Or, more importanly, look at BRMC, but we’re there, too!

Video: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club doing “Spread Your Love” at V Fest 2008

Could they have caught me looking any more unenthused?

NIN just announced more North America tour dates for 2008. They’ll be coming to Greenville, SC, November 1st—to the Bi-Lo Center, which Mark has always told me has great acoustics (but no one I want to see ever goes there. Till now.) I was going to go to the Deerhunter show here in Asheville that night, but…never mind!

(Hahaha. Mark just came up the stairs: “When do they play Nashville? Is that November, too?”

“Halloween.”

“What day is that?”

“Friday. They’re going from Nashville to Greenville. We could go from Nashville to Greenville, too, if we were feeling froggy….but we’ll have just driven 12 hours on the 28th (up from New Orleans). Not that that’s stopped us from getting back in a car. I should just take that whole week off.”

“I wouldn’t have any vacation left for Christmas.”

“I don’t usually take vacation then.”

“I’d be giving my Christmas vacation to NIN.”)

I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had a chance to report on the Duluth, GA, show. We had floor tickets, and even though by the time we got there and got our wristbands the regular ticketholders were being let in, we started the show just one row back from the rail in front of Justin Meldal-Johnsen. (Sorry, Mark, for being so, um, testy up till then.) We had a good time meeting and talking with people around us, and then Deerhunter came on. I enjoy Deerhunter—I’m developing an appreciation for droning bands with unintelligble vocals. (In fact, I prefer the newer album from Black Angels over their older one mainly because the lyrics on the early one are too easy to make out. Not that I want all of the music I listen to to be like that, but there are times and places when I do want that sort of thing.) I also like how Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox deals with pissy NIN fans, from the plastered on rictus grin to the “You guys are awesome, Thank you!!! Especially you in the middle flicking me off! You rule!” Mark was disappointed that Bradford wasn’t wearing the cheerleader uniform like he had the night before. This time Whitney Petty, one of the guitarists, was wearing it. A few songs in, Mark said, “Was there a girl in the band last night?” Haha—he hadn’t noticed, even though she was closest to us from where we were sitting.

They finished up and we all went back to standing around waiting for NIN. The ladies we’d met got enormous plastic cups of Coke, which I was sure I’d end up wearing. And then the lights went down.

I was expecting the crowd to surge forward and squish us all together when “999,999″ started. Or “1,000,000″ even. But nope—we had a disconcerting plentitude of personal space for most of the show. It got kinda rowdy during “March of the Pigs,” “Gave Up” and “Terrible Lie,” but the rowdiness was fleeting. I would have preferred a rougher pit.

(Mark did, though, nearly get in a fight he didn’t set out to start. He was prepared to finish it, too, but fortunately didn’t have to.)

Trent surprised us with a few songs: “The Frail” led into “The Wretched” instead of “Closer” (yay!). He threw in “Down In It,” which was all right—I’m kind of worn out on that one, but it’s still neat to have a surprise in the setlist. But then “Reptile!” “REPTILE!” 31 songs altogether, and I spent the whole thing (when I wasn’t annoyed at the two women near us who kept talking to each other and playing with their cameras/cell phones) wishing the band wouldn’t ever get around to the final song and leave. It was fantastic.

Afterward, we went to the Loafing Leprechaun, which is now going to be a tradition for any show I go to Gwinett Arena for.

Oh, and when I saw the new list of NIN tour dates this morning, I went, “Omg! They’re going to be in New Orleans October 25th! WE’RE going to be in New Orleans October 25!” It’s early and I have a headache, that’s my excuse….

..the only day we went. :)

Gates opened at 10; Mark and I were out of our hotel at 8:00. For some reason I didn’t picture there being parking at the subways station (what? I know. Go figure.) so we walked, and it turned out to be a longer walk than it had looked like on Google Maps. Took the subway to the bus to Pimlico and waited around for the gates to open. And of course we were at the south entrance, and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club were scheduled on the north stage (at noon, but IT’S NEVER TOO EARLY TO GET TO THE BARRIER), so I power-walked across the festival with Mark…somewhere behind me.

And we got on the barrier. But we didn’t just get on the barrier—we got there in time to catch 2/3rds of BRMC soundchecking. Nice. (Robert was missing. He appeared to be a little stunned by having to be awake so early in the day.)

BRMC had a very short set with just eight songs on their setlist and a ninth squeezed in before their time was up. They played: 666 Conducer, Weapon of Choice, Berlin, Shuffle Your Feet, Ain’t No Easy Way, Salvation, Six Barrel Shotgun, Spread Your Love and Whatever Happened To My Rock ‘N Roll (Punk Song). Leia’s great on drums. No disappointment there at all. Mark was happy to get to see Salvation live.

