you are my sweetest downfall; i loved you first

I saw Regina Spektor tonight, after a long debacle involving the girl who was supposed to go bailing at the last minute and me having to call pretty much everyone I know in Atlanta to see if they wanted to accompany me. I kind of regretted buying tickets so far in advance until my roommate and I got to the show and it was sold out.

Only Son opened for Regina. Jack Dishel is this dude from NYC with big hair and a really weird sense of humor. His songs performed live were very Weakerthans and Grandaddy-esque, although the few on his Myspace don't really remind me of that at all. He sounded pretty good, despite not really having a band and playing a lot of pre-recorded music. He did, however, redeem himself by telling the audience that he was playing this recording because he had slaughtered his band members with a butcher knife. Yes, I realize this is incredibly creepy but it was funny when he acted it out.

"dude, what are you doing with that butcher knife?"
"uh...cleaning my feet? come here, i want to show you something. actually i'm just gonna kill you now."

I feel really old when I go to shows. Being on the upper end of the college-age spectrum makes freshman look young enough as it is, but it makes it ten times worse that there are always so many high school kids there with their parents. Now, I am going to be a cool mom who takes her kids to shows. But I am not going to wait up in the balcony and then grab my daughter and drag her out afterwards while screaming "YOU TOLD ME THERE WOULDN'T BE DRUGS AND BAD WORDS!"

Enough about that. On to Regina. She came out on stage wearing what appeared to be a long hoodie, hood up covering her hair. She sang a new song acapella, the only percussion being the sound of her finger on the mic. Her smile was kind of intoxicating even though you couldn't see her face and there was this incredible radiance in it, especially when she finally sat down in front of the keyboard, removed the hoodie, said "I dressed up for ya'll," and revealed that she was wearing some sort of glittery cocoon thing over a brown dress. It was hot. If you can't tell, I have a huge crush on Regina. What made it ten times worse was the way she smiled timidly as people yelled and cheered and said stupid things like "I want to have your babies" (a guy), "can I have your number?" (a girl), and "I LOVE YOU REGINA SPEKTOR!!!" (to which she shyly replied, "I love you too, hee hee").

She played everything from Begin to Hope but "20 Years of Snow" and "Lady." She also played a few old favorites from Soviet Kitsch, including "Poor Little Rich Boy," "Carbon Monoxide," and "Us." The encore ended up being about as long as the actual set, but it was all of my favorites so I wasn't complaining. She has this incredible grace and elegance about her, probably due to her classical training, but there is also this vigor and energy in all of her weird sounds and hiccups and the way she smiles when she knows she is doing something subversive. The whole experience was so intense, and she just looked so angelic on that stage. I almost cried a couple of times.

Afterwards, Caity and I went to R Thomas just down Peachtree. If you're ever in the ATL with a crazy bunch of vegetarians, vegans, and carnivores and feel like eating streetside under a giant tent amongst a bunch of exotic birds, you should definitely try it out. And if you do not meet any of those criteria but are up in the wee hours of the night, it is still really good. Not only is R Thomas open 24 hours a day, but they serve tea in those little Teavana Perfect Teamakers. Mmmmm.