I have been looking forward to the Ray Lamontagne show tonight for quite some time now. He was playing at the Iota Club in Arlington, which is a teensy little low-key cafe type place. The catch is, it doesn't even sell tickets in advance. (Can you see where this story is going?) It was one of those situations in which you could not properly assess your level of preparation until it was too late. I arrived on the scene early, a few hours before anything went down, and the club looked pretty deserted save a couple random dudes at the bar. I figured Becca, Pepper and I had time to grab a quick dinner before the show. When we finished about an hour later, there was a line stretched a few blocks down outside the club. Pepper and I guesstimated about 55-60, but Becca's more accurate count showed about 80 or so. In any case, it didn't matter because there seemed to already be people in the club, so they weren't letting many in from the line at all. A while later, some guy came out and announced that the show was sold out, so almost immediately the 80+ people in front of us disappeared, and we found ourselves first in line, standing outside the door of the club with a few others behind us. We were the ones in denial. After peering in desperately and trying to figure out what was going on, we were told over and over again that there was no chance. We tried talking to all the pushy dudes who worked there and even making up fun reasons why we should be let in (Pepper was here for the Ray look-alike contest), but in the end, it wasn't meant to be. We finally gave up after about 6 people on the "list" were let in into the already-packed-potential-fire-hazard room. We walked away with our heads down, our toes frozen, and large frowns. Boo.
We knew we couldn't go home after that whole experience, so I thought we could go catch a movie to try and redeem the evening (ok, not redeem but at least try to lift our spirits). We caught a viewing of Closer, but this didn't turn out to be the key to success. It wasn't exactly what I thought it was going to be. Ok, I didn't quite get it, either, so that could have been it. It was kind of a downer, too, if you want me to be honest. We did have Jude and the ever brief clip of Damien Rice's music, but... it wasn't quite a Ray Lamontagne show.
(You know what's weird though? When you miss something, as in... you didn't see it, you didn't watch it, you didn't hear it, whatever.. you can only be bummed to a certain extent because you will never know what exactly you missed, no matter how much someone tries to convey it to you. I mean, clearly I'm disappointed and sad about tonight, and I'm sure the show was awesome as anyone who was there will tell me, but at the end of the day, since I didn't get to experience a lick of that, it will all be kind of trivial in a little while. Ah, there you go Pouy, perspective, nice...)
The good news (or bad news, however you want to look at it) is that tomorrow we get to try again. That's right, after all the horror and rejection, Becca, Pepper and I are headed back to the Iota Club tomorrow evening to try and catch Colin Meloy (of the Decemberists) in a solo show. You can bet we'll be arriving nice and early and killing just as much time as we need to. It just sucks that you need a night like tonight to get yourself all psycho like that. I'm kinda disappointed in myself, actually. I'm usually anal enough to be on top of these things so that I'm not left out in the cold, but tonight just didn't work out. If anything, I hope that Ray's people saw that he was way too big for this tiny place and book him to come back soon, and to a bigger venue. I think the issue this time was that they thought he was too small for 9:30 and this was the next closest and available thing. Not so, friends! He could have easily filled up 9:30... if not this time, then definitely next time he rolls through town. If you haven't heard of him yet, you've heard of him now, folks!
Some quick pics:
Still hopeful... (Pepper really does look like Ray)
...But this is as close as I got tonight... literally peering in through the front door:
Ok, I'm off to bed. Updates on Iota Club Part II to follow...
P.S. Happy Birthday, Becca!
Current Music: Trouble, by Ray Lamontagne (I know, how sad. I have his Conan performance from last night taped, and I actually considered just watching that a few times on repeat...)
Current Mood: bummed and disappointed and tired
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