Laurabelle's Blog

Yesterday evening Jeff and I went to a Cure concert. It was initially supposed to be two weekends ago (as part of the Curiosa Festival), but it got postponed because Robert Smith had to go back to London for a few days. I was actually pretty excited about the change, because new location was much closer to home, and it was just the Cure (no other bands, not even an opening act), so they were going to play a longer set. I would have been glad to hear the other bands play, but I was really going to see the Cure.

The music was awesome, though nothing more than I would have expected from them. Each song also had a sort of background movie that echoed the imagery in the lyrics and made the performance into a sort of live music video. I'm not usually one for music videos, but the waves crashing behind By the Edge of the Deep Green Sea really drew me in (wave after wave after wave, it's all for her). It was cool.

On the other hand, the band kept leaving the stage every few minutes for the last hour of the show, which was very disconcerting. They played for an hour and forty minutes, then left for the first time. They came back, played for another twenty minutes, came back, played another song, left and came back, played two more songs. At that point everyone but Robert Smith left, and he said something like It's about fucking time. How much time have we got left? and left too, but a couple of seconds later everyone came back onstage, played one more song, and then Robert Smith said That's it and left for the last time. In all, the show lasted for about 2 hours and 30 minutes.

In retrospect, I guess the last 40-50 minutes were encores, but I felt rather gypped because I had been expecting an extra-long set (we paid $50 for an all-day festival, after all!). I had been led to believe, by the promotions leading up to this concert, that it would be extra-long, and 1h40 before encores isn't extra-long (for the Cure, at least, it isn't). I just wish that Robert Smith had said something when they left the stage, some signal as to whether this was just a break, or the end of the show, or what. As it was, I spent the last hour wondering what the hell was going on and not enjoying the music. It was very jarring.

That was my first and probably my only Cure concert. Next time, I think I'll spend the money on CDs instead.

Last night a Seattle radio station called The End hosted a concert by a UK band called Muse that has recently become very popular over here. It was at a club called Neumo's in Capitol Hill; I'd heard about Neumo's (which is located at the same spot as an old club called Moe's — get it?) in The Stranger but never expected to go there myself.

Every so often I get an email from Lance Whalen, whom I know through Emily. A few years ago he had an even harder time of it than I did, so I'm thrilled to see that he's picked himself up and is having some success as an indie musician. I finally got around to ordering his first CD, although he's supposed to have another one this summer. I'll buy that one, too, when it's out. Good luck, Lance.

Last weekend Jeff was talking about going to Bumbershoot to hang out with a few friends, and he mentioned that R.E.M. was going to be there and that I was welcome to come along. I'm an R.E.M. fan (like who isn't?), and of course $20 (the cost of admission to Bumbershoot, after which all shows are free) is a steal for an R.E.M. concert.

Last week Jeff took me to a concert, so this week I took him to see Dar Williams. Obviously it was a great concert, since Dar herself is awesome. (The Ben Taylor Band opened for her and were pretty good too, I thought.) I didn't know most of the songs she performed, since I'd only heard the songs on Mortal City, but it was lovely to hear them first in concert, and I love just listening to her gorgeous, full, flexible voice (the performer's voice that mine will never be). The two encore songs were from Mortal City: Iowa and As Cool As I Am, which is my very favorite of all her songs. I hoped during the entire concert that she would play As Cool As I Am, and when she did, I got up and danced, like most of the audience as well.

You play the artist, saying, Is it how she moves, or how she looks?
I say, it's loneliness suspended to our own like grappling hooks,
And as long as she's got noise, she's fine.
But I could teach her how I learned to dance when the music's ended

Tuesday afternoon my supervisor, Meg, told me that she'd be in earlier than usual on Thursday because it was May Day, and there was going to be morris dancing at dawn at Gas Works Park. I was interested in going and mentioned it to Jeff yesterday. He didn't know what morris dancing was, and I didn't either really, so I googled and read him a little about how the purposes of the morris had something to do with fertility and the rites of agrarian society. Jeff said Oh yeah, it's Beltane, which I hadn't realized. So I got up before dawn this morning and called Jeff, and at dawn we were at Gas Works Park.

The dancing was really neat. I don't know the names of the groups that were performing, but they did some really neat dances, especially one with flexible metal swords with which they formed cool patterns and miraculously avoided tying themselves in knots. At the very end the audience got to do a sort of English country dance, which was very confusing with so many people, but it was fun anyway. It was a great way to start off the day as well as the summer.

And in the end, Meg slept in and didn't go after all, so I got to tease her all day about sleeping in. For example, Some people had breakfast at 5:10... It was much fun.

Mmmm, listening to Disintegration. Sometimes I just need a little Cure.

Tonight was a fun evening. I was planning to go to a bluegrass show at the Tractor Tavern in Ballard with my buddy Pete, so he called me a couple of hours before, and we decided he'd come over and eat dinner with me. That was fun (we had tuna casserole, and I melted mozzarella inside and on top, which didn't turn out at all bad), but in the end we chatted too long and would have been late for the show, and I was tired. So we ended up renting a movie (Cyrano de Bergerac) and watching it at his house, since I don't have either a TV or a VCR. We had to massage the TV into actually changing to channel 3, but once we got it there, it was cool.

I've seen this movie before, but this is the first time I've really watched it I think, probably because the other times were in class. (I rarely ever watch movies very attentively when they're for class. I just wait for them to be over.) I paid attention to the words and such, and I found myself really enjoying the characters. Yeah, they're all crazy, and Cyrano takes at least fifteen minutes to die (he even finishes it off with a rhyming couplet), but I even liked the besotted Roxane, who was actually pretty clever when she wasn't busy being a lovesick fool, and Christian, who was stupid but honest enough to know Roxane didn't really love him even though she thought she did, and especially Cyrano, who let Roxane grow into loving him, even though that was mostly out of fear that she would laugh at him. It's a silly story, and they're all silly characters, and it's all quite unbelievable, but I love them all, except de Guiche.

Oh, everyone go watch French movies, especially good ones of 16th-century comedies. Molière is especially smashing. Pete and I have resolved to make this a regular thing. There are so many good French (and German!) and other films to watch. I am taking recommendations...