Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Wrock, more coherent

Okay, so here's the story.

Mel and I get into the car at 1:45. We begin driving. We pass the Nut Tree.
Then we stop at the Nut Tree and go on the rocking horses and play chess (I won) and checkers (I lost).
And then it was back on the road.
Finally, we got to the Milpitas library, where it turned out we'd gotten the time wrong, and the show was at 6, not 5.
Woops.
But there was a giant mob of nerdfighters there, so we played Close You Eyes and Draw Batman for a while and then played Duck Duck Goose.
Because nerds are awesome.

The show was awesome. There are 3 different wrockers that we saw, and each one has a distinct style.
When Lauren and Matt play together as Armoured Bearcub, they're adorable and in love and singing cute songs that have nice harmonies.
JFF's songs are simpler, but they're more focused on audience participation. I've never heard JFF's studio recordings of his songs*, but I don't think I'd like them as much (then again, I'm hoping to be surprised. It's more than likely that he plays the songs that require the most audience participation at shows, and he has a lot of other songs that won't feel in anyway lacking in a studio setting and GAH POLLY WHAT ARE YOU SAYING CONTINUE WITH TEH BLOG). There's an energy that the entire place gets when he's singing that I've never experienced any other time, when everyone in the building is hooting like owls or dancing the Hufflepizza or screaming "Oh we love you, Victor Krum!" in silly falsetto voices. In between the songs there's some adorable and intentionally awkward banter that just makes the whole experience so fantastic. If you ever get a chance to see JFF live, do it. Just, seriously, I can't recommend that enough.
Going from JFF's crazy set to Lauren's is kind of like holding a 9-volt battery to your tongue and then eating chocolate**. Her songs are a lot calmer and a little bit more restrained, and don't rely as much on audience participation. Lauren sang a lot of songs from The Prince's Tale, which was brilliant. These songs have a totally different feel from the rest of hers, and they feel almost more mature. I really liked them and I can't wait for my copy of the CD to arrive in the mail!
Matt's set was kind of like eating a chocolate covered 9 volt battery. It was much more of a party than Lauren's, but a lot more restrained in comparison to JFF's. There's a lot of audience participation (They don't have freedom, and they don't have eagles) but it happened more between the songs than as part of them, and there was a lot more awkward dancing than there is yelling at the top of your lungs.
I love all three of the styles. All of the artists work well together, and the three of them on tour just works so well together.

So after the show, we hung around the merch table for a bit, I got videos of the artists with Dalek Hubert (a dalek I knitted. Long story) saying hi to Beth who is at music camp, I fangirled Lauren a little bit too much (I'm not that creepy IRL, I promise!)

Then we drove home.
I swear, when Melody and I are in a car together, weir stuff happens.
And that's all I'm going to say about that. Check out our tweets from last night if you want to know exactly what we were thinking.

And the I got home and passed out.



Today was a good day too, but not as good as yesterday. Yesterday was awesome.

___
*I'm lucky in that I've definitely seen more live wrock than I have listened to albums. The first time that I went to a Wrock concert was pretty much Amy showing up and saying, "Polly. Free concert. Get in the van." And I said, "Let me get my cape!" And then we drove, and I asked, "So what kind of show is this," and Amy said, "Wizard rock!" And I just said, "...so the cape was a good call." Okay. That's not exactly how it happened, but it's a much better story than what actually happened, which was her calling me on the phone a couple of days beforehand. The point of this footnote, though, is that I went to my first Wrock concert before I knew who any of the artists were or what their Youtube channels were.
**I am afraid that this is a simile that only makes sense to Polly.

1 comment:

  1. Polly. Do you honestly expect anyone to read our tweets from last night and understand us? Because I was THERE and I don't understand us.

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