never knows best...

dry as toast

Snuck out to see Mono in concert last night at Lobot Gallery in Oakland while being on call. Thankfully no pages. My contingency plan if I did was to drive over to teh Emeryville Barnes and Noble or Starbucks or something and try to get set up on the internet there.

As always with new areas, I got pretty lost trying to get there. I should really learn and write down better directions with more indicators of nearby cross streets. But, stopping off at a gas station was close enough to useful enough, so I still got there.

And I didn't even really care about late, seeing as how it is a good thing I got there pretty late at ~10 PM (doors opened at 8:30 according to the site) cause I still had to stand through more than an hour of crappy music before getting to crowd up and watch Mono perform.

I literally got to be like 5' away from the band. I was in the second row of people, standing mostly behind a guy on a stool, so I got a good view. In general I hate people that crowd up to the front and block other people's view, especially if they are tall, but I made an exception for last night, and selfishly crowded up close (besides I'm not really that tall and I stand in place, no swaying or moving around for me). Performance was great as last time, it was nice to be able to see up close the passion I believe they put into their music.

The only problems with the venue as compared to Bottom of the Hill was that people didn't seem to really care that the band was playing, fine for crap like Tarantel, but I want near silence for Mono, and that they overlook California's many, many no public smoking laws. It's the first time since being in Charlotte that my clothes and I reeked of smoke. Lobot Gallery is a pretty sad excuse for an art gallery too, $2 Pabst Blue Ribbon and 6 or so different exhibits, but it works well enough as a music venue.

But yes, Mono great as usual, and definitely worth it. I got a couple free posters out of it too, so I'm a happy camper. Might go to Lobot again (if there ever is anything interesting there again) just cause it's in Oakland (yay! no toll) and because they let you get to be so close.

And I am learning, hopefully no more tinnitus (or more severe tinnitus) for me when I go armed with my ear plugs.

So the plan for the weekend (time and issues permitting): Saturday night Asobi Seksu at Hotel Utah; Sunday night The Pillows + et al at Club Z. 3 nights of Japanese stuff... not exactly sure how that turned out.