Note: This was written in 2002, but it provides a base for this blog
The easiest way to pick out a dork at a rock and roll concert is to discover and then admit that you are in fact that dork – Julia Child
The hipness at a Sleater-Kinney concert suffocates me. Wearing a sweatshirt, jeans and sneakers, and drinking a fruity beer, I reek of dorkitude. I feel like I’m in The Gap, and everyone is looking at me because I’ve fallen down and am wearing nothing but a Dickie and a pair of lavender knickers. Feeling self-conscious about my lack of style hinders me from being suave, mildly interesting, or even remotely coherent.
“Matt, this is Jenny,” says my cousin Kevin, introducing me to yet another of his twenty-something co-workers.
“Uh um ah glad um hi,” I say. That’s one of my high points. I follow up that conversation with a winning sequence of tripping down the stairs, spilling my beer, and missing the trash can when I attempt to throw away my beer cup from two feet away.
I felt like a dweeb 20 minutes ago, and I’ve since digressed.
“I feel really old,” I say to my cousin Kevin.
“Really?” he says. Kevin is surprised. Even though he is two years older than me, he doesn’t share my complex.
I shouldn’t feel uncool, I think to myself. I’ve probably been to over dozens upon dozens upon dozens of such concerts and I usually feel fine. But looking at audience members sway, jerk and gyrate to the inconsequential opening band, I feel clumsy and out of place. It doesn’t help that I can’t dance. I couldn’t dance when I went to concerts in the early 90s either, but it didn’t matter then because at least I could bounce. And all you had to do 10 years ago was bounce. Imitating a pogo stick to the beat isn’t hard. So I, wearing my baggy jeans and my “Good Art Won’t Match Your Sofa” T-shirt, always blended in the throng of springboarding co-eds.
Bouncing isn’t out of vogue. People still do it. But I can’t bounce anymore these days. Hell, I can’t even sway. All I can do at concerts is stand there and occasionally shift my weight from one foot to the other. And that’s not even to the beat. When one foot gets tired, I shift my weight. It’s not a dance move. It’s really just one step up from comatose.
I look at my watch, and shift my weight to the left foot. I feel like a chaperone without the responsibility. The opening band finishes and I wait, trying my best to tolerate myself. When Sleater-Kinney finally comes out, the audience cheers and I feel my usual concert rush. The first riff hits me with a chord full of self-esteem.
I deserve to be here, I guess. I own three Sleater-Kinney albums. This is my third time seeing the trio live. It’s not like I’m a guy who just name drops Sleater-Kinney because the band carries a hip-quotient buzz. I don’t go around to people at parties saying “hey, do you have the new S-K album?” And I don’t wear Sleater-Kinney shirts to pubs just to prove that I know the critical darlings of the Northwest music scene. I’m not like that girl Trudy that I met upstairs in the beer line. She like hadn’t ever like heard of the band but like she like just heard that like everyone was like going and like didn’t want to like be left out even though she didn’t like know what the band like sounded like but who like didn’t like sound like good like after like four beers anyway?
Thirty minutes into the show I feel empowered, sassy, with a hint of repressed anger. If I bleached my hair, put on a leather jacket and curled my upper lip, I’d be Billy fucking Idol. Hell, I’m only 29. That’s not old. That’s not even 30. The guy in front of me looks at least seven years younger, but he’s wearing ear plugs. Wuss. And then Kevin taps me and points to the guy next to us.
“He’s older,” Kevin yells over the music. Indeed. This guy’s hairline is receding but he has let his remaining hair in the back grow down to his shoulders. He’s gotta be 48. Maybe even 70. He tilts his head back and grooves to the music, jerking his shoulders up and down and looking up at the ceiling with his red eyes, which changed colors after he blazed up 10 minutes ago.
“All the older people are up there,” Kevin yells again, pointing to the balcony. I look up and sure enough, all of the 30-ish types are up there, sitting down in the handful of chairs.
But I’m down on the floor. And I’m smiling. And not just shifting my weight.
I’m tapping.
And bobbing.
And to my surprise, I can even shimmy.
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