i feel weird about going to see jonathan richman 3 nights in a row. especially because i ended up standing in approximately the same place at/near the front each night. like i was becoming one of those creepy guys that goes to shows alot and stares and is greasy and shit. i don't want to become one of those guys.

it was also a bizzare night. the other two shows were pretty laid back, fun, and not really really crowded or really really hot. which is weird becuse all 3 sold out.

anyway dengue fever opened. i think they set the bizzare/opressive tone for the evening:
1) just before they started to play, one of the afforementioned guys (greasy, wearing all black but not in a stylish way, more a stagehand/programmer sort of way, long hair to shoulders but badly balding, did i mention greasy?, alone, sweating, and with a multi-pack of earplus that he's had and reused since 1987) comes up and stands directly in between the group of 4 people I was part of, and we have to look at each other and sort of mouth to each other "hey should i come over there, do you want to come over here?" for a bit, and it took a while to decide my group of two would join the other group of two to this guy's right, on the side of the stage, and he deffinitely noticed, and i think he got offended in the quiet "i know i'm creepy but i didn't think i was so creepy that you'd move away" sort of way, but dude, if you're reading this, I'm sorry, but you were pretty creepy.

2. it was a pretty tall crowd. i have no way to explain this. maybe it's because the dengue fever bassist is like 6'8" and he's part of a tall pride support group that comes out to see him every show. i don't know. but i'm short, and i ended up directly behind one of 5 or 6 people there that were above 6 feet. tallness is not bad in this context, just weird.

3. the singer for dengue fever is an incredibly attractive vietnamese girl.. she looks like an erotic ceramic doll. maybe this is why the front 3 rows of the crowd were all sketchy guys by themselves. including one guy directly in front who must have taken 150 pictures during the 40 minute set. like this band was breaking news and he worked for life magazine and was going to get an award for photojournalism because one of those shots would be perfect. but no he was just creepy standing there going 'click''click''click''click''click''click''click''click''click''click' the entire fucking time.

so jonathan richman goes on. the weird/opressive atmosphere continues:

4. it's really hot....and really packed. so everyone's so close together that it's difficult to clap during or after songs or even get into it at all. so people are reduced to standing and staring. weirdly quiet, and opressively hot and quiet. at times.

5. one of the aforementioned tall guys behind me was alternately heckling jonathan or singing all the words pretty poorly to his songs. wierd that he'd do both, opressive because he did it the whole time, and it was also pretty quiet in there (see above, and also it was an acoustic performance in a small space so it was naturally quiet so people could hear, so everyone could hear him going off, and everyone knew that jonathan could hear him going off, and at least i felt bad for mr. richman, and i bet other people did too).

more later.