Lively, Lively Rawk Tawk
Back when I first started going to a lot o’ rock shows here in Atlanta, I was put off by the large numbers of people who seemed to have paid fifteen dollars just for the express purpose of talking as loudly as possible over the bands who were playing. In recent months, I’ve noticed a strange trend in the opposite direction: audience members who are utterly zealous about the music they’ve come to see, like, Way out of proportion with what’s actually coming out of the instruments up on stage. I talked about this with a friend who lives in Chicago, and he says he’s noticed the same thing up there, of late. While it could mean that he and I are just getting to be all curmudgeonly in our advanced years, I doubt it: He’s the one I went to see Sleater-Kinney with a couple years ago, who out-danced and out-jumped-around all the sighing ladies around us. And me, I’m a dancer, too. I’m a clapper and a “YAY!”-er. In a polite way, though: I’m very golden-rule-conscious when it comes to being an audience member. Anyway.

This new trend spooks me. The first time I really noticed it was when I went to see Pitchfork Internetsy Phenom, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, a couple months ago. I like this band lots; they’re bitter and biting and peppy. They’re catchy and sad and smart. All this.

And here, for you, is what happened at their Atlanta show, direct from the report I sent to said Chicago-friend, that very night:


“*Just* got back from that sold-out show full of twenty-one year old screaming, jumping kids and five confused-looking introverts up on stage. You just get the feeling the last bands any of the musicians were in did Not receive this sort of attention. Because you also get the feeling the last bands they were in were not powery pop. It was completely weird.

I mean, there was the guy, Mr. Singing Guy, who reminded me rather of John Linnell (from They Might Be Giants), snearing his bitter, clever, funny lyrics into the mic, and no matter what those lyrics might've been, if the drummer backed it up with a tha-THUMP, tha-THUMP, everyone was a-jumpin' and a-dancin' and a-doing that weird pointing-thing audience members sometimes do (though I've only Ever seen guys do this.) You know, that, point-at-the-singer-as-he-sings thing. Which I've never understood.

It was a well-performed show, and again: I like this band. And what's funny is if it had been at all empty in The Earl or if no one had been showing them proper attention, I'm sure *I* would have been all jumpy-dancey (though not finger-pointy). But I tell you: It was as if the room had reached the Maximum Enthusiasm it could possibly take. I was just physically unable to add any more without something real, real bad happening.

And again: Yes. Like the band. But they're not, how you say, the most challenging, breathtaking music ever to hit one’s ears. Even if I had been both jumpy and dancey, it would Not have been with the same implied message of "YOU. ARE. THE BEST. BAND. EV. ER!!! T.L.A.! XOXO!!" It would have been more like, "Hey, I'm having fun out here and totally getting you. This is fun."

It was, again, lord, just weird. Because people Were acting like this band is the Ultimate Shit. And they were just flies, you know?”


So I wrote off the experience of that particular show, as a phenomenon limited to poppy bands like Clap Your Hands… And then I went to see Calexico and Iron & Wine play at the Variety last Friday.

I’ll admit, I went mainly for Calexico, because their albums hang out with Sleater-Kinney’s in the beautiful sunlit glades and tranquil pools of the Music of my Heart. Although I am extraordinarily fond of Iron & Wine’s low-fi album that all seems to be about one specific wrenching experience of heartbreak- (The Creek Drank the Cradle), I haven’t liked anything else they’ve done. So, before I start alienating all the world with this snotty record-store talk, let me return to the strangeness.

The show was sold out. We stood up front and Calexico played first. Then it started to get more crowded, as it will do before a headlining act comes on. But *really* crowded. No real movement possible-crowded. So crowded I had to keep reminding myself we really weren’t *that* far away from the emergency exit. That I’d paid money for this because gosh darn it, it was fun. And then the guy from Iron & Wine comes out and starts his pretty singing and there’s this wave of squealing from the people around me. Like JohnPaulGeorgeRingo squealing. The ladies and mens just couldn’t contain themselves, it seems, at the sight of Joe Iron&Wine or whatever his name is, what with his Indie™ scarf placed *just* *so* about his neck and his Beard(also ™)-which is when I realized that it’s his face that’s painted on the cover of every single Iron & Wine album. Which gave me the extreme reservations, I will say. I mean: his FACE. Cheese ‘n crackers.

And then they started playing. And it was pretty and boring and unchallenging and we left about five songs in while everyone around us yelled out at every harmony, their eyes all lit up and liquid.


This does not prove your point, Alice,
you say. And looking over the way I’ve tried to get it across here, I see you’re right. I just don’t understand the appeal of Iron & Wine. Overall, I prefer Low. Overall, I prefer Abba.

Besides: I did not mention that two of the people who shoved up next to us after Calexico’s woefully short set were a couple of about 20 who had unnaturally loud voices. And since they were plastered, they used those voices to declare their love—wait, no actually, I think it was “wuv”-- to each other for the ten minutes I had to stand there, pressed into the boy’s left thigh. The girl, she had this tinny, tinny like, Broadway musical speaking voice. I hated them silently and hard and then transferred no small amount of that hatred to the band.

All in all, though, I still just don’t get why the show sold out, and obviously sold out on the appeal of Iron & Wine. And why everyone gets so fricking excited over those songs when there’s worlds’ better, comparable music out there. Then again, I’m just a snotty old curmudgeonhead.