ihavebeenfloated

There are moments at a show where there is someone performing on stage that are so absolutely amazing that they seem to take a little piece of your heart and mind when they walk off stage. One of these moments occurred last night at the Rilo Kiley show I went to at the Epicentre in San Diego, but it wasn’t Rilo Kiley who did it.

I got to the Epicentre about ten minutes after the doors opened, and was immediately horrified by the crowd that was gathered there. (This will be a repeating rant, I warn you, so if I describe someone who, for all intents and purposes, seems like it’s a caricature of you, you will most likely end up hating me by the end of this story.) Roughly 98% of the crowd gathered to see Rilo Kiley were somewhere in the age range of 16-18, all dressed up in postmodern hipster “these are meant to look like I bought them at a second hand store but in reality they’re designer clothing because my parents wont let me buy cheap clothes, and anyway, that’s grody” attire. Just horrifying. Hair all done up in “purposefully messy”, make up on the girls and guys, meticulous. Attitudes carefully adjusted to give the aura of “who gives a fuck!” by the look in their eyes saying “oh my god please no one talk to me or I’ll puke and have to swallow it”. Just absolutely awful. I was repulsed. I almost wanted to leave right then, thinking that I would be shoved in among all these awful fucking kids who drove to the show in daddy’s BMW or were dropped off by Mom’s corvette. I should have known better, this was Mira Mesa for christsakes. Regardless, the crowd that Rilo Kiley attracts at this point will probably guarantee that I will never go to one of their shows ever again. (This is nearly mimicking a rant on the rilokiley.net forums I read, and I understand the guy who posted it.)

There were probably about another 50 kids there saying things to the effect of, “Will give blow jobs for tickets!” (Mostly from guys), “OMG LIKE DO YOU HAVE AN EXTRA TICKET?” (girls and guys), and “LIKE THIS TOTALLY SUCKS OMG ITS ALL SOLD OUT AND STUFF!” (retards).

There were a group of three girls in line in front of me, once they got up to the door, two of them turns around toward the middle girl and says , “OK well we’ll leave now and I hope you have a good time at the show. And, like, we’ll just tell everyone that we all went, that way there wont be any conflicts like oh my god what if Jason finds out I didn’t go and so it’ll just be, like, easier that way, you know? OK! Well have fun, meet some people or something!” Then the two girls left, leaving the one stranded to stand in the middle of a crowd of taller people she wouldn’t dare talk to for fear of spontaneous vomit, while a band she doesn’t even know why she likes plays on and she can’t even see them. I almost shed a tear for her.

Actually, no, I didn’t.

I made my way inside, found a comfortable spot on the floor behind some people actually taller than myself, and made an oath to stand my ground and not let any fucking hipster brat push his way in front of me. (A task that is nearly impossible, I found out later.) I eyeballed the crowd as menacingly as possible, which, for me, is not menacingly at all.

Soon enough, a group of three girls and two guys walked out on stage, chanting something that I can’t quite remember, perhaps to the effect of, “WE DON’T GIVE A FUCK!” to a killer beat that I could feel deep in my chest unlike anything I felt before in my life. It became clear that the woman in the pink shirt was creating this beat with her feet… HER FEET! She was tap dancing! TAP DANCING! It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen in my life.

I was transfixed. Utterly in awe. This was Tilly and the Wall, and now they own my very soul, or at least very small pieces of very specific parts of me.

I don’t know how to describe Tilly and the Wall in terms that could even begin to demonstrate the sheer beauty of them, so maybe I wont really try.

I will tell you one thing though, I couldn’t pull my attention away from Jamie Williams. There was something so incredible about her, the fact that (what I felt at the time) the core unique sound of the band that had me amazed was practically coming from her alone, up on stage with her arms out stretched, bouncing around, tearing off a seemingly continual stream of duct tape with her teeth every time her shoes would break (which was often, but it didn’t detract from the band at all), the nearly constant smile on her face regardless, the shouting of the words to every song, and the feeling that a lot of the time she was looking right at me (which is usually mostly a illusion, but fuck it, I don’t care!)

