show. Absolutely love taking pictures in club bathrooms, all the posters and stickers make a great background.
Look what I found!
LOL.
Seems to be a real anti-emo bathroom.
CDs I got.
There's a robot on the inside of L'Aventure Acoustique. Cute.
Poster of a fat naked alcoholic (which of course completely represents all the band stand for).
The bag Liz gave me! It's so pretty, the drawing is of a dream she actually had.
And of course, le t-shirt. It says Summer Special on the side, which is one of the songs on their album. And it fits!