Bit of Ivory

Well, the internet was working hunky-dory for an hour or so when I woke up this morning, and I’d just caught up on everything I’d missed and decided to take a shower before settling down for some good, hard, work, and I came back and– bang, internet no worky. So instead of making money and doing something productive (I’m going to have to go on a grading SPREE next week), I’ll type up an account of my last few days. The title of this post is, of course, referring to the Keane concert I attended last night. But I’ll get to that in a minute. First, there’s Tuesday and yesterday morning to consider.

I have no idea what the weather was like bright and early on Tuesday morning, because I slept until eleven AM. I finally dragged myself out of bed and got me into the shower, and subsequently spent the entire day on the couch, as I related in my previous post. When Nicole got home, we had an approximation of Pad Thai made by Taylor (and it was very good, I might add), and then induldged in lazing around on the couch and going on a calling spree. You see, Nicole and Taylor had procured 5 tickets for the Keane concert, because Taylor’s cousins were going to come with them. The first four they bought through Ticketmaster at the face value, but they had to get mine through a ticket broker for about twice what it sold for originally (a bit more than that with shipping and fees). But now the cousins couldn’t come, so they had two tickets to a sold-out show on their hands. They called people– even people who are still in Salt Lake, who might be able to come down on short notice– and I tried to think of people to call, and even tried to get in touch with Kate, who I knew liked Keane and was considerably closer than Salt Lake, although still pretty far away, since she’s in the San Fransisco area. But no one wanted or was able to come on such short notice, so they finally decided to attempt to sell the tickets on eBay. The internet still wasn’t working, of course, so that’s when we headed to the coffee shop. I uploaded my posts of yesterday and checked e-mail, etc., while they tried calling a few more people, but no dice. So they put one of the tickets on eBay (they couldn’t find my extra ticket right away, so in case they couldn’t find it they wanted to make sure I could use one of the others), and we went to Cold Stone for some ice cream. Which was yummy. And that, in a nutshell, was Tuesday.

I woke up relatively early on Wednesday morning, managed to get internet access for a few hours before it went down (hmm, I’m beginning to notice a pattern here. . .), and ended up playing a few rounds of Super Monkey Ball party games with Rosie while Taylor tried to find my Keane ticket– apparently someone wanted to buy the one Nicole had put on eBay, and would buy the second one if it was available, so Taylor consequently searched. He did manage to find it, and the other two tickets were paid for and picked up from Nicole at her work. They were able to recoup the extra money they’d paid for my ticket and even have a little towards their own, so it was a good deal. After the ticket was found, Taylor, Rosie and I went to the Royal Panda for some Chinese for lunch, then came back to the house to arrange babysitting for Rosie. At about 4:30 we dropped Rosie off at Taylor’s parents house, and then went to Nicole’s work to pick her up. We stopped at Wal-Mart and Best Buy to get the new Keane album, had dinner at Tops, a burger joint that was very good, and then headed down to Hollywood for the concert, which was at the Henry Fonda Theatre. Hollywood Boulevard is a lot trashier than you’d think. Once you get past the El Capitan (which I definitely still want to try to go to, dad) and Graumann’s Chinese Theater, it’s mostly lingerie shops. Anyway, we paid to park at a lot across the street from the theatre, and got in line to enter. The tickets said the doors opened at 8:00, and we arrived about 7:30, so we were prepared for a bit of a wait. It wasn’t too bad, though, and there were some people from the Coca-Cola company giving away free cans of the new Tab Energy drink (which I think is so funny, but whatever), which tasted good on the first couple of sips– kind of watermelon-y– but then got progressively worse as you drank. It did pass the time, however, and after some security screenings, they let us into the theatre.

The Henry Fonda has been set up specifically for concerts of this type, so the main floor had no seats. If you wanted to sit, you could do so in the balcony, but we decided that being 10 feet away from the band (we were about 6 or so rows of standing-people back) was worth the sacrifice of standing. Well, the doors had indeed opened at 8:00, but we had to endure 45 minutes of loud not-particularly-to-my-taste music before we even got to the opening act, which was a guy called Kid Beyond from San Fransisco. He was a one-man-band, with lots of vocal percussion and looping and stuff like that, which I must admit was pretty cool, but his musical style– very hip-hop and heavy– was not at all to my, or most of the audience’s, taste. After 45 minutes of loud vocal percussion, he finally finished up. We eagerly watched the roadies setting up for Keane, but they didn’t appear on stage until 10. My feet were hurting pretty bad by then, I’d been sweating for at least 45 minutes, and my ears were already ringing (note to self: next concert, bring ear plugs), and I and the rest of the crowd were impatient to actually hear the band we’d been waiting for.

But when they finally took the stage– I forgot about how much my feet hurt. Now, this was my first concert (I know, I’m incredibly sheltered) unless you count choral/orchestral concerts, LDS musicians, and seeing the Beach Boys at the Stadium of Fire 4th of July celebration, so I don’t have much to compare to, but– Keane gives a great concert. I’ve always listened to live-in-concert recordings of groups that I generally like, and I’m usually very disappointed. They’re not half as good as they were on the album. Keane, though, lives up to the album. Mark of an excellent band, I guess, because they actually sounded just as good live in person as they did on their albums. It’s kind of fun to see a band consisting of a lead singer, a drummer, and a pianist– not a guitar in sight. They sang a mix of songs from their new album– most of which I liked very much, but as I’ve only heard them a few times I can’t judge whether any of them will become favorites or not– and familiar songs from their last album. When they sang “Bend and Break” and “Everybody’s Changing” and “Can’t Stop Now” and “We Might as Well be Strangers” and “Somewhere Only We Know” and “This is the Last Time” and “Bedshaped,” everyone sang along, which was great fun. For a couple of the most popular songs– “Everybody’s Changing” and “Bend and Break ” and “Somewhere Only We Know,” at least, there may have been others that I can’t remember– Tom, the lead singer, stopped singing for part of the chorus and just let the audience take over. I’m not sure if I can describe the energy that was there– only people who have gone to really good concerts can relate, I expect– but the venue was a relatively intimate one– only 800 people– and we were as loud and supportive as 800 people can be. The band members loved having us sing along, and they were sweating just as hard as we were by the end. Everyone had a marvelous time. They finished their set at a little after 11, but we stomped and cheered and chanted “Keane! Keane! Keane!” until they came back on and sang three more numbers.

I know I don’t have much to go by, but that was a spectacular concert, and any subsequent concerts will have to be very good indeed to supplant it from my Favorite Concert Ever position. I will definitely pay to see Keane in concert again. Worth the plane ticket, worth the sweat and the aching feet, worth it all. Amazing.

Oh, and the band members are all pretty cute. Especially the drummer, Richard.

Today, Taylor took Nicole into work and went to pick up Rosie from her grandparent’s, and hasn’t yet returned, so I assume he’s stayed over there to make use of their actually-working wireless network. Tonight I get to borrow Nicole’s car and attempt to navigate the extremely confusing California highway system to pick Nicole up from work, when we’ll probably grab dinner before heading back to Hollywood to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I’m flying home tomorrow night.

It’s been a great vacation.