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I have the best taste in music of anyone I know(1). My fantastic taste in music led me to attend a concert with music supplied by the band ‘The Strokes’. If you are not familiar with The Strokes (quoteless from here on out), there is an 85% chance that you are over the age of 40 and a 75% that you are uncool, although these two traits are not mutually exclusive (you could be old AND uncool).
“But Matt,” you say, “I don’t listen to that kind of music, I only listen to country.” Well then, you would fit into the latter grouping (and this is where you stop reading). I fully expected (and was looking forward to) a night of leisurely head- bobbing and marijuana smoke inhalation. However, I saw very little harmless head-bobbing, and the night was almost marijuana-less. Furthermore, I was appalled at some of the antics that I witnessed—antics that are simply unacceptable in a concert situation.
The concert started strangely. As we were waiting for the opening band (a horrendous band called ‘Eagles of Death Metal’—who sounded an awful lot like Jerry Lee Lewis when he sang “Great Balls of Fire” and whose lead singer kept saying “I love you so hard” to the audience), my brother and I journeyed to the venue’s foyer in order to waste some time with a little bit of people-watching. The foyer looked like a Dr. Suess book—all kinds of different species passed us by as we were treated as especially tall wallflowers. But this wasn’t the strange part, we assumed that there would be some interesting characters at this concert.
No, the weird thing happened when a young woman rushed by with a male on her heels. The man turned to me, looked at me with a crazy look in his eye, and shouted, “Do you want to fuck her?” as he pointed at the young woman. I am not sure what the socially accepted response to a query like this one is, but I choose silence as the only gentlemanly course of action. It was fairly obvious to us that the young couple was having a spat, whether it was because he had just found out that she had cheated on him, or that he was trying to show her that he was indeed the biggest dick in Kansas City. No matter the reason, it certainly would have been funnier if I would have simply replied with a “Why yes. Yes I would like to have intercourse with her”. But I couldn’t do it. I froze up. Apparently I don’t like awkward situations(2). (This paragraph had nothing to do with concert behavior, I just wanted to tell that story)
Eventually we returned to the inside of the concert hall and listened to some awful music supplied by said Eagles of Death Metal and tried not to cringe at all of the retarded shit the lead singer was saying. We saw and talked to some friends for a second, but since we didn’t want to stand next to them the entire concert (because sometimes you learn things you don’t want to know about someone’s behavior at a concert), we retired to our spot, right in front of the sound equipment area. We usually choose this area because we are really tall. Even though we are usually bastards, in this case we like to be help out our shorter fellow concert-goers. If we stand in the middle of the room, a ‘V’ of unused space will quickly develop behind us, since everyone in KC is roughly Freddy Deeb’s height(3).
The Strokes took the stage, and everyone seemed to be rather enthused. The first song started and the audience went from static to gyrating in roughly two seconds. The Strokes are a bit of a hippy band, which means that the usual movement required to ‘dance’ is a simple head-nod. But surprised is an understatement when I turned to the left and saw a group of slightly overweight, drunk frat boys (all wearing cargo shorts and vertically striped button-downs) actually ‘moshing’ (I hate this term which is why quotes are present) to the sounds of The Strokes.
I am roughly the same height as Kansas Citians, and I am not Danny Devito
Now, usually I could give a flying squirrel’s asshole (nothing against a flying squirrel’s private parts, I just don’t particularly care about them) about how people dance at a concert but The Strokes is not a fucking moshing band. The music should not make you want to use your body to cause physical harm to some unsuspecting 85 lb. girl on the outskirts of your little circle. This isn’t a fucking Sevendust show and more importantly, this isn’t 1995. At most, this music calls for a 2-inch vertical jump to one of the more poppy songs. I turned away from these tool bags in disgust, but things weren’t any better to my right.
This side of the venue seemed to be the couples area. There were young men scanning the crowd abashedly as their girlfriends made asses out of themselves, and these couples were surrounded by a group of couples doing an even more unspeakable act: they were grinding. I have absolutely no idea what was wrong with these people. Perhaps there was a ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’-like exodus from the local mental ward. But this theory holds little water because other than the hideous grinding, these folks seemed to have normal motor skills. So the only rational explanation was that these people were misinformed. They thought they were going to a 50 cents(4) concert but they took a wrong turn off the expressway and found themselves in the middle of shaggy haired white people, instead of the short-haired white people that would be found at the 50 cents concert. Although, this is not an excuse—there is no excuse for this type of behavior. I can only prescribe spay or neuterment for these people so that they do not spawn more of their inappropriate-dancing kind.
Footnotes (1) Does anyone think that his taste in music is NOT the best? - “I have the worst taste in music, which makes me extremely uncool. But because I am so very uncool, I have no motivation to change my music in order to make me cooler. It is a vicious cycle of awesomelessness.*”
*Although this is a bit unrealistic; a person this uncool would not use a term like awesomelessness (this is the first footnoting of a footnote that I have ever witnessed).
(2) Unless this awkward situation involves an elevator—in that case I love them.
(3) If you are unfamiliar with Freddy Deeb, he is an extremely short poker player. Think Danny DeVito with an absurdly foul mouth.
(4) I realize it is 50 cent, but 50 cents is much funnier.
Since when is this band considered a "hippy band?"
good article anyways..
The Living Tribunal
Listen to me.
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Posted: 7/21/2006 9:01:25 AM
Fuck. Fuckety-fuck-fuck. Super fuck. Mr. Potato-fuck. Unbelievable rhino-fuck and a side of fuck-fries. Big fuck. Fuck.
That Guy
"Biggest Dick in Kansas City"
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Posted: 7/21/2006 9:08:23 AM
Is that like "most annoying Spice Girl?"
That Guy
"Biggest Dick in Kansas City"
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Posted: 7/21/2006 9:08:25 AM
Is that like "most annoying Spice Girl?"
That Guy
Now I sound like the parrot
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Posted: 7/21/2006 9:09:18 AM
Sorry about that.
Dirk
Whatever
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Posted: 7/21/2006 9:55:21 AM
If you think The Strokes rock and EoDM suck then you are mindless twit with no discernable taste. You just agree with whatever Alternative Rock station in your area shoves down your throat.
Christine
Matt
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Posted: 7/21/2006 10:15:27 AM
Good Job (man, you really like Parentheses huh?). I know this is rare, but I am actually going to disagree with you for a second. While moshing is a tad ridiculous and grinding is abysmal, it really comes down to the concert goers' way of life. People have there own way of jamming out at concerts. You can't put a rule on what is acceptable and what is not. I am sure some of the really intense moshers looked at you and your brother and thought, "dude, they probably don't even like the strokes". Because perhaps simply nodding your head is not enough to show your love for the band. And the strokes' music is pretty sexy, perhaps the grinders could not help themselves. Now you ruined the potential for enjoyment by leering at the crowd around you. just focus on the music and you'll be fine.
The only concert rule that can never be broken is that you can not under any circumstances wear a tee shirt of the band you are seeing. It is by far the "uncoolest" thing you could do. Unless you are at a Dead show.
chris
Are you serious?
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Posted: 7/21/2006 10:20:34 AM
"If you haven't heard of The Strokes you're lame"...sure...I can deal with that.
Let me add an addendum: "If you HAVE heard of The Strokes and you think that's some sort of validation for your incredible musical range of taste, you're even lamer."
d
......
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Posted: 7/21/2006 10:37:13 AM
The Stroke-my-cocks fuckin suck and as chris said if anything youre the lame one here.
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