Calvin's Weblog

Tea Party, Take Two.

Nobody in the world is going to get that title joke, except Carole. But anyway...
Yesterday afternoon, I drove down town in the sweltering 23 degree heat (74 Yankee degrees) to meet Carole and her co-workers at The Atlantic Trap and Gill (It's a bar. An 'east coast' style bar.) for a few pints before heading over to The Commodore to see "The Tea Party" (That's a band. A big Canadian band.). Yes, it was pretty hot yesterday. I had to turn on the air conditioning for the first time this year. I even got a bit of a sunburn from sitting outeating my lunch in the sun, but that's another topic... back to the Trap and Gill. Pints. Yummy pints. And hot wings and crab stuffed jalapeno poppers. Decadent. Yum.
I'd had three pints before leaving the house, so another four at the Trap had me primed perfectly for the concert. As we aproached the Comodore, we saw that the lineup was right around the block... groan... I hate lineups - so we walked right to the front, and there were a couple of old friends - Amy and Shayne! We acted like we had been looking all over for them, and the thousands of people lined up behind them didn't seem to mind when we budged in, saving ourselves a good half an hour of the sheep-herd-shuffle. That was cool. We got right in - BUT, we were both cashless, and the Comodore's dang cash machine was on the fritz... what to do, what to do??? I ended up having to leave a credit card at the bar for a drink tab, and another card with the waitress for a food tab. Carole was still hungry, so we bought some gyoza and some cajun chicken strips to go with the five additional pints I would consume over the next few hours. Ah, it's so great to be able to eat and drink without fear of consequence!

The opening band was called "Project Orange". Nobody had heard of them, but they were okay. Kind of a cross between Radiohead and Smashing Pumpkins.

Between bands, we got to sit back and watch the obligatory display of roadies rushing around, tearing down the first band and setting up the headliner's stage. Mister "mic check" dude got me thinking... and chuckling... it's so funny how when there's a big crowd of kids eagerly awaiting the band, and some dude with a backstage pass dangling from his neck smoothly walks on stage, goes methodically, purposefully, from microphone to microphone and says "check, check - one two, one two" into each one, the crowd invariably breaks into a roar of applause. This phenomenon is infalable. It happens every time, at every concert - regardless of who's playing. It doesn't matter who's in the crowd, or who the stoner/roadie dude is that walks on stage. He'll always get a roaring applause for saying "check one, check two".
So I was thinking, if you were one of those really self-abasing, desperate for attention and in constant need of gratification and validation types, and you figured the only way to know that anybody loves you is if they cheer for you, BUT, you're so lacking in talent that you can't actually play any instruments, and can't sing a note, and can't do standup comedy, or hate public speaking, or hell, maybe you only have a 10 word vocabulary... well, "Mic Check Dude" would be the ULTIMATE job for you, wouldn't it? I mean, if you were really good at it, like, NOBODY can count to two as well as you can, and you were in such high demand, bouncing from venue to venue every night, checking their mics, going on the road, like your OWN tour, to check the mics in all the venues in all the cities in North America, being "that guy" that night after night, show after show, no matter HOW bad the band was, YOU always get a roaring applause... well, hell... wouldn't that be just as cool as being a rock star? I'd think it would start to go to your head after a while, wouldn't it? You'd probably start to think (and rightly so, I suppose...) that people just LOVE you... who knows, maybe that guy even has hold and cold running chicks in his private dressing room after each mic check... that would be cool. What a job.

But anyway, I digress...

Tea Party rawked. I used to like them a lot, back ten/fifteen years ago, but kinda stopped listening after a while. I've seen them in concert at least once before, and wasn't superkeen to see them again, especially with Motorhead, Steve Vai, Strapping Yound Lad, Joe Satriani, and Black Label Society all having concerts in the same 2 week period, BUT, all those other concerts sold out, I missed the boat on tix, and well, found myself at The Tea Party concert. Having said that, when sufficiently juiced, I'll rock out to anything, and, it's fair to say that with a dozen pints in me, I was sufficiently juiced.
I went out onto the floor with Amy and Carole, and tried to make out way to the front. Unfortunately, the floor was a minefield of broken glass, and with Carole wearing sandals, edging through the undulating crowd wasn't the best move - so I left the girls (lol! They were fine!) and worked my way to the very front of the stage, and back to them, in less than the space of one song - just to prove how easily it could be done. Carole wasn't impressed, pointed out that the broken glass hadn't gone anywhere in the past 60 seconds, and resolved to stand fast where she was. And with the exception of one other time, when I felt the urge to make it to the front of the crowd and back again in the space of one song, I stayed in that spot with Carole.

So, Jeff Martin is looking a little older, a little pudgier, but they've got all the energy and talent that they've ever had. The show was, as I mentioned previously, 'rawkin'. They pulled a couple of cheezy moved by breaking into cover songs during the bridges of two of their hits (once the swung into All Along the Watch Tower, and the other time it was Paint it Black), only to return to the original tune a few phrases into the cover, but, the crowd dug it - so I guess it was fun.
For the finale, Todd Kerns joined them on stage dressed like Brian Johnson of AC/DC, and they pulled off an impressively accurate rendition of "Back in Black".

All in all, it was a great time. We got home shortly before two, and I was up for work at six... argh.

Oh, yes... of COURSE Carole drove home. What-ya-think... I'm crazy?

Posted by Calvin at April 21, 2005 08:40 AM