Robert Levon Been, BRMC

Peter Hayes, BRMC

Leia Shapiro and Peter Hayes, BRMC

BRMC finished at 12:45, and we didn’t have another band we were super interested in seeing till 6:20. We could have camped out at our barrier spot all day long, but we have pit tickets for Stone Temple Pilots and Nine Inch Nails later this month (twice each, plus some great reserved seats for a NIN show, too), so we felt like we didn’t have to be right up front for either band today. In fact, I was looking to get a further back spot for NIN, one that’d give me a view of the whole stage.

So we wandered off, caught some other bands (but not more than a few songs from each—nothing was really grabbing us…and we practically ran from the She & Him show after a song and a half), watched the aerial sculptures and the Bindlestiff Family Circus—

(a little lesson in safe sex, courtesy of the Bindlestiffs)

—ate bad festival food, drank horrid festival drinks ($10 for a margarita that tastes like gasoline. Oh fabulous!), and we saw an Xtracycle in real life!, which was actually one of the highlights of my day—

!!!!

—and then it was time for STP. Which conflicted with Bob Dylan’s show on the south stage, so Mark headed over that way for Bob, and I held our spot at the north stage and enjoyed STP. They came on twenty minutes late, but once they showed up, they were good. I’m stoked to see them next Sunday.

Stone Temple Pilots

Before and after STP, I ran into some trouble with the porta potties because by late afternoon they had completely run out of toilet paper. Now, it wouldn’t kill me to go without toilet paper once, but. Women before me had hovered, and hoverers splatter. Did you hear me? HOVERERS SPLATTER. All over the fucking seat. So: hot, stinky portajohn with piss all over the seat and no toilet paper to clean it up with and an empty hand sanitizer dispenser. I just held it till we got back to the hotel. Yuck.

Finally it started to get dark, and NIN, who had been given the longest set of any band scheduled over the two days of this year’s Virgin Mobile Fest, came on.

OMG NIN.

And all I have is this blurry picture. Sorry!

The stage/light show was…. There are no words. It was just unbelievable. They put on a fantastic show. And the only thing going through my head through all 1 hour and 55 minutes of it was “OMG NIN.” Cannot wait to see them closer up on Tuesday.

And that was our day in Baltimore. Back on the road tomorrow.

I came this close –> <– to getting to spend a weekend at Disney World next month (in order to attend a work-related meeting the Monday following)…but then Mark reminded me that we have a BRMC/STP concert that weekend.

BRMC > the magic of Disney. Srsly.

My brother is getting married—on Halloween, no less! How cool is that (the getting married part, I mean). I met his fiancé when we were up in New Hampshire in June. She’s cool.

So I don’t know what she sees in him. ;)

The schedule for the Baltimore Virgin Mobile Fest is up; BRMC is on first on Sunday, which is so many awesome shades of yay. I can get in when the gates open, get a good spot at the stage, stand there for a couple hours instead of all freaking day, see mah band!, and then go enjoy the other parts of the festival before we have to head back to that stage to catch STP and NIN in the evening.

I discovered a way to overcome the bar-end shifter problem with the Surly Long Haul Trucker. Paul Thumbies allow you to move the shifters to elsewhere on the handlebars. And that’s something I can do myself, so extra awesome sauce. That makes the Surly LHT the perfect bike—even better than the Volpe, which needed to have the pedals, seatpost, tires and the entire drive train replaced to make it the bike I wanted it to be.

So all I need to do now is place an order…

…at some point.

Remember last week when I was all excited because the website for the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre in Alpharetta, Georgia, listed Black Rebel Motorcycle Club as the special guest for the Stone Temple Pilots show on August 23rd? I bought tickets during the presale and everything and now the site no longer has any mention of BRMC at all.

If you need me, I’ll be over in the corner making an origami seppuku sword out of my tickets.

Update: a poster on the BRMC message board believes they’ll still be opening for this show.

An overly wordy MySpace blog post from last night gave an update on what Jubilee’s been doing the past few months. CliffsNotes: recording an album, B-sides, stuff for an EP and even more songs that might end up on album #2. Whew. I thought they were sitting around with their thumbs up their buttholes.

They also have a manager now and two booking agents, one in the US and one in the UK, which means tour dates down the pike (Asheville—do you hear me people? Play Asheville). Plus: Jeff Lynn, from Wires on Fire, is now a regular member of the band, and both he and Mikey Shoes have solo albums coming out.

The video for “Rebel Hiss” will be out soon, too, along with another single—”In With the Out Crowd”—and a video for that as well.

And you can get alla that stuff–albums, B-sides, vinyl EP, solo albums and more for $19.95 by clicking the “Join now” button on their website (where you can also stream the four songs from their first single, Rebel Hiss, of which “L.A.” is my favorite).

Other news: we got two tickets to the BRMC/STP show in Charlotte for Neil and two for the show in Alphraretta for Jake, so we won’t just be in the pit for these shows, we’ll be in the pit with some of our favorite people! (And that’s after we get to hang with Reesa at Virgin Mobile Fest—August is shaping up to be a great month.)

