Sunday, August 26, 2007

My First Pop Concert: A great game of Hipster Bingo

In all of my 24 years I have not attended what I could concider a real concert. I have gone to the orchistra and ballet and stuff like that. I do enjoy going to those shows but I've always thought that I was missing something. I had never gone to a popular music concert!! This causes more shock than the fact that I don't have an I-pod. This weekend I finaly went to my first concert. I went to a place called Bottom of the Hill. Its located in the Potrero Hill District. The concert was for a group called Au revoir Simone.

Unfortunaly I am not as cool as it seems. I had actually never heard of Au revior Simone until last month when Sam asked me if I wanted to go. All I knew was that its the type of music that its the type of music that you might hear while walking around Urban Outfitters. I like UO but I worried that it all might be a little too relaxing. SO I decieded that it would be a good idea to print of a Hipster Bingo card. There are a couple of different cards out there so i choose one that seemed to be the easiest for this event. The odd part is that I was able to fulfill three of the bingo slots (glasses, hoddie, blogger with a digital camera).







Sam, Emily and I took a cab over to B 0f H mainly because I really didn't didn't know where we were going. The strange thing is that when we got there i realized that the Bottom of the Hill is in that area of San Francisco that has stores that I always think about going (Cosco, Any Mountian, ect.) but never do because I realize that there are alternatives that are easier to accessses. A lot of the eara is pretty indistrialized. Very cool.









The large numbers of "old school" racing bikes tipped me off to just how hipster the crowd of the concert was going to be. After we walked in and I got my hand stamped I knew that I would enjoy this already.






I can honestly say that I had no idea who the first group was. I thought that there was going to be one opening act before the headline show. What made things even more confusing was that the opening band didn't even look like they should have been old enough to get into the very veniue that they were preforming.







The group was not bad. High pitched sining about being dumped. All in all for what type of music they played it was good solid musicianship. There were two guitar players, a basist, and drummer. What made it even more entertaining was that everyonce in awhile the lead singer or second guitar player would play the keybord. It was almost like they were saying "thanks for the piano lessons mom!"

Between wondering how many AP classes these kids may have on their fall schedual and woundering what would happen if the members might split off for one of the Ivy's, I was able to bob my head to the songs and ocasionally did a little dance. There were many "fans" there. Youngsters who obviously new the kiddos and thought that tthe whole thing was just awsome!

P.S. The name of this band is The Morning Benders.







Oh no! Oh my! was next. This opening act was actually on tour with Au revior Simone. At this point it was about 11:00pm. Initially I thought that this band had the look of Bible camp counslers.... only drunk. After a long period of tuning and turning the volume on the bass drum up to "11" they began their show.



Although I had to stick my fingers in my ears for most of the set I did enjoy the group. The music was very POPpy but enjoyable. The consistent (possibly even redundant) lycrical content made me wonder what they would sing about once their women troubles slowed down. Basically Oh no! Oh my! seem to be about teen angst translated into 20-somethings quarter life crises.




At some point I looked at my cell for the time. It was about 11:3o! CRAZY! I could not understand how I was still awake. I was sooo tired. I could no longer even pretend that I was not wiped. But I fell like the girl with the short bob haircut was rocking out for me and about five other poeple.




FINALY AT 12:00



Au revior Simone set up and began preforming. Aside from these were the only girls preforming all night, they seperated themselvs in other respects. A.S. only uses synthisizers, they actually dressed as if they were going to preform in a show, and they were very polite.

The girls sing most of thier songs in a light and airy unison. At times it is difficult to tell just how many were singing. Thier vocies seem to go no lower than mezzo soprano but its all not at cuitsy as it seems like it would. During their preformance each girl's personality comes out and I have to admit that it

By the end of the night I was sweaty, smelly and tired. I went into a temporary shock when I realized that I was no longer cocooned by my fellow sweatties. My feet ached and all I wanted to do was go home and get in the bed. But! I was also strangly excited and really happy that I had went to the concert. It was a great experiance. I hope that I have the oppertunity to go to another concert sometime soon!