Stroked

I was Stroked last night. First concert I've seen in a long time. In fact I can count on my fingers the live shows I've seen in Vancouver.

1-The Cramps- Commodore Ballroom
2- Reverend Horton Heat- Commodore Ballroom
3- The Pretenders- Queen E Theatre
4- Patti Smith- the Commodore Ballroom
5- Toots and the Maytals- Malkin Bowl
6- The Strokes- Plaza of Nations

Plaza of Nations is a horrible and lovely venue at the same time. It's outdoors and if the weather is warm, quite lovely. It's also surrounded by glass and cement. Seriously folks, despite the Strokes, the apparition of Janis Joplin will be the only thing that gets me to go back to that venue. Heavy reverberation and echo. I actually left early as it was so distorted, loud and noisy but great.

The Strokes were great to see, but not unlike the countless concert shots I have seen. Nor that different from the appearances on Saturday Night Live or Letterman. I swear Julian Casablancas was still wearing the same clothes. In fact, I think they all were. There was the 'hunched over the guitar' pose, the 'head back' pose and the 'hand on microphone, foot on monitor' pose typical of most Rock and Roll shows and certainly The Strokes.

Early on, with the opening band playing, my friend Christine and I made our way into the area in front of the stage. We manoevored for better advantage points, all the while enduring the wall of sound and guitars coming from the warm up band. I don't remember what they were called but they've been listening to too much Radiohead and other Emo-rock. Christine felt warm and left to get water and I stayed put. 10 minutes later a surge of bodies behind me pushed me forward and further into the crowd. Christine and I would be seperated from this point on.

As the concert grew near the crowd swelled and condensed like a balloon being blown up and deflated. Occasionally an attempt to gain better footing would be attempted. This is basically a group of people rearing back and charging forward in effort to displace the molecules of people into other positions. The crowd was a condensed jumble of arms and legs, standing ribcage to ribcage. Elbows and shoulders used as weapons for advancement towards the front. At one point, I was certain I could lift my feet off the ground and not move, the pressure of others near me was so great. I was positive I would either throw up or pass out from lack of oxygen.

I decided to give up my perfect fantage point to capture a shitty, grainy phone cam picture of Mr. Casablancas and attempted to push and elbow my way out. Of course this was seen as an attempt to score myself yet a better spot until I started to yell that I was trying to get out. I was finally expelled from the mass with a whoof and my spot immediatly consumed by the hungry mass. When The Strokes started, I looked back to where I had been standing and it had erupted into a mosh pit of jumping bodies, arms waving and bodies surfing above it all.

Hightlight: a cover of Walk on the Wild Side

Update; many phone messages from christine telling me over her wherabouts, of which I received the next day. Another message to say 'Let's get together. I'd love to hear how it was FOR YOU.'

strokes4, originally uploaded by smoooch.

Not bad for a camera shot.