What do you get when you mix one two many drinks, a best friend from your hometown, a band you thought you hated, and a band you had been dying to see? You get a great night… that was my night last night.
Last night was the Menzingers/ Mewithoutyou/ Pianos Become The Teeth/ Restorations show at The Varsity.
The Menzingers have been on repeat on my Spotify account for just over a year now (they’ve been around way longer than that, but I was a little slow to find them). They have a song to match every one of my bipolar moods and I love it. Seeing them live was exactly everything I wanted it to be.
It wasn’t an emotional experience because I don’t have emotions tied into the band but that doesn’t lessen the experience in the least. The music didn’t transport me to another time when life was better or simplier. It didn’t remind me of home. It didn’t remind me of a person. What it did do was put a smile on my face and made me happy to be where I was with who I was with.
I went to the show last night with my best friend Chris. Chris lives all the way back in Des Moines, Iowa. He was coming up to go to a concert which got cancelled so he was stuck with me at my show. Who you go to a show with can really change how you feel about said show. If you go with someone who just wants to hang in the back, you won’t feel the excitement. If you go with someone who is more interested in drinking than the music, you will just feel drunk and miss the whole show.
The nice thing about my friends? They know damn well that I’m going to do what I want at a concert. I don’t care what they do. They know I will leave them at the damn entrance if I want to. I don’t care because for me, concerts are everything. Chris played along with my game, he was right up front with me even though he had barely even heard of the bands, let alone the music, he was witnessing. But that’s part of the fun isn’t it? Being pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised by the show you stumble upon.
Speaking of being pleasantly surprised… Mewithoutyou absolutely blew me away with their energy and power. I had heard of this band before but never really “listened” to them. I thought they were a bit overrated just because of how stoked people got about them but their recordings never really gave me chills or anything. I get it now, it’s all about their live show.
I didn’t know any of the songs they were playing. I didn’t know any of the members’ names. The only thing I knew was I had goosebumps running up and down my body during their whole set. Even after the set, I couldn’t tell you what songs they played, couldn’t even tell you what some of the lyrics were. I could tell you that they are one of the few bands that I didn’t already love, that made me fall in love during a live show.
The Menzingers were perfection. They played every song I wanted them to play. The crowd was friendly and I felt at home. The kids in the pit had their arms around strangers and were bouncing off the sides of the pit like a pinball. Nobody cried over their spilled beers. No one around the pit was complaining about the fact they were being bumped around. Nobody cared because the music and the energy made you happy.
Last night was an amazing concert with an amazing friend… it’s hard to put it into words (I did my best on this blog).
Line Up:
Venue: Varsity Theater
Average Age of Crowd- 25
Crowd Surfers- 5
Spilled Beers- 7
Found In The Pit- 1 Shoe, Spilled Beer
Show on Deck- Communist Daughter/ Tiny Deaths/ Little Fevers
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