Wow. Wow. That's mostly all I can say.
S and I lucked into two tickets for Pete Yorn's show at Schuba's, and when I say lucked, I mean, shit, we are so lucky. I'm not going to reveal the source of our tickets, but suffice it to say that the show sold out almost immediately, and when I went to get tickets the next day, they were gone. S worked some magic, and earlier this week, we were gifted two tickets. I don't think he was as excited as I was, but that's okay.
And okay, I did have a moment of fear and unhappiness when I realized the concert was at 11 pm, but dammit, I really wanted to see Pete Yorn. So I napped, and then S and I prepared to pretend we were far hipper than we really were. And let me tell you, there were lots of hip and trendy looking folks at the show. I kind of stood out in my polo shirt and flip-flops. I mean, I saw LEGGINGS. Listen, I don't care what anyone says, leggings are NOT cool. There is NOTHING cool about black pants with lace at the bottom that cling like leggings do. I don't care if you put a skirt on with them, leggings are STILL NOT COOL.
Okay, now that I've got that off my chest, can I just say that I was incredibly impressed with Yorn? I like his music anyway, but he's really fucking good live. It might have been the atmosphere--I was on a little raised platform (with a stove on it...?) in the back of the music room, and I could see Yorn's face for the whole show. Pretty goddamn amazing for a short girl. And he's a really good stage presence; he's chatty and amusing, and he seems to love what he's doing. He ended up playing a good number of old songs, songs from Musicforthemorningafter, which is clearly his best album anyway. And I don't normally like "For Nancy", and it was awesome in concert. "Life on a Chain", and "Lose You" were really good too, and even "Pass Me By" (which is from his second album, I think) was awesome.
And then. And then Pete Yorn did something that will make me love him forever. He played TWO Smiths songs: "There is a Light" and "Ask Me". And he told a story about how he was 10 and in Bermuda (I think the Yorns might have had some money; Rick Yorn, Pete's brother, is a Hollywood producer of some import, I think) and he met a girl with flowing blond hair and she asked him if he loved the Smiths, and he said yes even though he'd never heard them, and then went home and bought a Smiths album, and after about three songs, the Smiths were his favorite band ever. He also said something about how Morrissey sounds very British, and very gay, and well, Yorn's not wrong.
The point is, I dabble in Moz/Smiths love myself, and so it was incredibly cool to see these songs interpreted by Yorn. S said that he felt that the crowd were really with Yorn for "Ask Me", singing out loud and stuff, but we both thought that people were less with him on "There is a Light", which is perplexing and bizarre, since "There is a Light" is one of the best songs EVER. I feel like people even left the music room to go back into the bar and get more drinks, because they were bored with the cover song. But I mean, come on! It's the Smiths, people.
Anyhow, I now love Pete Yorn more than ever before, and I want to get his "Westerns" ep and his live album, and renew my listening to the album "Nightcrawler" that just came out last week. And then I want to see Pete Yorn live again, in a small venue. Not sure if that's gonna happen, but I'll at least see him again somewhere.
(Oh, and S and I actually made it to almost the end of the show, I think. We left around 1:05, which is so late! But we hopped in a cab and I was in bed by 1:20, which made the whole thing worth it. Yay for Pete Yorn!)
In yesterday's magazine section of the Sunday Tribune, leggings were listed as one of the trendy fashions for fall. I wonder if the person you saw just bought them or if they're fifteen years old.
Posted by: M | September 11, 2006 at 11:06 AM