Regardless, when Tilly and the Wall finally left the stage after rocking me down to the marrow in my bones, Kianna, Neely, Derek & Nick each took a tiny bit of my brain with them, and Jamie took a pretty large chunk of my heart.

I could have left after that and felt completely satisfied.

After they left the stage and it was made apparent that Now It’s Overhead was still on their way here from Cincinnati, I knew I had to go get some Tilly schwag, otherwise I would feel like I was doing a great disservice to a group that blew my head open like that. I went up to the counter to find Derek sitting behind their schwag talking to some guy. I sort of wedged my way in there, saw a t-shirt, two stickers, a CD and some vinyl. I asked him for the shirt in medium and the disk, then grabbed a sticker, and handed him the mere $21 for them.

I said, “You guys were absolutely incredible.”

“Thanks!” he said.

“Yeah,” and this is Brad sticking his foot in his mouth, “I didn’t expect you guys to be so amazing,” and this is Brad trying to save himself, “But you guys kick so much ass.”

“Oh, wow, thanks,” he said again.

Then, I turned and walked away from the counter.

Realizing that I really need to begin doing what I really mean to, I turned back to him. “Could I possibly convince you all to sign this if I asked nice enough?”

“Oh yeah, of course!”

One of the girls next to him opened the CD for me with a lighter after I fumbled with it for a bit. Derek pulled out a silver sharpie and signed the disc jacket, then handed it off to Nick for him to sign. The girls were no where in sight, I asked him where the rest of them were and he motioned out to the crowd, “Probably out there somewhere!” Right as he said that, Kianna walked up and she signed as well. After that I walked off through the crowd to find the other two girls.

I found Jamie over behind one of the barricades talking to someone. I ran back over to Derek and asked if I could borrow the sharpie, he handed it to me. I walked back to Jamie, played slick and leaned up against the barricade and over to her, “I know it’s pretty dark over here, but could I get you to sign this?”

“Oh yeah, sure, hope I don’t sign over anyone else’s name…”

“I don’t think anyone signed up near the top, that’d probably work.”

She signed it, and I added in, “You guys rock,” and I should have said, “And I utterly love you, will you marry me?” But, I didn’t.

Neely with sitting behind her eating something and, for whatever stupid reason, I didn’t ask Jamie to get her to sign the disc jacket. I feel like a bit of a moron for that, but what can you do?

Now It’s Overhead was late, so Rilo Kiley sent up a friend of theirs, whose name I can’t remember for the life of me. He was really good, he had some funny moments with the audience. Someone shouted out “TUPAC LIVES!” he replied, “Maybe so…” and then a few seconds later, “Wait, what does that have to do with anything??”

Or, “OK, this will be my last song, I guess… After this you guys can go around and meet each other and work out your My Space profiles and all,” crowd full of losers laugh, “oh, oh, yeah, I said it!” It was pretty comedy.

Finally, after he played a longer set than Tilly did, it seemed, he walked off stage. Something like half an hour later Now It’s Overhead showed up. They were awesome, I’ll admit, they were right up there with Tilly on the awesome scale. They have a really amazing epic sound, they just feel larger than they really are, amazing keyboard and sample work, really good stuff. I recommend checking them out, as well.

Finally, the roadies for Rilo came out and started setting up for them. This is where what I would like to call “the surge of teenage stupidity” pressed itself toward the stage all at once. It was almost like a little flood of retardation all around me, all these hipped out teenage poseurs pressing their way toward the stage, as if being packed like sardines in a box around the stage would some how make the show any better. I stood my ground, and wound up with an older guy next to me who looked just as pissed off as I was that all these fucking kids with no respect for anything were at the show. (He actually turned around and worked his way out of the crowd about three songs into Rilo’s set.)

There was a post on a Rilo Kiley forum from a fan, ranting that he’d never go to another Rilo Kiley show because the crowd they attract now is so young and stupid that they have no concept of show etiquette. They all stand back and talk to each other during the openers, but once they see the slightest hint that Rilo will be on, they all surge forward, going “MORE MORE MORE!” like the closer to Jenny they get, the better the show will be. They will push past you like you don’t mean shit, if you have the slightest amount of space in front of you, (I had some girl shove past me to wedge herself right up against my crotch because she spied approximately half an inch of space between the tips of my shoes and the heels of the person in front of me), just so they can fucking stand there during the show and gawk.

