Why I Oughtta

There's a two year old who keep staring at me, possibly because I keep staring back. He's starting to whine urgently, and his mother is asking him if he can use words. It's not working too well, so they are just giving him some grapes and that is making him happy.

Last night was the Rilo Kiley show and, even though it was just the four-piece band plus a touring guitarist, it was just as enjoyable as the Black Cat show where they had horns, strings and all sorts of weirdness onstage. Jenny Lewis didn't seem as intense and scowl-y as she did last time — like she was actually having a good time onstage. She must get so much gross attention, being pretty and being a talented rocker babe. Be that as it may, I still might go straight for her.

In the middle of the gigantic crowd shout-along “With Arms Outstretched,” Bright Eyes dragged his drunk ass on stage. He and The Faint had just played a few sold-out shows at the 9:30 earlier in the week. He had a drink in hand and was clearly half in the bag. They came up first to sing on that song, and then everybody and their babymama came up for the encore. Blake played some Who song on the Ukelele that apparently everybody but me knew the lyrics to. The bass player brought his 5-year-old daughter up (I'm still not sure how I would feel about bringing a child up into the smokey loudness of the 9:30), there was Bright Eyes and his greasy hair and then these two random gansta-looking guys.

They didn't play my favorite, “My Slumbering Heart,” but Ii was pleased with “Arms Outstretched,” because they didn't play it last time. And they played a lot of stuff from “Execution of All Things,” which is good because it IS the superior album. Despite Belle's recent flip-flop on the quality of “More Adventurous.” Flip-flop, Belle, flip-flop.

The crowd had a few assholes, especially these three “I'm-a-lesbian-for-attention” girls who kept flirting with each other and butted their way in front of Cynthia and Belle. And the only thing worse than people who force their way to the front at a concert are people who force their way to the front and smoke.

The Brunettes and Portastatic opened. The Brunettes were pretty good — I'm a sucker for any sort of quirky band set-up. They had a drummer, a bass player, a guitar player and then two people who just played whatever they had on them. Harmonicas, horns, keyboards, xylophones… At one point they were singing a song about Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen and they all donned Mary Kate and Ashley masks. Pretty creepy, but you can't say you've ever seen that before. They introduced themselves at one point, and since they all have really thick New Zealand accents, when the guy said that the girl in the group was named Heather, I thought he said Hitler. And everyone was wondering why I thought this was funny/shocking. Portastatic was this aging rock band that, while talented, delivered an incredibly dull set. They had this girl in the band who just stood there and played the tambourine for half the set, before she finally picked up a violin. Thank god. It's a pet peeve of mine when there is a girl in the band and all she does is sit there. Pretty Girls Make Graves had a useless keyboard player who stood there and danced 85% of the time. When Belle and I saw Mates of State at WM a while ago, they had this emo band open up and they had a useless, inaudible female keyboard player who disappeared halfway through the set.