i will remember.

oh man, is it ever nice to pee in my own toilet again. 10 hours of standing around in intermittant rain, with autumn fully making its entrance into the city. and for what?

pure, unadulterated bliss.

i skipped saturday's touch and go show to celebrate my bday, which at this point, i would just as soon forget. i also hate punk. saturday's lineup was silly with punk bands. instead i spent the day recovering at the golden nugget (mmmm biscuits & gravy) and spending some quality time with kim & scott, namely eating pizza hut and watching mst3k. happy birthday to me!

sunday, however, i was touch and go's bitch again. my intention was to show up at noon for arcwelder and stay at least until pinback, possibly for calexico, the last act of the night. didn't totally go as planned...

arcwelder: missed half the set. the north avenue bridge that i was planning to cross was out, so i had to run for a bus like a dillhole. i ended up getting in at 12:30. i really liked what i saw, though. wish i could have found a cd in reckless's tent.

quasi: didn't see. i dried down a lunch table instead, after picking up a decent dog at the whole foods booth while trying not to get it wet. somehow i managed to finish my faulker book. is it wrong to read a book in full, then read cliff notes for it in order to understand it?

monorchid: horrible. the best thing i can say is that their set was blessedly short due to equipment problems.

enon: um.. not what i was expecting. a friend highly recommended them, so i snuck into the audience. it was a bit underwhelming. i enjoyed the music with synths better than the standard bass-guitar-drum combo. there was also a stagehand for that particular stage who i wouldn't have kicked out of bed for eating ramen.

three mile pilot: cool. this band started both black heart procession (band i really came to see #1) and pinback (band i really came to see #2). if i hadn't seen and heard with my own eyes and ears the melding of those two bands, i wouldn't have believed it. zach smith and pall jenkins harmonizing? a real treat.

tara jane o'neil: didn't see. if i'd stood in one place for any longer my legs would have left without me. at this point i slipped the surly bounds of the fest to wander around and take some pics. i'ma post the 'em on my flickr page.

seam: see above.

brick layer cake: ok. so i get back from taking pics, thinking i'll be back in time for black heart procession. i get up way near the front, all excited and shit, i'm so close. then they bring on this guy who.. jesus lord. it was just the one guy playing guitar by himself, 'singing' (i use the term loosely). i'd forgotten that this guy was playing a mini-set before bhp came on. pissed, i gave up my place and went to take a leak, not realizing he was only going to do two songs. i ended up pretty fucked placement-wise.

black heart procession: good as always. 'tropics of love' just makes me go all gooey inside. however, i just saw these guys in august and they basically did the same stuff. i noticed myself getting slightly bored, even though i love 'em to death. the only thing they mixed up was, they threw 'good love is hard to find' by tom petty in there. odd choice, but it worked.

cocorosie: didn't see. there was no way i was going to get fucked for pinback like i had for bhp, so i anchored myself near the front for the hour that cocorosie was on. (they played the other stage while pinback tuned up.) in the meantime i managed to meet a very nice young man named nick (i think i'm older than he is, so i can get away with calling him that), which definitely helped to pass the time. going to the fest by myself was pretty hard.. it was really nice to find someone to talk to. i barely realized a huge crowd had grown around us. suddenly it was time for...

pinback: the weird thing about pinback was, i hadn't realized rob crow looks the way he does. at first glance it seemed like someone had let a mental patient loose upon the stage. who is this guy who looks kinda like a trucker, but also knows all the words to these songs? he sounded different and not loud enough, imo.. it took me a song to adjust. but after that.. sigh. he talked to the crowd a lot, saying how he was a fanboi for all the other bands on the bill. points scored.

they played only two songs i didn't know, and even those kicked my ass. lessee, what did they play.. 'bloods on fire', 'the yellow ones', 'syracuse', 'sender', 'non-photo blue', 'penelope', 'prog', 'fortress' and 'afk'. i can't describe the wonderful, wonderful feeling i got hearing these songs live. and christ, i've only really been a pinback fan for two months. there's just something about them, when all the sound comes together...it's a thousand epiphanies. i found it amusing that they need five guys on stage to replicate what two do in the studio. my only wish was that they'd done 'west' (actually got up the nerve to yell it, too). 'concrete seconds' would have been truly awesome as well. next time.. ?

oh yeah, just to reiterate.. rob crow is fucking insane. nothing like how he comes across on a record. the closest is 'afk' where he cuts loose a teeny tiny bit.. compare that to jumping around on stage, letting his guitar clatter to the floor, turning into a one-man mosh pit.. all the while, the other members are calm as a coma, just churning out the song. great, great stuff.

calexico: no disrespect, but after pinback, who the fuck cares? not i. i booked it before the huge flood of hipsters let loose onto north ave. all i wanted was a caramel apple cider from starbucks and a nice, warm bed. i got boned on the CAC (they were out of apple juice), but a hot choc made up for that.. and the bed is still waiting for me.

despite the weather, the hours of standing around, the hanging around by myself (i didn't see one person i recognized, outside of band members), the putting up with of couples and goofass hairstyles and huge bushy amish beards (i pray this trend dies a quick death), the shuttle to and from the venue and getting lost while i do so.. one millisecond of pleasure i received from one song made it all worth it hundreds of times over. i'm so, so glad i went. i look forward to seeing some of these bands again in the future. many many thanks to chicagoist for affording me the opportunity to go in the first place. i would have done it without you, but you made it much cheaper! :D