Laser Beams & Anchors

Thursday night I went to the Walter Meego/Ra Ra Riot show at the Subterranean with my good friend, and college old roomie, Maggie “A-Hi!” D.! Great performances from both bands, though I was very disappointed in the lack of dancey enthusiasm that Walter Meego deserved and did not receive. They are super dance-tastic, and the crowd wasn’t digging them for whatever reason. Like I’m talking dance-tastic to the utmost degree; so dancey you’d expect lasers and smoke to come forth from of their instruments! There were several times I was all fast fisting the air, and dancing feet rotations on the ground. The lack of crowd awesomeness induced several moments of me yearning to clap my hands and make them disappear so I had more room to groove and get down. Alas, this was not possible, but I managed to dance myself a pretty decent-sized space in the mid-back.
Luckily, after Walter Meego finished my complaints of crowd location was overheard by these two awesome dudes that instructed Maggie and myself to follow them forward. We got right up next to the stage, on the left side. Amazing! Ra Ra Riot was full of energy and sounded incredible – despite what seemed like the sound dude’s attempts to thwart them with slow response on the band’s requests to “up the mics” for certain members and their instruments (“Too Too Fast” was slightly ruined in that the cellist’s mic wasn’t working for her vocal chorus addition). The ladies of RRR had the raddest instruments, as both the violin and cello were basically invisible, only constructed of a wire frame and stem (I don’t know the technical term for that which holds the strings… uh, the, um, frets? No… that’s not it. Whatever, you get it.). They played every song off The Rhumb Line and delivered immensely on matching and surpassing the album’s production quality. I was very impressed and upon leaving the show, wanted more, more, more! I like that all the members dig each other and really seemed to enjoy themselves. I mean, how could you not?! I even found myself growing slightly jealous of their fabulosity, wishing that I, too, was “living the dream”. But kudos and props to them for dreaming it and doing it! It’s also a good thing the crowd was much more into RRR, or at least if they weren’t I couldn’t see ‘em from my awesome spot, because I would’ve had to lay the smack down more seriously. I do slightly recall accosting a couple attendees for not digging the scene and standing with the arms folded across their chests. “Why do you even waste your money? Can’t you just bop your head to the beat? Really, nothing?! You’re just going to stand there? Okay. I hate you.”