A Concert Story II
Concerts are fantastic. As I have outlined in previous posts they are the perfect storm for many of the things that I love – music, people watching and substance abuse. Two weekends ago I flew to San Francisco to hang out with one of my friends that moved there recently (lets call her “TK” for anonymity’s sake). I flew in on Thursday in the early afternoon and we dropped my stuff off at her house and we took a bus down to the BART station that would take us within walking distance of the Fox Theater in Oakland. First of all I usually never like to ride on the bus. Bus travel sucks. Give me a train over a bus any day. For every 1 lunatic hobo on the train there are 10 on the bus. On this bus trip I was completely baked and there was a homeless gentleman that was screaming at an Asian lady (or maybe the invisible person next to the Asian lady that I couldn’t see). For about 3 stops he was a raving lunatic barking at her about racism, drugs and a literary critique of “Little Women” (OK – I made one of those up) but she was absolutely stoic. She looked like one of those guys on The World Series of Poker when they have a full house and are trying to bluff a guy to go all in. Add that to the list of things that Asians are good at.
After the bus ride we arrived at the BART station. We got on the train and I was admiring the view out the window and then I suddenly realized that we had been on the train for a while. I looked back at TK and she was frantically looking at a transit map while trying to look like she was NOT frantically looking at the transit map. For anyone who has traveled in a city they are new to it is understood that every transit system is a little different and it is easy to get confused with some of the routes. She was confused… and stoned. Bad combo. Real bad combo when you are on the wrong line and you are sheepishly asking your fellow passengers “Do you know where this train is going”. Fellow passengers are so condescending when they answer. They give you the “scolding -a-twelve-year-old-for-losing-his-baseball-mitt” look… I guess it is the only superiority you can feel when you ride on the train (I have definitely done this before while riding in Chicago – I get a perverse pleasure when telling someone they are on the wrong train and just wasted about 40 minutes out of their day because they could not read a color coded chart). Bottom line: we arrived at the Oakland Coliseum stop and had to get back on a train going the other way. *sidenote* The Oakland Coliseum looks like a prison. Absolutely brutal place from the outside. Apparently they had the same architect who created Shawshank. The inmates… er fans walk through a maze of chain link and concrete to get to the stadium. How depressing – no wonder why there are so many more Giants fans.
After getting on the correct train we finally arrived at the venue, which was amazing. If you are in Oakland you need to check out the Fox Theater. It is a completely remodeled old-school building with 100 foot ceilings that looks and sounds great. We caught the end of the DJ set and then Atoms for Peace (Thom Yorke’s solo project) came on and absolutely killed it. They were amazing and the crowd was very appreciative and did something that I have never seen. The band left the stage after the second encore and the crowd did not leave. A couple thousand people stood there screaming for minutes. The music came on which usually means “The band is done… GET THE FUCK OUT”. No one cared. The entire crowd stood around screaming… then they came back out! The crowd erupted and they played “Love will Tear us Apart” by the Joy Division. It was a was a perfect cap to the night.
It kind of sounds like shit on that video but to be there faded in the crowd was one of my top 10 concert experiences ever.
We stumbled out of the Fox and wanted to get a drink before we got back on the train. We ended up at the darkest bar ever. I could barely see my hand in front of me. It would be an absolute paradise for an ugly chick. Set up shop there at around 12:30AM and put out the vibe – game, set, match - fugly chick. We were definitely the most fucked up people in the place (did I mention that I drank my weight in Red Bull and Vodka’s and had not eaten since lunch?) After a few minutes in the bar we made the executive decision to get food before our livers exploded. We went to some random diner and this was my meal:
- Bowl of Chicken Soup
- Egg Sandwich
- Curly Fries
- Chocolate Milkshake
WTF? That is one of the most bizarre combination’s of food that I have ever eaten. From what I recollect the meal was pretty amazing. The bus ride back consisted TK passing out from time to time and baby-necking (baby-neck (v.): the process of half passing out while sitting down causing your head to roll around like a newborn baby with no neck support) the entire way home. After we got off at our stop (the end of the line) the guy who was passed out next to TK finally awoke started swearing. He missed his stop miles back… at least he didn’t end up at the Oakland Jail-iseum!
[...] however – presenting for the first time… TK! You may remember her as the confused traveler in "A Concert Story II". She used to live in San Diego but she recently moved to San Francisco and is slowly but surely [...]