rock & roll twilight zone: the time traveler's wife and her wife

Last night, my lovely wife, J, and I attended yet another concert that was less expensive than the totally-not-worth-forty-dollars-EACH Taylor Hicks show. Irish angst a la Damien Rice was on the bill for the evening and we were both looking forward to it.

After asking me eleventy gazillion times if I have the tickets, J asked me who was opening the show. "Dunno," I told her, "hopefully someone good."

Now, yesterday was something of an action-packed day for us as we were meeting the man who is now our financial advisor for, well, some financial advice on all of the money we don't have. Poor guy - I hope he makes some $ off of us someday, as it seems like we got way more out of the two-hour meeting we had yesterday than he did. After all, not only did we put some money that we didn't even know we had out into investment oblivion and hired him to babysit it, we learned a whole new language! Now I can tell peeps I'm 80% aggressive and really mean it!

Well, anyway, that meeting ran a little later than we'd anticipated and we were both starving. Concert was to start at 8pm and we were convinced that, due to a last minute venue change, they'd start it late. After getting downtown a little after 8, we drove around in circles hoping for the elusive complimentary parking spot. Didn't happen. We finally ponied up $3 for a lot close to the Roseland. I know. Makes us look like cheapskates. But $3 almost buys a beer! And after spending two hours learning that we need to spend wisely so that we'll have a cozy retirement, every little bit counts - I'm sure our financial advisor would agree.

While we half expected to walk up the stairs to encounter the opening act in mid-set, I thought to myself, "damn, that sounds an awful lot like Damien Rice."

Turns out it was. We walked in at 8:25 and he'd already started, so no opening act. Who has a show with no opening act?????? I racked my brain trying to name one other show I'd been to in which that was the case.

WTF???

What gives, Damien Rice? Why no opening act?

What's even more strange is that it seems as though everyone else attending the show was in on this bit of info (that the show would start on time and that there would be no opening act, so you need to really truly get there early). How can this be?, I thought. I hate being uninformed. To add to the peculiarity of the headlining act already underway, he was performing a particularly discordant tune from his newest release, 9. In addition to that, the sound system at the Roseland didn't seem to support this aural-assaultfest, as it didn't sound so great. J, thinking that the entire show would resemble this, dubbed the venture a waste of my money. We proceeded to the beer-drinking part of the Roseland to get our drink on and watch the show from the balcony. Once we realized that the beer acquision line was snaking down the steps and the capacity of the balcony would have made the Fire Marshall shit his pants, we headed back down to the main floor.

Fortunately, the sound issue never again reared its ugly head - the rest of the show sounded lovely. I adore his beautiful yearning ballads and appreciate that he also rocks it a lil, showing an almost punk rock side - loud, angry, and unapologetic . The accompanying strings were fantastic, really adding depth to the performance.

J and I couldn't help but notice an elderly lesbian couple about three feet away. One was dancing up a storm, really getting into the groove; the other maintained a more quiet stance, but still rapt. We kept looking over at them, amused and charmed by their presence. I looked over at J and said, "Check it out - that's us in twenty-five/thirty years."

She chuckled, and then added, "Well, it's good to see that your hips still move," referring to the more lively of the couple. I looked over at her and her calculated movements. She was wearing a black tank top...I was wearing a black tank top. She was sporting a couple of tattoos...a couple of my tattoos were visible. She was wearing a black punk rock belt, studded and ringed...I own a belt that appears to be a first cousin of her belt. She had short, messy hair and glasses...I have short, messy hair and glasses. Then it hit me. I turned to J and said,

"And clearly I go off of my medication at some point."

J, in hysterics at the overenergized, dancing granny with stamina to spare, then looks at granny's partner, staid and somber, and added,

"And, apparently, so do I."

I flashed back to the scene in The Time Traveler's Wife, in which Henry observes a younger version of himself at a Violent Femmes show in a Chicago nightclub.

The night was riddled with other oddities, as well. At one point, a duo of 70s throwback, Harley-riders walked past us, one in a Danzig T-shirt and wearing a backwards trucker hat with the bill upturned and the word 'Wasted' across the inside brim. His pal was wearing a faded denim jacket with the sleeves crudely cut off that was adorned with about three million metal studs and a bandanna holding his lengthy locks in place. Shortly after they strolled past us, toward the stage, they made a return trip past us, toward the exit this time.

"Wrong show," J concluded.

In addition to several other bizarre little moments, the show followed suit. Was there a full moon last night?

Damien Rice (it somehow doesn't feel right to refer to him as either Damien or Mr. Rice) engaged in an interesting soliloquy. He inquired as to whether any of the members of the audience had ever looked in the mirror, really looked in the mirror, gazing into your own eyes and realizing "you know me!" "you know me better than anyone else in the world!" "you're my best friend!" "I do everything with you!" "I masturbate with you!" "We're going to die together!" (he claims to verbalize these statements aloud). I have no doubt that he actually does this and appreciate his candor and vulnerability in revealing this very personal moment he shares with himself. I wondered how many folks were going to go home and attempt to replicate this moment, making it all their own.

To close the show, Damien Rice did something I've never seen done on stage before, or at least not so covertly. He starts in on a story, which involves a man and a woman and takes place late at night, in a bar. A member of the band then leaves the stage and returns with a bottle of wine and a glass. He hands Damien Rice the glass and fills it up. In one, huge gulp the vino is gone and the story continues. Story becomes a little more heart-wrenching and the glass is refilled. At an appropriate moment in the story, a mere two minutes later, the second glass is also consumed in a single bound. The story is filled with even more angst, as the woman must leave to meet up with her boyfriend, despite the hinted-at connection. Boy (yes, this man has - with an intoxicating aid - become a boy) is depressed and the glass is refilled. The would-be lovers part (perhaps forever) and the third glass is downed. At the point, our story teller is a little bit wobbly and full of what, if I recall correctly, is an incurable drunken sadness. The story continues, the boy now alone and spiralling into a deep and emo-filled despair. A band member brings him a lit cigarette and the stumbley story is slurringly rambling on, an empty glass held out for a refill. This one, too, disappears instantaneously and the maybe-maybe-not drunken Damien Rice concludes his story from a reposed position on the floor. The bottle is empty.

The show ends with the final encore, Cheers Darlin', complete with the clinking of an empty glass as a percussion instrument, concluding the show.

Bravo!