PTSD

One of these days, I'm going to follow through.

The interesting thing about concerts in DC is that, like the residents, almost no one who plays a show is *from* here.

I'm not saying that this is a bad thing. As you may have noticed, Priya and I (separately, although we did meet up briefly a couple of times) went to tonight's Great Big Sea concert at the Warner.

GBS are not from DC. They are (big surprise to those of you who know me) Canadian. And their show was possible the best one I've seen since moving to the city.

I say that even though I saw BNL (no, I don't know why Canadian bands give themselves long names and then shorten them to initials. Must be something to do with curling) here a couple of years ago. I love Ed and Steve, but this show? Was better.

However, that is not the point of this post. Other than a not-at-all subliminal message to go see them and to eat more poutine, I'm not talking about the concert.

What I learned tonight was that my inability to talk to people I think are completely brilliant at what they do (see previous whining about conferences and such) extends to bands. Even bands I've been listening to for a very long time.

Perhaps especially those bands.

I sat with a friend just two tables away from the guys from Great Big Sea, drinking beer and not-so-covertly watching the band (Great Big Sea, people. Not BNL. Try to keep up), and was totally unable to think of a way to walk up to them and say anything about how good the show was, and how I spent the week getting my parents properly hooked on the music so that I could bring them along (because the other option was to leave them at the hotel, since I wasn't going to miss it). For an hour. An hour, people, and I had on great shoes and a great top that did very nice things for my cleavage.

My hair was endearingly spiky, too. I was in rare form, and if ever I were to introduce myself to random people and offer to buy them a drink, it should have been tonight.

I wanted to ask for a photo, but every time I thought about it, I also thought about how much I dread running into students outside the campus setting.

For a musician, I would expect that the need to have something (like dinner or drinks at a local bar) that didn't involve an audience would be much, much greater.

So I didn't walk over, and I didn't buy a round of drinks (although the waitress presumably got a pretty good tip from us, because I also don't seem to have picked up my change from the table before we left) and I didn't tell anyone about my Stan Rogers fixation.

Because you all know how well that went last time.

Now watch. As with many bands I have loved, they're going to promptly become famous (which would be wonderful) and start playing big venues and I'll have missed my chance to meet them.

Although I did manage to joke around with one of the guys working to get the bus loaded and parked up the street. So I suppose the sum total of my interaction with Great Big Sea amounts to snarking at a roadie.

And it was entirely my own fault.

Labels: celebrity not-so-close encounters, music

posted by Elizabeth @ 2:05 AM