the weekend cure and its magic time machine
I've received a few questions about the blue structure at the end of the pool. it is to support a shade cloth that we took down when it started to get real windy. I'm hoping to get it back up today.
this weekend we did little but sit by the pool and discuss the event for sunday eve, the cure concert.
back in july of 1986 my friend steven and I drove to Dallas from our apartment in shreveport louisiana. we went to see the cure play at the bronco bowl. how we managed to do such things before internet and cell phones, we don't know. I don't have the slightest recollection of how we even found out they were playing or how we got the tickets. in 1986 shreveport louisiana, if you listened to the cure, you were definitely counter culture material. that trip to dallas made a big impact on us as we no longer felt like outsiders. we found thousands of people like us. turns out there was nothing wrong with us that a little change of venue couldn't cure. we soon left shreveport for brighter lights.
fast forward to 2008 and the cure was coming to austin. emails were sent. tickets purchased early one morning (show sold out in a few hours). work was juggled and vacation time was requested. kids schools and sitters were managed.
so a group of friends that started in the 80's had friday, saturday and sunday to do little but sit by the pool, eat some rudy's brisket and zu-zu's handmade mexican food.
back out now if this eatin' drinkin' swimmin' and cure concert business is of no interest to you.
birds flock together
I inhereted some gift baskets that were made for the friends that were to put up scott and ali. plan fell through due to illness so I got me some baskets!
steven was very excited and found that words failed to fully describe his emotions.
pass the baby on the screen porch. we had nice weather all weekend and we are thankful that we are still able to sit out there in comfort.
our friend cmoore could not manage to get to austin so he caught the cure in dallas on friday night. we all gathered around the mini mac media server as more than 70 pics rolled in over a period of 3 and a half hours. it's funny that they don't allow cameras at concerts but now everybody has one on their phone, everybody except me... it's just about time for me to get a new phone. anyhow, we appreciated his effort but after a/b 20 concert pics from an iphone, they all started to look the same. (ok, I went back and looked at some more of the pics and there are some really good ones mixed in there, especially considering that they are from an iphone and 10 rows back from the stage)
little m had a birthday. she seemed quite surprised a room full of adults (adults that had just spent the day sitting in the sun pouring tecate down their pie holes) singing happy birthday to her. I'm sure we sounded awesome!
troy made good use of the new house media server to demonstrate how you can loose hours finding anything you can think of on youtube. when not handling a computer he can be found on you tube playing with electricity.
more sitting by the pool.
well, something has to be done about it.
somebody needs to make a rule about tall people who stand in front of short people. this was taken from our spot at the sunday night show. had to borrow a phone to take pics since mine is lacking that feature. I'm still not convinced I need to shell out big $ for an iphone, I already use an itouch and kat is hatching plans to acquire that for herself, once I get a new iphone. (UPDATE, I just read that the new iphone is due out in about a month at prices as low as $199)
the cure did not disappoint. it was almost overwhelming to be there with many of my friends from almost 25 years ago and to have the same music that was so much a part of our lives then. they played around 35 songs in a time of three hours or so.
fascination street
alt.end
torture
the end of the world
lovesong
the big hand
pictures of you
lullaby
catch
the perfect boy
from the edge of the deep green sea
the figurehead
a strange day
sleep when i'm dead
push
doing the unstuck
inbetween days
just like heaven
primary
the only one
signal to noise
the hanging garden
one hundred years
end
m
play for today
a forest
three imaginary boys
fire in cairo
boys don't cry
jumping someone else's train
grinding halt
10:15 saturday night
killing an arab
we love live music. the fact that austin is the live music capital of the world did play a factor in our decision to live here.
not every show is a winner, some bands just suck live. they have no enthusiasm or the sound is not as good as their recording. some bands have some energy but they sound too much like the recordings. they might be able to pull this off as a good live show if they are the new flavor of the moment with no long term fans.
when you've been at it as long as the cure has (since 1976), the bar is set pretty high. it's just fantastic to see really old songs get a new spin. we were all exhausted and hungry after the hours we spent standing there (opening band, 65 days of static were also good)
it wasn't all good. there seem to be three types of people who go to these big shows.
one will get there early to find a comfortable space to claim (us)
another has a smaller circle of personal space and does not mind crowding the folks who got there early but are generally nice folks. they are often welcomed to share the live music experience by the first group as long as they don't step on toes.
the third and vilest type of person agressively moves in on any inch of space held by the person who got there first. and those early bird types typically want to enjoy the larger circle of personal space (proxemics) and will often shift when things get crowded. end result is that as crowds get denser, the person who got there first get's bumped out of the prime real estate. we did have a group of around sixteen people there to defend our space. but after three hours some folks did manage to infiltrate and some toes did get stepped on. all the same, we did meet some very cool folks who, like us, got there early. we enjoyed sharing our space with them. we met dr. todd "the rock doctor" and tarah who works for starbucks in round rock (sorry but round rock is outside of my comfort zone, too far north).
notably missing from last night was cmoore, chris smith (who I hear reads this blog and is considering a move to austin) and also emily hogan. you shoulda been there EM! there is always the next one!
to the girls from coushatta lousiana, who drove up to shreveport that summer of 86, and crawled through the A.P.T. window when they found I was not home, got upset and ripped up my head on the door poster that emily had brought back to me from london... that was unnecessary. back in 1986 we didn't have iphones and there must have been some miscommunication. you really, really didn't have to rip up that poster.
I'd also like to send a belated "get well soon" to our friend mike o'mara back in baltimore. we've been intending to send an actual card via snail mail but things have been crazy and time is not slowing down for any of us. we haven't forgotten you guys.