Everybody in the place throw your hands up
A friend once commented on the mob mentality of rock concerts, how it's a little scary to stand in a room with hundreds, even thousands of people all chanting the same thing, leaping and shouting and whooping when the person on stage tells them it's time. I'm not a mob mentality kind of a gal; I don't give in to peer pressure; I don't yell louder when someone says, "I can't hear you!"; and only in very special circumstances have I ever thrown my hands in the air and waved them like I just don't care, especially on command.
And yet there's something special about a group of people united in their excitement and happiness, especially if it's excitement and happiness about nothing in particular. I've been in rock concerts when the mob mentality got nasty, but more often I've been with a few hundred people crammed in a shitty bar all jointly determined to have a good time. You have to have a good leader to have a good mob, someone to set the tone and keep the energy of the crowd set to good-naturedly-rowdy. That's what makes 2 Skinnee J's one of the all-time great live bands. After a dozen or so shows, I trust that when J Guavera tells me to throw my hands up, that must be what's called for. I trust you, hyperactive rockers. Lead on.
Ross, Mistie, Alex and I headed to Norfolk, VA for a J's reunion show on the 8th. When Alex, Ross and I lived in Winter Haven and Kissimmee, we used to make shoestring-budget trips to the Carolinas, Georgia, Virginia and once as far as DC to see the J's and Infectious Organisms. We would get off work on Friday afternoon and head north, sometimes with only about $100 in the bank, drive all night and find the cheapest hotel in town to sleep a few hours before the Saturday night concert and the drive home on Sunday morning. It probably sounds like we were obsessed with these two fairly obscure bands, but that wasn't really it. We loved the music, but mostly we loved the silly adventure--making spaghetti on a smuggled hotplate in $40 hotel rooms with 8 people, keeping Ross awake while he drove Alex's parents' conversion van by asking him to define existentialism, Alex and Ross hopping in a bedside hot tub together in the bravest display of confident sexuality I've ever witnessed, feeling young and wild and invincible or at least irrepressible.
The show the other weekend lived up to all our memories. Those guys left it all on stage, and I like to think we gave it right back to them. It wwas good to see them playing with so much joy. Special J couldn't get the silly grin off his face, and neither could I. Those shows are a monument to joyful mania, unapologetic goofiness and boundless energy. Hooray for waving your hands like you just don't care, for dancing all night like you won't hurt tomorrow, like you'll live forever, or at least like you don't have to work on Monday.
And yet there's something special about a group of people united in their excitement and happiness, especially if it's excitement and happiness about nothing in particular. I've been in rock concerts when the mob mentality got nasty, but more often I've been with a few hundred people crammed in a shitty bar all jointly determined to have a good time. You have to have a good leader to have a good mob, someone to set the tone and keep the energy of the crowd set to good-naturedly-rowdy. That's what makes 2 Skinnee J's one of the all-time great live bands. After a dozen or so shows, I trust that when J Guavera tells me to throw my hands up, that must be what's called for. I trust you, hyperactive rockers. Lead on.
Ross, Mistie, Alex and I headed to Norfolk, VA for a J's reunion show on the 8th. When Alex, Ross and I lived in Winter Haven and Kissimmee, we used to make shoestring-budget trips to the Carolinas, Georgia, Virginia and once as far as DC to see the J's and Infectious Organisms. We would get off work on Friday afternoon and head north, sometimes with only about $100 in the bank, drive all night and find the cheapest hotel in town to sleep a few hours before the Saturday night concert and the drive home on Sunday morning. It probably sounds like we were obsessed with these two fairly obscure bands, but that wasn't really it. We loved the music, but mostly we loved the silly adventure--making spaghetti on a smuggled hotplate in $40 hotel rooms with 8 people, keeping Ross awake while he drove Alex's parents' conversion van by asking him to define existentialism, Alex and Ross hopping in a bedside hot tub together in the bravest display of confident sexuality I've ever witnessed, feeling young and wild and invincible or at least irrepressible.
The show the other weekend lived up to all our memories. Those guys left it all on stage, and I like to think we gave it right back to them. It wwas good to see them playing with so much joy. Special J couldn't get the silly grin off his face, and neither could I. Those shows are a monument to joyful mania, unapologetic goofiness and boundless energy. Hooray for waving your hands like you just don't care, for dancing all night like you won't hurt tomorrow, like you'll live forever, or at least like you don't have to work on Monday.