The Best Laid Plans
Yesterday -- Friday -- was a lost day. I got home from Brooklyn at about 2:15am and then had to take CoolDaughter #1 to her swim meet up at Rutgers for a 7:15am warm-up. Even though I don't drink anymore, I still feel a hangover of sorts from late nights and getting only three hours of sleep. I took the rest of Friday after the meet to let my old bones recover. That doesn't mean, though, that I regret my decision to head up to Brooklyn to catch the only headlining set of 2017 from Titus Andronicus. It was totally worth it.
The last time I'd been to Market Hotel was for The Thermals back in 2016. I had tickets for the last Titus Andronicus show scheduled there, but the place ended up getting shut down over some liquor license stuff I think. That show got moved to Manhattan and pushed a little earlier, so I had to miss it.
Market Hotel re-opened back in November; and their solution (for now, anyway) on the beer front is to have a tasting room for Bronx Brewery set up in a separate, little chamber attached to the performance space. The main bar carries only soft drinks, including a wide variety of flavored seltzers, a thing I wish more bars would do. It was pretty funny watching folks walk around the venue with three-ounce tastes of beer.
During my first and only experience at Market Hotel, I noticed that the space was pretty dark. I've been kind of down on fighting for space and standing for the whole show in order to take pictures lately; so I decided to stick the point and shoot in my pocket, not to worry about where I stood, and to make this a non-work night. I got up to Brooklyn by about 8:30 and parked right in front of the venue.
Dinowalrus went on right after 9pm. I hadn't seen them since they played The Saint a summer or two ago. I liked their whole take on post-punk, shoegaze, dream pop, whatever back then; and I enjoyed their set on Thursday as well. Winstons were next. I caught them last when they opened for Twin Peaks at The Stone Pony. They're a two-piece that play blues / garage rock. Drummer Ben Brock Wilkes is one of the most fun drummers to watch live. There really wasn't much trouble standing up front for either set; and I thought about how I really, really don't like watching shows over a sea of heads from the rear of the venue. I kinda just stayed there for Titus Andronicus.
 |
| Dinowalrus |
 |
| Winstons |
That got kind of wild. Titus Andronicus opened with just Patrick Stickles and keyboardist Alex Molini on stage for "Upon Viewing Oregon's Landscape with the Flood of Detritus." It's a song I've thought about a lot in the last several months, especially with its reference to drivers' frustrations at being delayed by a fatal car accident. Whenever I've been stuck in traffic caused by a crash lately, I've been making an effort to be empathetic.
Anyway.
 |
| Patrick Stickles |
From there, the band went into "Fatal Flaw" from The Most Lamentable Tragedy. The crowd went nuts, heaving behind me for, pretty much, the rest of the set. Clearly, some people had either had a bunch of three-ounce beers or planned ahead. I just went with it. It would have been useless to have my camera in that scrum after all.
 |
| Down in it |
18 songs from the entire Titus Andronicus catalog, about an hour and forty-five minutes. There was the great run from TMLT of "Mr. E. Mann" / "Fired Up" / "Dimed Out" and the quieter interlude of "No Future Part V: In Endless Dreaming" / "Stable Boy." They closed the set with The Monitor favorites "Four Score and Seven" and "A More Perfect Union," finishing with a cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Glory Days."
Patrick Stickles gave the site and me a little shout-out from the stage, which always feels good; and, even though my feet hurt and I probably have a few bruises on my back, I had a blast being the oldest person by about 15 years who braved the front row. I couldn't help laughing at myself a little. After all my talk about taking it easy and just standing in the back, there I was getting pummeled all night just so I'd have a good view of the band. I'll eventually be "too old for this shit," I guess; but, for now anyway, I can still take it.
No comments :
Post a Comment