Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Rain and Sweat

The House of Vans in Brooklyn has hosted several free shows this summer. I’m not sure how they do it, to be honest. The place is formally a skate park, renovated to temporarily accommodate a large stage. There’s a barrier, as well, with no-nonsense security tossing out crowd surfers without a single warning. But hey, not my problem. The strictly enforced no-crowd-surfing rule is completely understandable considering the cost of entry, and I imagine it’s somewhat necessary in combating the inevitably shitty result of having offered free beer. The combination of alcohol and flying bodies is surely a recipe for destructive rowdiness.


I showed up at four PM last week to secure my spot in line for Against Me!. Against Me! were opening for Tokyo Police Club, for whom I did not stick around, but they played a lengthy set, regardless. My dad, sister, and sister’s friend sought food, drinks, and a bathroom while I held our spot. They returned shortly thereafter with a slice of pizza for me. Unfortunately, the rain picked up at about ten minutes 'til doors. We got soaked, me in particular, as wetness clung between my skin and a sticky flannel shirt. I dried off eventually, but enduring the rain was unpleasant. In all my years of waiting in lines, I’ve actually never encountered it, so that was a first. House of Vans employees sold ponchos at the last minute, but by then it was too late, and there was no point. They finally started to let us in at 6:30.


RSVPing, which we all did, was recommended prior to the show, but it turned out to be pretty unnecessary, as the line filtered into the building without so much as an ID check. Perhaps the lack of formality was in part due to the rain, but I’d also heard of people having very little amount of trouble getting in. They allowed entry up until a certain level of capacity. I believe that most people, assuming they endured at least some of the rain, managed to get in. There was plenty of space. My sister and I ended up in the second row facing stage left and some poorly-placed amps that blocked some of the view onstage.


The openers were remarkably awful. I’ve heard good things about Japanther, but the telephones-for-microphones gimmick and garage rock mediocrity did little more than bore me. Boredom, however, turned out to be among the least of my concerns, as it transcended into uncomfortable, horrified embarrassment when Big Freedia emerged alongside four backup dancers and a DJ. Big Freedia is a Brooklyn-based, flamboyantly gay “rap” artist whose performances feature unsightly, gratuitous amounts of rear-end gyrations that culminate in a volunteer-based “booty battle” to the tune of the self-explanatory “Azz Everywhere.” The songs themselves were comprised of so many repetitive loops that it became, at one point, totally nauseating, both audibly and visually.


Against Me! more than made up for that horrendous display, invigorating the crowd with the first decent thing they’d heard all night. They somehow squeezed eighteen songs into fifty-five minutes, pausing only to thank the crowd and the venue. It's truly astonishing how tight they’ve become. The set was incredibly well-rehearsed and professional, yet it somehow appeared to be equally casual and joyous. The band is clearly having the most fun they’ve had in years, and that unbridled enthusiasm undoubtedly descended to the crowd, climaxing with the ever-impassioned “We Laugh at Danger and Break all the Rules.” I left the show with Black Crosses on CD, a smile, and yet another soaked t-shirt.

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