HOT LESBIAN ACTION!!!

I saw Weezer at the Roseland Ballroom on Wednesday. Hell, I didn't even know they were playing New York, but Kosar Bishop hooked me up with some sweet tickets. Well, one sweet ticket. More would have been redundant.

I'd never really been to a rock concert, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I was like, "Yeah, maybe we should be there half an hour early or whatever." We got there at 5:00. The doors were set to open at 6:45. Line was around three corners of the block when I got there. Weezer's person guy was there. I don't know his name or his job, but he goes around with a video camera and videotapes the fans. It was cool.

Anyway, the doors finally opened after an hour and 45 minutes and we came teeming in like insect metaphors. I don't know how many kids there were, maybe two, maybe three thousand. I can't really count things, so I don't know. But I was unsurprised to notice that they all seemed to have very similar tastes in fashion. Pretty stereotypical kind of emo, which I can't really describe. So I kind of fail as a journalist here. Just imagine whatever you would imagine and that's probably about right.

After getting searched for professional recording equipment and pausing to let Kosar buy an overpriced T-shirt, we bum rushed the stage, the way bums do. Got to within about 15-20 feet of it too. About 200 people were compressed into the remaining 15-20 feet, which I thought was pretty impressive. As we continued to wait, teenagers from all over just kept pouring in in a big way.

One thing I didn't really get about these rock shows is the monumental amount of time spent waiting for stuff to happen. After standing in line for an hour and 45 minutes, which probably isn't that long compared to other lines or whatever I don't care, we waited another hour and some amount waiting for the opening band, not Weezer mind you, but the opening band to start playing. Of course, by then, we didn't really care who was playing as long as it was someone, and I don't think I was the only one chanting, "We want Ringside, we want Ringside!"

We were pretty bored and my Gameboy was low on batteries. And I didn't have it with me, having paid $6 to give my backpack to some irritable coat check ladies. To pass the time, we fantasized about sitting down—Roseland doesn't really have chairs, which, I guess, are a luxury at this kind of thing—talked about how we were going to kick Rivers Cuomo's ass for delaying the band, and smacking around a number of inflated condoms that they were passing out when we entered the building. I don't really know why they were handing out free condoms. I guess we were packed together really tightly and under some improbable but quite possible circumstances, people might get into situations where they were kind of, accidentally, having sex. But even that got boring pretty quickly because the condoms popped pretty quickly, which isn't really a testament to their reliability.

Anyway, this band Ringside comes out and the guy sings some angsty song and everyone cheers because they are already very tired and desperate. After six or seven songs, the applause is pretty weak and it's pretty sad. It's not that they were even particularly bad, but no one wants to see the opening band, unless they're a big name too. Being the opening act is just a terrible, terrible thing to do. People will hate you for existing and wasting there precious hours. After Ringside finished up their sordid programme, we waited another 45 minutes or an hour. We began to doubt that Weezer was even coming and made numerous asenine jokes about Rivers Cuomo, but who can blame us. Kosar said that if they didn't bring out the big =w= soon he was going to demand his money back. And then, of course, they came.

There was Rivers walking on in his suit or whatever it was and he picked up the guitar, and there was Pat and Brian and that other guy! Scott? It was pretty awesome. When Weezer came on there was a massive surge and the crowd halved its volume as gallons of scattered hormones synchronized and synthesized themselves into a massive, pulsating swamp of flesh and sweat. It was awesome. I felt like part of a jungle.

They opened with My Name is Jonas, and the air filled with the sound of two thousand voices unified into a single entity. When they finished, hundreds of hands raised into the air to form the =w=, the symbol of allegiance to the band. Behind them, the giant =w='s lightbulbs flashed wildly.

I know what you're thinking: I did kind of feel like I was at a Hitler Youth rally. There is just something frighteningly powerful about a band's ability to mobilize hundreds, thousands of impressionable teens. Think about it. We're all chanting the same words, we have a special sign that we make frequently and emphatically while caught up in a fervor of hysterical passion. I always thought that =w= looked kind of Fascistic. Fortunately, Rivers Cuomo is hardly the next Adolf Hitler. Keep in mind that Hitler was an unsuccessful artist and he had a lot more charisma than Rivers.

Which was probably the major problem about this concert. Weezer isn't really in touch with the audience. Yeah, the bassist, I guess that's Scott, he kind of smiled towards the audience sometimes and threw some stuff at us, but there was really a kind of invisible wall between the band and the audience. You would think that hundreds of rabid, screaming fans would have some effect on the frontman, on Cuomo, but sure enough he got out there, planted his feet on the ground, and didn't take another step. He never addressed the crowd except to mutter, "Thanks. You guys are the best."

My theory is that he hasn't felt the need to adapt his performance since he was a pimple-faced teenager getting up at open mics, uncrumpling a balled up sheet of looseleaf paper and announcing, "Hi, my name is Rivers Cuomo, and I wrote... I've got a couple songs that I'd like to perform."

But all problems aside, it was a lot of fun. We did all the stuff you do at rock concerts. We screamed along to pretty much everything anyone knew the words to, smoked (or in my case, recognized the odor of) some fine Jamaican herb, there was even some light mosh pit work. Every once in a while, some brave youngster floated on the Dead Sea of arms and shoulders below him. For the occasional quiet-down song, there was swaying and lighter waving, plus the unfortunate new technique of waving a backlit cell phone back and forth like it's even the same thing. But if the cell phone were on fire, that would be like, a kickass statement.

As this was my first concert, I felt kind of self-conscious sometimes. Like, I always seemed to be out of sync with all the other guys that were jumping up and down. I didn't want to be the only guy going up when all the other two thousand kids were crouching and snickering at my neophytism. I think I was also swaying in the wrong direction sometimes and it was embarassing because I had to pause and then jump into a sway when it was gonig my way, like in double dutch.

So, the concert closed around 10:30 and I went back to get my bag. At baggage check counter 4, which didn't have a line I asked, "Which of the two counters to my right should I go to?" He looked at my ticket and said, "The second one over," to which I replied, "Four or five?" "The second one over!" he said. So, I guess the morale of this story... is very low.

After about five hours standing, my legs were pretty sore. They still are. It's probably good for me in some way. I just hope I didn't get a disease from someone else's sweat, because it was everywhere.


Nicky


MY E-MAIL! Okayeahwhatever@yahoo.com.
AIM: Jake Aimer

For those interested, here are some of the songs they played on Wednesday:

My Name is Jonas
Buddy Holly
In the Garage
Say it Ain't So
Getchoo
Tired of Sex
Hash Pipe
Island in the Sun
Undone (The Sweater Song)
Beverly Hills
We Are All on Drugs

There were others that I don't remember right now, but if you name one I can tell you if they played it.