2000-10-21 - 18:10

We are the fiend club

So, did everybody read my Moby review, which I mentioned last time? No?! That's okay . . . you didn't sign my guestbook either :P

It was a busy end to the week. In fact, it's 4:00 in the afternoon; and I'm at work, finally able to say that I can relax. Wednesday, we just took it easy, after the late night of the Moby concert.

On Thursday, while the boys caught a hockey game, I went downtown to see the Misfits. Damn, that was a fun show! The next time that I'm talking to Greg, I'll have to thank him for getting me into the band.

My real review is on the Tomes site and the Jambalaya site. I have to say that I had the total concert experience this week. Moby was a beautiful, high-energy show; but I love getting in a hard mosh like I got at the Misfits. It's cool that I got to do both.

The doors opened late for the Misfits, which gave me some time to hang out with the rest of the crowd. I didn't know there were so many freaky looking people in this city . . . the punks came out of the woodwork for this one.

The average age of the fans was definitely quite a bit younger than I am. For example, the four punks in line in front of me had gotten dropped off by one of their fathers. They seemed like nice kids; and we crossed paths a few times in the mosh. I saw one of the guys after the show and he was psyched because he had gotten his shirt signed by Misfits bassist Jerry Only. Then his friend came by, fired up about getting his hat signed. It was cool to see that everyone had a good time at the show.

In between opening act Guy Smiley and the Misfits, I had a good conversation with a burned-out metalhead guy who noticed that I was wearing a Rollins Band shirt. He mentioned that he had a video of Rollins giving a spoken word performance at Carleton University, in the late 80s, which I would love to see. We talked for a while about Henry's music, spoken word pieces, writing, and acting. That was fun, especially because the Barrymore's choice of change-over background music was the best Rollins Band album, The End of Silence.

[Insert 1-hour break to have a friendly argument about the code that we're working on here.]

Again, I have to say that being in a great mosh is one of the best feelings in the world. You can pound away whatever stress you have and just enjoy experiencing cool music with people who share your love for it. The mosh at the Misfits was excellent: people were very physical and very active; but they kept it on the right level and looked out for each other. That's always good to see.

I came out of the club covered in sweat, a little banged up, and feeling fantastic, complete with a stylin' Misfits shirt. Sweet :)

Yesterday was a crazy one at work. A few delays kept Mandeep and I from getting started on our testing as early as we would have liked; and when all was said and done, it was past 11:00 before I got home. It was definitely a rough week for sleeping and eating patterns.

I didn't mind working late (or coming in again today), since it had to be done; and we made progress quickly enough that it wasn't frustrating. The only real downside is that it would have been better if I could've had more time to hang out with Liam, before he went back to Halifax.

Apart from the Moby concert (which was excellent, of course) and some bombing around downtown last weekend, it didn't seem like we did as much as I would've hoped this week. What can you do, though? It was pretty busy.

I didn't manage to push as much good music on him as I did last time, when I introduced him to EN, Die Haut, and the Dirty Three. However, he brought up Kid A, which is a very interesting album. As I told Liam, he is one of the few people who would have been content to put on that CD in the living room and let me give it a good listen, without needing to talk all through it. (CD first listens are important.)

It was definitely great to get together again; and I know that I got a few extra laughs from having the Pretzelizer around. Hopefully, he had a good time, too.

J.