But today…I have to finish TOO DEAD (and go to the post office and Greenlife and work out and make hamburgers). So I guess I should get to it!

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club is confirmed for opening the Stone Temple Pilots show in Alpharetta, Georgia, August 23rd. We are so there.

Totally bringing TOO DEAD to an end this week. Five days? I can do it. One day to get them back to the mill with trouble hot on their heels, two days for the final showdown, one day for the resolution, and one day for the final touches on the ending and popping a bottle of wine to celebrate the end of the first draft.

What else to blog about today? I have some links sitting around in my “to blog” file, so here’s looking at those, kid:

Bookcase envy.

The coolest-sounding MMORPG ever (because I omg love the thought of a virtual world overlaid on the real one) that I’m not going to get to participate in anytime in the near future (more on that over the weekend, with photos maybe!).

And this video of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club doing “Spread Your Love” at a club—sound’s not great, but the video is the closest I’ve seen to the actual experience of being at a show. (My favorite bit happens around 2:30—that’s what I’m talking about!) Seventy-five days till I see them next (at a festival—so not the same as a small club, but I’ll take it. Plus I get to see NIN the same day. Dream come true y/y?).

Plus: 21 days till the new season of Weeds.

Anyone have any idea when we’re getting a new season of Big Love?

Me!!!!

Mark and I have tickets already, and I just made the hotel reservations. We’re going to be staying in Faubourg Marigny, just off the edge of the French Quarter, in a hotel called The Frenchmen. We loved the Maison Dupuy last December, but I wanted to be in a different area, get a different view of things. Frommer called The Frenchmen “the best funky little hotel.” Can’t beat funky! (Well, as long as Frommer doesn’t mean it like “funky feet” funky.) Plans are to drive down October 23rd, stay through the festival (October 24-26th) plus one extra day, then drive back on the 28th. I’m a tiny bit sad that the Voodoo Experience doesn’t happen over Halloween, but I’ll get over it.

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the festival. Headliners this year are Nine Inch Nails, Stone Temple Pilots and REM, which I’m stoked about because I doubt I’d get around to seeing REM on their own—ticket prices for good seats are too high for this casual fan. The rest of the festival’s line-up won’t be announced till St. John’s Eve (June 23rd). I have my fingers crossed for Saul Williams, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Man Man to show up on that list.

Voodoo Experience official site.

P.S. It’s Mark’s birthday today. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BABY!

My friend Reesa, who grew up in the same neck of the U.S. I did (but whom I didn’t meet until long after I’d moved outta there) and whom I recently turned on to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and who has been listening to me go on about how amazing they are live just called to ask if I wanted to go to Baltimore in August…and I said, “I’ve already got tickets!”…and she said “No way!” and I said “I bought them as soon as they went onsale—are you gonna go?” and she said “Yeah!” SO REESA’S COMING TO VIRGIN MOBILE FEST!!! This is awesome. Not only will she get to finally see BRMC, but Nine Inch Nails, too!

Madge, who I’ve up till now more or less felt fondly toward, has made a deal with various secondary ticket reseller markets (let’s call them “scalper-enablers”) to receive a flat fee and a percentage of tickets sold through these markets for her shows. ‘Cause charging $300 for a ticket just wasn’t enough for her. Link!

Madonna, Live Nation, Stub Hub et al: 1
Fans: 0

These debates on the Intarwebs can eat up time like whoa—you realize it’s one in the morning on a work night and you haven’t eaten, gotten anything you needed to do done or dug into that new book you’ve been looking forward to reading, and for what?

So I’m tacking a rider onto my “no new non-writing projects!” resolution—”debate all you want for one day, but when you wake up the next morning, you are no longer involving yourself in it.” ‘Cause, gah, I did get my script pages done, but I didn’t even break 800 on the novel word count for the day, and what’s more important in the grand scheme of things: moving writing projects forward or begging for recognition that my usage of a word is valid?

On the awesome news front: The Black Angels are coming to Asheville in July. They’ll be playing at The Grey Eagle. 

I have:

• Pit tickets for Stone Temple Pilots (with special guests Black Rebel Motorcycle Club) in Charlotte, NC.
• Pit tickets for Nine Inch Nails in Lexington, KY.
• Hotel reservations for the Virgin Mobile Festival in Baltimore, MD.
• Presale for the Virgin Mobile Festival coming up tomorrow morning.
• An ending for the graphic novel. (How to get from here to that ending, however, is at this point still a mystery.)
• ETA: Tickets to see Liars at the Rocket Club May 10th.

Mark has flown off to Oregon for a conference, so it’s just me and the dogs hanging out tonight. I guess I can write as late as I want—no one will be wondering when I’m coming to bed. 

The only thing that’s marred the day is the low-grade headache that came on mid-afternoon and hasn’t left yet. (Oh, and it occurred to me that breaking the graphic novel into 33-page parts is full of dumb. Books need page counts in multiples of four. I’LL FIX IT IN THE REWRITE.)