Thank you, Canada.

It was November and I’d completely forgotten about this concert when a Canadian co-worker pointed to The Walkmen poster above my desk and asked if I were going. The shows sold out less than a week after that conversation.

I’d planned to meet up with that same co-worker and his friends at the show but we never managed to cross paths. Instead, I stood in silence next to what the corner of my eye perceived to be a nice-looking man, also alone at the show. Thirty minutes passed before a waitress showed up and he gestured my way during his order saying, “and whatever she’d like.” *Swoon* In all the years I’ve been traveling solo to concerts, I’ve secretly hoped for a man to offer me a drink. Okay, that’s not entirely true. I’d hoped for a handsome man to offer me a drink. And he was indeed handsome. I passed on the drink out of consideration for the full drink already in my hand and my bladder that was already going to struggle to survive the whole show. (Getting to the bathrooms & back to your spot in this venue, especially at a sold out show, is a nightmare.)

Anyway, I struck up conversation after a long pause in the wake of the waitresses departure. He was in town from Calgary and joked that I probably had no idea where that was. (I knew but only because a character on the hit Canadian drama “Heartland”, my guilty pleasure, works in Calgary. I didn’t share this qualifier with him.) He’d also been at the show the night before and mentioned they’d barely played any songs from Bows+Arrows, which happens to be my favorite album. I was counting on a different setlist for tonight. While we waited on the show, we talked about our jobs a bit. His job often lands him in northern US states like Montana & Wyoming. I mentioned I’d just been there in September and it turns out, he was too. We’d both been in Whitefish, MT and Glacier within a few days of each other. He shares my love of Wyoming and knew of Beartooth Highway. Amazing.

After two almost-fights happened right in front of us, I told him, “When I see stuff like that, it makes me think I’m getting too old for this.” He boldly asked, “So how old are you?” followed by how close I was to 30 hah. Turns out he had just turned 30 in November. He didn’t feel any different because of it. I asked. We talked a bit about SF. He mentioned, “So this is like your winter? 60s?”. “Actually,” I clarified, “it’s been in the 50s and raining.” Poor San Franciscans. It was -15 F when he departed Calgary. I tried to hide my disappointment when he said his favorite spots had been Union Square and Fisherman’s Wharf. We all know I’m terrible at hiding my feelings, though, so he quickly added, “I know they’re probably really touristy.”

He leaned a little “financial district” in his fitted polo clearly showing a chiseled chest but he was nice. I even noticed that he sort of angled his 6’3+ stature in front of me when violence picked up in front of us. It made me feel like a lady ;) I half-regret not asking him to grab a drink after the show instead of the semi-awkward “have a nice life” goodbye. But I wanted to leave the evening on a high note and no need to pursue a foreigner, even if he did share my views on smoking pot at concerts and loved Wyoming.

So yes, thank you, Canada, for coming through on so many levels.

The Show

Run-in’s with fate aside, The Walkmen did not disappoint on their 10th Anniversary show. They opened with 3 songs from Bows+Arrows. I was in heaven. I was about 6 rows back with a perfect view and aside from some annoying crowd things, I couldn’t have asked for a better concert. Within the first few songs, the whole row in front of me literally slid out. One guy was dragging another guy. I’m not totally sure what happened, but the singer moved to that side of the stage and said, “We must have a birthday in the audience….everybody mellow out, it’s okay. Let him stay. *pause* Oh fine, take him out of here!” After the song ended, he added, “Rue the Day [song] seemed to ruffle a few feathers.” We all laughed because we’re all friends like that.

I never let myself listen to a band’s music on the day of a concert. I’d had the lyrics to “The Rat” stuck in my head all day, so it felt sooo good to have that craving filled by the second song of the show. They played every single one of my favorite songs.  I only wish everyone else would just lip sync like me. None of us want to hear your off-key version, friends. Oh well.

I’ve wanted to see The Walkmen in a proper venue for so many years but they never came to Indiana. It was worth the wait. I was so happy.

