I left my office and hauled ass to the L train at 14th Street. It was about 5:30 or 6pm at this point, the height of rush hour. I walk down to the crowded platform and towards the end of the train. On the huge map I spot a white envelope with writing on it. I'm a curious bloke so I walk over to see what we've got. On the envelope in black ink I read:
Free tix to OK GO! (Sold Out Show) tonight...I can't go. You go, OK go! Please take if you're going to show. DO NOT RESELL - CheersOn the back it also said, "Good Karma. I [heart] Brooklyn." By now at least 50 people must have seen this envelope but thanks to Giuliani's many years of scaring the living shit out of people no one touched it. Surely, it must be Anthrax or something, right? But fuck it, I'll bite.
I grabbed the envelope and held it up to the light - looks like tix to me. I opened the envelope and there they were, sure as shit, four tickets to OK GO. I would be lying if I said I didn't
think about selling them. I mean, they were $20 each, the show was sold out and I already had plans. But fucking karma, man.
So I made the decision to pull an old school Brooklyn Ski Club and hit both shows. Yeah, sure it kinda sucks rushing back and forth but I used to do it every night. I sent out a ton of text messages and blew up Twitter and Facebook: "Anybody want 2 free tix to the sold out OK Go show? Free." Crickets.
Seriously, not one person was down to go. After about an hour of waiting I finally heard back from a friend who happened to be around the corner at Bruar Falls. At this point me and the misses were having drinks at Knitting Factory, which by the way is super cheap to drink at ($3 beers & $3 Bacardi Gold drinks...score!).
We were trying to figure out when OK GO was going on and when Black Lips were due up. Thanks to Twitter we realized that OK GO would be up before Black Lips so we finished up our round and headed to Music Hall. OK GO came on about 10 minutes after we arrived. I'm not much of an OK GO fan but as a marketing dude I have some respect for them (they've mastered the viral video).
The show started with a blast of confetti which rained down on the crowd. The place was packed and everyone went nuts, it was a great way to get started. While OK GO did their thing I kept checking Twitter to see what was up with the Lips. The original plan was to catch about half of each bands sets. Well, after about four or five OK GO songs we decided that maybe we'll just go see Black Lips. Our friends who we gave the other two tix to stayed at OK GO, they're bigger fans then we are and they also didn't RSVP for Black Lips.
It's not so much that OK GO were bad, they were actually better then I expected, musically. The thing is they're super gimmicky. They were doing some internet broadcast and had special mic cameras set up. The cameras were projecting online and also on a huge screen behind the band. The confetti kept on coming and it was just a big to-do. I'm all for a good stage show but when the music doesn't hold up it all seems a little silly.
Meanwhile, I get word that the Black Lips are about to hit the stage. So we told our friends so long and headed back to Knitting Factory. We made a quick pit stop at the taco truck on Bedford, which is fucking aces by the way. When we got back the Knitting Factory the band had just started. We grabbed a couple drinks and headed into the show.
The whole damn place was already going crazy by the time we arrived. Beer was flying through the air, people were jumping off the stage and half the crowd was dancing. It was the complete opposite of the OK GO show and we were very happy with the decision we made. Frankly, we weren't sure about leaving but after 30 seconds of Black Lips it was very clear this is where we belonged.
The set included some of my favorites like, "Katrina," "Bad Kids," and "Cold Hands." The place wasn't nearly as packed as I was expecting but the kids that were there were going apeshit. As always the Black Lips were fantastic. After the show everyone headed over to the old Hope Lounge for the after party. I was pretty hammered at this point and didn't stick around very long.
Overall, the night was a blast! I don't know why someone would stuff $80+ dollars worth of concert tix in an envelope and leave it on a subway platform but...um, thanks! Was I part of some kind of social experiment to see if the tix would wind up for sale on Craigslist? Maybe. Either way I got lucky and had a killer night.
How was Bruar Falls?
1 comment:
I stumbled upon this somehow and was intrigued enough to read the whole thing. Sounds rad, your blog doesn't suck.
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