Andrew Bird
Tonight (well, I guess it's technically last night now), I went with my friends Darcy and Luke to see Andrew Bird play at some little wine bar in Madison. I was a little worried heading out there because while they had tickets, I didn't, and only a "limited number" would be available at the door.
It was pouring rain when we got there, and while Darcy waited under an overhang down the street, I dashed up to the venue to find out if there were still tickets available. Of course, there weren't. We decided that Luke and Darcy would head in and I would hang around for a bit to see if I could get in if, say, someone else didn't show.
I waited outside for what must have been over two hours. There were other people waiting, too, although the group that was there before I was ended up leaving maybe half an hour after I arrived, so I ended up at the head of the theoretical line for potentially nothing at all. I ended up talking to a group of film students for a good chunk of the time I was waiting. In fact, Andrew Bird himself wandered by a few times as we were standing outside, and while I didn't want to bother him much because he seemed pretty shy, a few words were exchanged.
Finally Andrew Bird (I can't ever think of him as anything but a first name-last name combo for some reason) started playing at about quarter after ten, and the guy working the door was nice enough to make sure it stayed open enough that those of us standing outside could actually hear the show. It actually wasn't a half-bad deal: we didn't have to pay, we were probably more comfortable than the people crammed into the hot cafe, and the only downside was that we couldn't see anything (a good percentage of the people in there probably couldn't see the stage, either). In fact, the stage abutted the front windows, and while the drapes were mostly pulled, there was a good enough gap between them (at least a foot wide) that you could get a decent view (from the back, anyway, and if you didn't mind feeling like the audience was going to be staring at you).
I'd pretty much resigned myself to spending the entire show outside when suddenly the guy working the door raps on the glass and beckons to me. I actually thought I'd done something to piss him off, but then he said, "You're in. Go ahead." I think I stood there for a couple seconds processing it, and then started to ask him about paying, but he just shook his head. "Those people just left, so you're good." After the song finished, I started to make my way to an open spot on the ramp in that I figured would be a good place to assess where to stand. Once I got there, though, I realized that it was pretty much the perfect spot: I had a railing to sit/lean on and an excellent view of Andrew Bird.
The show, needless to say, was awesome. There was still almost an hour of it to go when I finally got in, so it worked out nicely. There were a few older songs, but mostly stuff off of the new album (The Mysterious Production of Eggs), which made it fun, because most of the songs I was familiar with were older. We even got a new song, "Dark Matter," that he'd come up with during the few weeks he'd just had off from touring. In all honesty, this man is so talented I could spit.
After the two encore songs, I snagged some merch (I felt that not paying to get in justified the expense a CD and a shirt) and figured it would be a good idea to track down Darcy and Luke. I wandered around as it emptied out, but I couldn't see them anywhere. Then I tried calling both their phones, but mine refused to dial, despite telling me it had service. Just as I'm starting to get a little worried, my phone rings: it's Luke, and the reason I couldn't find them was that they were over in the restaurant half of the place.
I think I sat down with them for all of two seconds before remembering that I'd wanted to snag the poster off of the front door before anyone else got to it, so I hopped back up to do that. Getting back to the table, though, it was nice to be able to just sit down and have a beer after standing for so long. Finishing up our drinks, we headed back toward the stage where Andrew Bird was packing up and talking to people, and he was kind enough to sign both the poster I'd snagged and my album (Darcy got the poster they'd picked up signed as well).
In retrospect, I think I'm glad that I didn't have a ticket when I got there. I got to enjoy the fresh air, meet some new people, get in for free, get an excellent spot when I did get in, and talk to Andrew Bird. All in all, it was a fucking awesome night.