Last night, my sister and brother-in-law, Lisa and Mark, watched the kids while Todd went out to dinner and to see Nada Surf and Rogue Wave (Warning – audio after initial page). I don’t particularly like Nada Surf, but I really like Rogue Wave, so I was pretty excited. We had dinner at our favorite Thai place, Ma Li. Whenever we get a night out, we go there, because we both love it; this does limit our experimenting of new restaurants, but frankly, Ma Li is so good, I could eat it for the rest of my life. I had the Salmon Thai Green Curry and it rocked, as usual.
We then had time to kill, so we went to Borders to look at books and fuel up (read: drink lattes to stay awake, because we are usually lounging on the couch at 8:30 pm.) I pumped in the car afterwards, and it started snowing flurries, which is a rarity here in Atlanta, and always imparts a magical feel to any evening.
We headed on to see the show at The Loft. Todd and I discussed that we hadn’t been there since it had been Center Stage, which seemed like ages ago. Neither of us could remember the last show we had seen there. While waiting in line, it became apparent that we were the oldest people there. Todd said that the kids in front of us looked high school age, and that he was surprised when they pulled out their IDs and received their drinking armbands. Later, we realized that we weren’t the oldest people; there was a couple in their fifties or so, lounging on a couch people-watching. We later ran into a kid that was probably 12 or 13 near the bar. We later saw him with the fiftyish couple – yep, they were his parents.
The opening band was not anything to write home about: Kings of France. Zzzzzzzz. Between bands, we did some really hardcore peoplewatching. Everyone was decked out all eighties and i think one of them was actually wearing a jacket and legwarmers that I owned in high school. Many of the attendees were in their late teens to early 20s, and we discussed that the younger ones were born while we were in high school! Todd actually admitted that he felt kind of out of place. We saw one person we know – Spaceboy! – and we think of him as a youngster, but he was downright elderly at this show.
Rogue Wave came on, and it wasn’t too crowded, so i didn’t have much trouble seeing. I hadn’t seen them before (wish I had seen them when they played at the EARL last year), and had no idea what they looked like. Rock ‘n roll crush alert! Benjamin Gibbard, you have been replaced! Lead singer boy is WAY cute. Love that just-rolled-out-of-bed mussed look. Poor Todd had to endure an evening of me drooling over the latest band boy. They were great. My only problem with their set was that they didn’t play enough songs.
Nada Surf came on, and well, snoozeville. We left after four or five songs. I really would have liked to hear them play the one that I like, Blonde on Blonde, but not enough to endure the annoying crowd, and the rest of their boring songs. We left and headed back to the EARL for a last beer. Grabbed a table and commenced with still more people-watching. This was even better, because the place is well-lit enough that I could critique all ridiculous 80s getups. This is official notice: The pageboy/English dapper chap hat is OVER. Please stop wearing it. About one a.m., we headed for home (thanks to my fantabulous husband for taking one for the team and driving my ass around town all night), Todd proceeded to fall asleep on the couch, while i popped open a last beer, ate instant cheese grits, and watched the opening scenes of Almost Famous.
See this face? This sweet, happy, benign face? Don’t believe it. In approximately five hours, this face will be attached to a rear end spewing the most vile diarreah ever witnessed by a mother. That mouth? It will be vomiting all over me, my bed, my friend Camille’s carpet in the house that she just put on the market. Her dogs will be licking it up. It is 2 am. I will sleep no more than an hour this night. The next couple of days, we will break out the Lysol and the Hazmat suits. We will wash mountains of laundry, and we will hug and cradle and soothe at all hours of the day and night.