Sure, I can understand, maybe bouncing around and dancing to Rilo Kiley is a bit much, I’ll admit this, but what is the goddamn point of shoving yourself all the way right up to the stage so you can stand there and stare at everyone and make sure no one is looking at you like you might not be as cool as you hope you are? There was one kid all the way up front who did that the whole show, he kept looking around and eyeballing the crowd with this scared look on his face, his mind was obviously eighteen thousand miles away from the stage but, no, his body had to be there. “OMG I WAS ONE FOOT AWAY FROM JENNY! SHE LOOKED AT ME AND SMILED!” he is saying right now at school, among his fellow freshman hipster rejects, as they all coo and purr at his feet in sheer admiration of his pure coolness.

Needless to say, half way through the set, with my back hurting, I almost left. I kept telling myself, oh, it’ll only be another half an hour. My back hurt, I wanted to sit down, but I didn’t want to give these kids another inch of space to pack themselves into like shrink wrapped ground stupidity. I stood my ground and suffered through the full Rilo Kiley set.

“Suffered? Rilo Kiley??” you ask. Yes, I suffered through Rilo Kiley. I will be honest here, and I will say that I was honestly really disappointed in Rilo Kiley’s performance. Even if you factor out my back pain, my nearly crippling disgust at the majority of the crowd, and the absolutely awful sound quality the venue had for them (nearly constant feedback from the mic on, which Blake looked nearly constantly pissed off about through the entire set), it was still fairly disappointing for me.

Why? Well, I’m not sure. I think it was a combination of the fact that two really utterly amazing bands I’d never heard before opened for them, and that Rilo Kiley, for all intents and purposes, sound exactly like they do live as they do on their albums. I can’t really say thats a bad thing, right? Well, I guess I am. Rilo didn’t offer me anything new or interesting. Rarely did anyone talk during the set, aside from a few muttered angry sounding lines from Blake, which were comedy gold at times, and there weren’t any creative or interesting moments. They played the songs I wanted to hear, I admit, and the best part of the show was ending with With Arms Outstretched and bringing a ton of people on stage (including members of Tilly and roadies) to sing the chorus a capella with the audience twice, but it left me wanting.

At one point, a few kids started shouting out (what I believe was) “Glendora!” to Blake, and he gave them a very pissed off look and waited a few minutes before saying, “I’m not going to play that.” He seemed honestly pretty pissed the whole show, but for all I know he always looks like that.

There was a really amazing very heavy and all out intro to The Execution of All Things that was one of the best parts of the show. The pre-encore ending was all out havoc as well which was really awesome, too.

After playing Ripcord to an overly enthusiastic crowd, Blake commented, “You guys like the goofy shit, don’t you? Shouting out for Glendora and then this… You guys might like this band called Barenaked Ladies, they have a song about, like, a chocolate chicken, and million dollars… and they’re Canadian, so they should be nice or something.” Jenny was making faces at him like, “Wow, dude, that’s harsh.” I thought it was pretty funny.

Toward the very end of the set, I think after More Adventurous, Blake ran up to the middle of the crowd and stage dove (regardless of the signs that said NO STAGE DIVING), quickly disappearing into the crowd and not so much crowd surfing. After getting back up on stage and grabbing his guitar, he commented, “I’ve never stage dove before, until I dove into that group of girls right there, and they fucking moved.”

Yeah that’s what happened when the majority of your audience are retarded teenage girls.

After Rilo ended, I left immediately and went to work, spinning the Tilly and the Wall disc in my car the whole way.

To summarize, Tilly and the Wall are incredible. Now It’s Overhead kick ass. Rilo Kiley offers nothing new live, aside from being a sure thing. The crowd Rilo Kiley attracts, however, are the worst crowd of people I could have ever conjured in my worst nightmares.

Enjoy! Check out Tilly and the Wall.

Update: Apparently you can download Tilly and the Wall’s debut album for free over at team love legally. Enjoy!