Last night J.G. and I had a busy night out. First, we went to the big City Paper party for the Best Of Baltimore issue, which is I guess their biggest event all year. I also went to the staff party on Monday, which was considerably smaller. I've been writing for CP for less than 6 months now, and had only been in the offices once, so, like probably a lot of other freelancers there, I didn't know many people. But it was nice to say hi to the handful of people I have met, and I got to finally meet Jess Harvell, after a couple years of message board/blogosphere bitchiness and grudging respect and a few weeks of being cooperative and working together. Also got to meet Jason Torres, who's been covering Baltimore hip hop for CP incredibly thoroughly and for way longer than I have, and it was cool to find out he's seen Gov't Names and reccomend mixtapes to each other.
The big party on Thursday was at Ram's Head Live, which is a venue that opened downtown a few months ago, extending the franchise of the Ram's Head that's been in Annapolis for years. They book fairly big acts there, but I was expecting the actual room with the stage to be bigger, it seems like more than half of the place is taken up with little bar areas that have zero stage visibility. Seems like a waste of a potentially good place to see a show. It was a lot louder and more crowded than the staff party, which meant it was a lot harder to find people I knew, or carry on coherent conversations with them. So after a couple drinks and a run at the food table, J.G. and I decided to split for our next appointment of the night.
We went down to D.C. to the 9:30 Club to see one of J.G.'s favorite bands, Our Lady Peace. I took her to see them there for her birthday three years ago, a few months after we started dating, so it was nice to do that again. They put on a good show, and I am down with the Canadian post-grunge. Their drummer is good and the singer has a weird voice that sounds cool when he hits high notes, and always sounds kind of like he has a cold. He also wore a beard and a fedora, which he didn't take off for the entire show. The fedora, I mean. He didn't take off the beard either, though. It occurred to me during the show for the first time that some of their songs have a serious U2 vibe, in some of the guitar sounds and the big anthemic quality of the songs. And right as I was thinking that, he started singing a little of "All I Want Is You" during the last song before the encore. Their new album is pretty good and the new stuff mixed well with the old hits. And it's fun to go with J.G. to a show she's really hyped about, since usually I'm the one who's hyped about something, although I try not to drag her to see any bands she doesn't like or I don't think she'd probably like.
The big party on Thursday was at Ram's Head Live, which is a venue that opened downtown a few months ago, extending the franchise of the Ram's Head that's been in Annapolis for years. They book fairly big acts there, but I was expecting the actual room with the stage to be bigger, it seems like more than half of the place is taken up with little bar areas that have zero stage visibility. Seems like a waste of a potentially good place to see a show. It was a lot louder and more crowded than the staff party, which meant it was a lot harder to find people I knew, or carry on coherent conversations with them. So after a couple drinks and a run at the food table, J.G. and I decided to split for our next appointment of the night.
We went down to D.C. to the 9:30 Club to see one of J.G.'s favorite bands, Our Lady Peace. I took her to see them there for her birthday three years ago, a few months after we started dating, so it was nice to do that again. They put on a good show, and I am down with the Canadian post-grunge. Their drummer is good and the singer has a weird voice that sounds cool when he hits high notes, and always sounds kind of like he has a cold. He also wore a beard and a fedora, which he didn't take off for the entire show. The fedora, I mean. He didn't take off the beard either, though. It occurred to me during the show for the first time that some of their songs have a serious U2 vibe, in some of the guitar sounds and the big anthemic quality of the songs. And right as I was thinking that, he started singing a little of "All I Want Is You" during the last song before the encore. Their new album is pretty good and the new stuff mixed well with the old hits. And it's fun to go with J.G. to a show she's really hyped about, since usually I'm the one who's hyped about something, although I try not to drag her to see any bands she doesn't like or I don't think she'd probably like.
Labels: City Paper, concerts
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on Friday, September 23, 2005 at 3:17 PM.
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