Sonic Youth

I always uneasy when I attend a show for the first time by a band I have been listening to for a long time. What if they blow then what do I do?

No problems here. Sonic Youth blew the roof off the Orange Peel last night. Shit, they actually played the song %100.

They were fantastic. At one point Thurston Moore climbed up on the speakers on the right side of the stage in front of me and lifted his guitar and rubbed it up and down on the speakers hanging over the stage. It was incredible. I cursed myself for not bringing my camera. I missed a great shot. Dammit to hell.

I don't really know what to say other than they exceeded all my expectations. During the middel part of the show I know I had big stupid grin on my face. It was thrilling at various spots and never boring.

For the first half of the show there was this cute little hippy couple dancing right in front of me who were obviously on some kind of hallucinogen. A couple of times when the band went in full-on freakout mode I wondered how they kept from tearing their faces off.

The show ended with twenty full minutes of noise and feedback. It was wonderful. I thought it was smart to end the show with that. A lot of people left at that point but those of us that stayed were digging the hell out of it. It was like having three Jimmy Pages beating the crap out of their guitars.

My friend Ingrid drove up from Greenville and we went and got dinner at a real nice veghead restaurant before the show. It's called the Laughing Seed and my dinner was delicious. As were walking out Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon were standing outside contemplating their dinner options. I didn't know it was them until we walked past them and Ingrid said, "Did you see who that was?" I had no idea Thurston Moore was so tall. He's taller than me and I am six feet tall.

In my hotel room the television had all the cable channels I don't have at home. It was kinda fun to surf around on real cable again. I came across that celebrity poker stuff on, I think, Bravo. What's up with Kids in the Haller Dave's hair? I got sucked into the show because Wanda Sykes was on. She kills me. She and Travis Tritt had some great banter going.

Once again the city of Asheville was a great host. I enjoyed walking around yesterday three seperate times. They had some live after five thing going on yesterday up by the big obelisk and I saw a couple of Charlotte musicians playing on stage that I am familiar with, Woody Mitchell and Tom Kuhn. They were playing in a nice blues rock band that had a few people dancing. What a cool city.