Light blogging is for wimps

This last Wednsday William and I drove up to Greensboro after work to see a band called the Constantines play at an awesome little club called Ace's Basement.

First the club. Ace's Basement is located in the basement of a scary old hotel near the Greensboro Coliseum. The hotel is one of the L-shaped hotels that looks like it was built in the 1960's. Judging by the customers of the hotel it houses a lot of transient construction workers and just plain ole transients. Our initial reaction to the hotel didn't inspire in us much hope for the club itself. We were very surprised. Whoever owns Ace's Basement obviously put a lot of thought, work and money into it. The stage is stuck in the corner and is about one foot high. Directly across from the stage is a nice long bar with plenty of stools for us old people to sit on. To the left of the stage is the soundboard. There are also three remotely controlled digital cameras stationed to the left, right and front of the stage. They are used to broadcast the perfromance on three televisions stationed around the club. In between bands they displayed previous bands performances at the club. Pretty cool, I thought. I would very much like to attend another show at this nice little venue. Also, I was the oldest customer. This is starting to become a trend as I attend shows in small clubs.

Recently I have started to notice that when I attend the occasional performance by a newer young band at a club like Ace's or Tremont that I have started to become, if not the oldest person there, then in the top ten. It reminds me of my earlier days in Charlotte when I was in my early 20's. I used to notice an older guy at all the good shows. He was in his 40's and had a been long beard and glasses. He looked like he could have been an English professor or a pot dealer or both. He was never there trying to make the scene and was attempting to be cool. He was just there to see good music. I noticed he was always very into the band that was playing and always stood on the outer fringe of the crowd. I remember thinking that I hoped when I got to be his age that I would still be willing to take a chance and go out and hear new music and not end up stuck in a rut and just listening to my old records. I'm approaching 40 now and I am willing to be the old guy at the club. I'll stay out of the way and ejoy the tunes.

The Constantines were the second band of three. The headliner was band called Pretty Girls Make Graves. They were fronted by a punked out girl and William says their name is inspired by something by Keroauc. The Constantines were only onstage for a half hour which really disppointed me. But, man, did they throw down. I love seeing a young strong band like the Constantines. They played with such intensity that brought in most of the crowd about halfway through their set. I love when general interest evolves into enthusiasm when a great band plays their asses off. I read a review that said the Constantines were a combination of Fugazi and Bruce Springsteen. I thought they had some nice punky/Crazy Horse guitar interplay. I love shit like that. Kudos to the Constantines they are a great young band with a lot of intensity and I hope they come to Charlotte soon so I can badger a few of my friends to seeing them with me.