My alma mater did good tonight. This was probably the first time they actually brought bands that I wanted to see. Gentleman Jesse, especially, effin rocked it. They played pretty much the whole album, one cover, and three (I think?) new songs. I kind of wish I'd recorded them because they were a lot faster than the older stuff and so fun to dance to. There were parts of the setlist where songs were grouped together by having the same chords, which was kind of cool. The big criticism I've read in the blogs about this band is that all of their songs sound the same, but I think even despite the aforementioned thing, they didn't, and were really dance-worthy. The crowd was kind of weird, because there were all of these undergrads/fratboy douchebags (who seem REALLY REALLY young. I must be getting OLD) and then there were some local people standing off to the side and no one was really singing along and maybe 2 people danced. Afterwards, I got to introduce myself and Jesse gave me a button he had in his pocket and I bet I blushed a little bit.
<3
Jay Reatard was just as I remembered him. He's kind of like a shy little kid who hides under his hair instead of behind his mother's skirt. His songs are quick and snappy and his band is a bunch of chubby nerdy dudes with big hair, the kind of guys you'd expect to be in a band like Treephort or to at least know all the words to "Voltron is God." At some point, I decided that Jay Reatard was the punk rock equivalent of Napoleon Dynamite. He takes himself really seriously, in his own little world, but manages to be really fun and hilarious despite that. I was reminded of why I've never bothered to commit any of his songs to memory. That really isn't the point, so much as flailing around and playing chords really fast. What else could one need? Pancakes, maybe. I would have loved to watch this show while eating pancakes. It would have also been nice if the TinyBro in the Gators shirt in front of me had stopped turning around to gawk at the audience and complain about how no one was singing along.
While, you know, you can't always get what you want, sometimes you get pretty close. This is the first time I've gotten to see Gentleman Jesse after pretty much every other attempt ended in or was stifled by catastrophe. So I count it as a personal triumph. And it was way way better than listening to the CD.