There was a horn quartet for a quarter of the show. I love brass. Vocals were dead-on. The crowd was mostly quiet during quiet songs. They played 4 new songs which gave me promise for the next album. Other highlights were “We’ve Been Had”, closing my eyes and swaying to “Hang on, Siobhan”, Leithauser [lead singer] bent over backwards wailing during “On the Water”, and having a real Canadian nudge me and yell the name of the song, “Canadian Girl!”. Near the end, they took requests for 3-4 songs, before starting to wrap up the night. The second-to-last song was an epic rendition of “Thinking of a Dream I Had”, a song I have screamed along to many a times in my car. It’s just great to be part of a celebratory show. Leithauser told us, “We’re so happy to be spending our birthday at this place. We love it here and knew it’s where we wanted to celebrate. Hell, I’m happy to spending it with this band. It’s been a great 10 years.” It was pretty adorable. It’s nice to see a band stay together so long and still look like they’re having a great time. The ballerina photo behind the stage was taken by one of the dad of one of the band members at Bimbo’s [a great venue in SF] about 40 years ago. That was a righteous touch.

Setlist coming soon… setlist.fm

Last week I decided to make an effort to be more social. It had been an intense week of working late nights on quick-turn projects, which was making me feel a little suffocated. Since I was working with a new team of people, it seemed like a good time to branch out. In the week since, I think I’ve met/learned more about 20+ people.

Friday night I went out for after work drinks for the first time in months. There was plenty of good laughs and conversation. I called it an early night because I had my first horseback trail ride the next morning. It was a very gray day for my trail ride. The horse, Cash, was new to me and we struggled a bit. It was slow-going as he didn’t seem to feel motivated, so my instructor had to keep waiting for me to catch up. It was a great experience, even though it showed me how much I have yet to learn about riding. There wasn’t a level part of the trail and riding up/downhill was completely different from riding in a circle. I saw a covey of quail and a coyote along the way. As we climbed, we had a view of the whole Tamalpais Valley and would have seen the ocean were it not for the fog. It was intense, climbing through the visibly blowing fog. I hurt so much afterward. I finally understood the warnings of pain everyone had given me before I took up riding. The ride was just around 2 hours and I was so tired afterward.

I had already committed myself to going out Saturday night, though, so out I went. It was a nightmare. The bus never came so I ended up walking 1.5 miles uphill until I found one. I met up with some people at The Knockout and ended up running into several other people. It was a fun couple hours until I tried to go home, which turned into another series of bus fails and 3 miles of walking. That paired with the horseback riding yielded me an unusable back the next morning. It was slow moving.

Work continued with intensity throughout this week. Sallie gave us a welcome break by scheduling an afternoon tea. We had pasties, tea, and a bunch of English treats. It was the highlight of the week. We even watched a bit of an English soap, East Enders. Perfectly lovely disruption of the day.

I managed to squeeze in a phone call with Kali Thursday night, even though I should have been sleeping. It was good to talk to her, though. It was a summer half day on Friday and I had plans to go to a barbeque later but I was so tired that I ended up finding a quiet corner of the office and falling asleep. Sallie & I finally made it over. It was a pre-burning man party. Everyone knows that I tend to be a burning man hater, so it made for an interesting night. I got to see a Creative Director hula hoop for the first time. People from all around the world who had flown in for the festival showed up. France, Australia, Morocco, Brazil, and England were all represented. I even met a girl named Ocean. I did my best not to feel out of place. I realized they weren’t judging me for not being a burner. I had so many conversations that I can’t even recall most of them. I know I had to list my top 3 bands I’d want to see live, dead or alive, and that Aussies don’t think Silverchair is a guilty pleasure band.

I was up until 6:30am. People came & went and the ratio of burners to non-burners kept getting greater and greater. I found myself in an intense discussion about the festival and drugs. It’s safe to assume I was greatly out-numbered. Everyone was pretty cool, though. It didn’t turn into a fight. We just talked about it and one of the Aussies thanked me for such a good debate when they left. It was the perfect grand finale to my socializing quest. I argued something I felt strongly about to a group of people, only 1 of which I’d met before that night.

I hope I’m not around that much cigarette smoke again anytime soon, but it was great to have such varied company & conversation.