A Month of Concerts

I miss writing. But perhaps it's a good sign that I've been too busy living my life rather than writing about it. That being said, time has been sucked up by work (of course), a new Facebook addiction, tons of concerts, and the continuing celebration of birthday dinners.

Last night, Polar Opposite, Jigaho, a group of other friends and I hit up the Rilo Kiley concert. The Santa Monica Civic Auditorium doesn't have the best acoustics but Jenny Lewis's sweet sultry voice still rang through loud and clear. Though there were eight of us, some chose to make their way to the front of the crowd, some stood in the back and the rest of us lazy old people chose to enjoy the mellow music sitting down way in the back. Inevitably, some tall guy with a big head blocked my line of sight, so I did stand for most of the concert. Sadly, my back started aching. Gotta love the thirties...

Tonight, one of my coworkers had an extra ticket to Jimmy Eat World at the Wiltern. Tired as I was, I'm always game to attend a concert if someone needs a friend to go with. So off I went to another night of music. Luckily, their music is more on the rock side which helped me stay awake. It also helped that we had seats in the balcony and I could still sit and see everything even with everyone standing up the whole time.

Both concerts took me down memory lane as it was the second time I was watching both bands. Both came out with albums and had concerts about two to three years ago, a not so good time for me.

I remember seeing Rilo Kiley for the first time on the night of Halloween 2004, the same day in which I said my final goodbye to the "surly" guy. That night, Rilo Kiley's quirky and poignant songs about bad relationships, such as the song below, couldn't have been more apropos and I've been in love with the band ever since.



With Jimmy Eat World, the Boy loved this band but wouldn't go to the concert with me, citing the excuse that their newer music wasn't as good. Whatever. I ended up going with M. Night and My Favorite Loner, both of whom I sadly and rarely hang out with now. In the end, I actually enjoyed both concerts and felt truly optimistic about where I am at this point in my life. It took that walk down memory lane to show me what a long way I've come.

There will be half a dozen more concerts coming up this month and next - all relatively newer bands I'll be seeing for the first time. It's going to be exhausting but I can't wait!