Ditching the Show

For the third time in my life, I'm ditching a concert for which I had already purchased a ticket. The first time, I had bought a ticket for a show featuring The Walkmen at the Glass House in Pomona, but after working an entire day in my office (at the time, I worked in an office doing subtitles...), I just didn't feel like driving out to Pomona. Oh well...

The second time, I had a ticket to see Morrissey at the Wiltern Theater. I was extremely excited to go see this show. But I felt incredibly ill on the day of the show. Incredibly. I went to work anyway, and put on a brave face all day, because I thought I could convince myself I wasn't too sick and could go see the Mozzer. But, alas, it was no good. I sold the ticket to my friend Steve, who went and had an amazing time.

Tonight, I have no excuse for not seeing The Fiery Furnaces at the Troubadour. I have a ticket. I love The Fiery Furnaces. The Troubadour isn't far away and I don't have a car. But I just don't feel like going.

I bought the ticket during a brief frenzy of ticket-buying after I won that screenplay contest. I've already attended the other shows for which I purchased seats - a performance by The Decemberists that was nothing short of mesmerizing, and that woeful KROQ Inland Invasion nightmare. From that experience, I have learned not to go on celebratory ticket-buying sprees, because you wind up getting tickets for a bunch of shows that, in retrospect, you really don't need to attend.

I'm not going to The Furnaces tonight because I don't have anyone to go with. When I bought to ticket during my little Ticketmaster bender, I assumed my friend Jason would go with me. I knew he was going to The Decemberists, and he had come with me to see The Furnaces once before (it was great), so I figured we'd go again. Alas, it turns out he has tickets to some other show happening tonight. I don't remember what band he's seeing...was it The Notwist? Maybe...Are they even still a band?

But I've had at least a few weeks advance notice that he wasn't seeing the show tonight, so I could have tried to convince someone to go with me. But I'm lazy. I think that much is perfectly clear from this entire anecdote.

Anyway, I've been to the Troubadour to see a show by myself once before. It was Mike Doughty's Band, right around the time Doughty totally sold out with that cheesedick adult contempo garbage on his latest album. Seriously, dude...You're the guy from Soul Coughing. Why do you want to be Dave Matthews Imitator #49582? Let David Gray and that idiot John Mayer ride Big Dave's coattails, and you get back to making actual music, okay? Deal?

The show was okay, although those songs just don't sound as good with an entire backing band as they do when Mike's just out there with an acoustic guitar. I know that's what they used to say about Bob Dylan when he played with the Butterfield Blues Band, but in 1966 they were wrong and now, I'm right.

I wound up getting kind of drunk at the Doughty show, because I didn't have anyone to talk to during the opening act or between sets, so I just drank beer. I never really realized how, when I'm usually in a bar, I'm sipping beer during lulls in the conversation. So when I have nobody to talk to, I wind up drinking a lot faster. Slugging, even. I think I had four or five beers by the time Mike himself took the stage, which is a lot for me to have in 90 minutes or so. So, yeah, I remember the show, but not terribly well. Fortunately, I had the entire 90 minute set to sober up.

So partly because I don't want a repeat of that scene, and partly because I don't feel all that guilty about wasting $20 that I paid on my credit card a month ago, and partly because my friend Matt from Chicago is in town tonight and I haven't seen him in ages, I'm ditching the Fiery Furnaces show. Sorry, kids.