The two major differences between RF and myself are height, and the fact that his intoxication threshold for karaoke comes well before his threshold for dancing in public, whereas I’m quite the opposite.
Welcome back to The Fillmore. It’s been far too long. Where have all the shows gone? I used to line up religiously on Sunday mornings to check tickets off my wish list. This was my first time back in almost two years, and I’d almost forgotten how much I love this place, and its place in the City.
Appropriately enough, my first show with RF in over two years was this weekend on the corner of Fillmore and Geary. He drank enough to dance; I was trashed enough to sing along to every song I was able (and some I shouldn’t have attempted). If we had stumbled a little farther down Post, post-show, I don’t doubt that we would have closed out Do Re Mi instead of Dimples.
I love this Sylvan Esso LP. Amelia Meath is hypnotic. And nobody makes knob-turning look more exciting than Nick Sanborn. After their Bottom of the Hill show in February, I wanted everyone I knew to join us for this gig opening for tUnE-yArDs.
Alas, combining the fact that Fillmore tickets are typically hoarded by brokers and scalpers (don’t rant… don’t) with the fact the The tUnEs back in the Bay is going to sell out regardless, meant that I was lucky enough to secure four tickets. And that was only after gambling that I’d be able to swap four Saturday tickets (different opener) for Friday. I pulled it off… but it became a three-party Craigslist mess-turned-Ticketmaster-nightmare upon discovering that the ticket transfer technology “doesn’t always work on mobile devices.” That’s a quote from a TM rep. One of my tickets was in barcode limbo for a week.
But we done did it. Nine dollar beers, Merrill in a fruit roll dress, eyeballs and fangs on just about everything, and a one-AM drive all over the City looking for the perfect tacos. We found them. Gracias, MMJ.
I suppose that I originally imagined this site as a blog set to music. Sort of a streaming, in-the-present version of MI’s excellent “This Used To Be My Playground.” It lacks the retrospection and attention to detail (both in the musical and personal sense), but I suspect it’ll make up for that in its attention to the moment.
And this moment, this weekend, was soundtracked on an “It’s Been Far Too Long” vibe. The music, the people, the emotions. The movies, the food, the wandering. At one point during this particular show Merrill said, “It’s 2014 and something something something on stage at The Fillmore something!”
I couldn’t agree more. It’s 2014 and I’m right where I want to be. And I’ll do what it takes to avoid ever feeling that it’s been “far too long” again.
Every Dragging Handclap 