Missed shows; mixed feelings
I’m blogging from work again, so I’ll make this quick.
2009 may go down as the year that I had the opportunity to see two veterans of the legendary SST record label and missed my chance. The first occasion was earlier this year, when the Meat Puppets played the 7th St. Entry. I think the show was on a Sunday or something, and I decided that I couldn’t hang out at the 7th street, waiting til one o’clock or whenever the Kirkwood brothers would finally take the stage. Looking back, I blew what may have been my only opportunity to hear those guys rip through “Backwater” (assuming they played it, that is).
The most recent chance was a mainroom gig by Dinosaur, Jr. At $20, I decided it was too pricy for a guy on my budget, and besides, it was a Wednesday night show. Still, as I rode the bus home from class and “In a Jar” came on my mp3 player — “I’ll be grazing by your window / Please come pat me on the head / I just want to find out what you’re nice to me for…” — and I kicked myself for not having tickets to that night’s show. They might actually play “In a Jar!” They might play “Feel the Pain!”
I have flashbacks to July: I’m thrashing around the living room while the “Feel the Pain” riff explodes from my stereo; I’m drunk on a weeknight and I knock over the ironing board; I return a crusty, beer-soaked copy of Ear Bleeding Country to the Hennepin County Library three weeks late; I get a weird look from my fiancé because I’m making tortured faces in the passenger seat of her car (because somehow I convinced her that it was a good idea to put Meat Puppets II in the CD player, and I’m showing [in my own weird way] how much I love those crazy sounds emanating from the speakers).
And so, as the Kirkwoods would say, “Some things will never change.” I missed some of the loudest, feistiest bands that my CD collection has to offer. I regret those decisions sometimes. Then again, if I want to follow the logic of the Kirkwoods, I would recognize that either “you just stand there looking backwards,” or you learn to live with your decisions and stop second-guessing yourself.
