a night out in the city

last week was a hectic one.  i went to work.  i came home.  i hardly wrote a word.  i read from the many books i have going right now.  watched a little TV.  spent time with my beloveds.  then on friday b. and i headed to s.f. to see slowdive in concert at the warfield.

b. picked me up around 5:00 pm at work.  we chose a slightly longer route.  past vallejo to hwy 37 toward mill valley where the plan was to have dinner at a small mexican restaurant that b. and his wife c. have been eating at for nearly 20 years. 

the traffic wasn't too bad.  a bit backed up on hwy 37.  i was concerned that we were running out of time.  the doors to the show opened at 8:00 pm.  slowdive takes the stage at 9:00 pm.  i don't know if there is an opening band. 

we got in to mill valley a little before 7:00 pm.  the restaurant was crowded but we got seated immediately.  we were fed, full and out to the city in no time. 

s.f. is a small city.  it is compact, but it is small.  you can walk thru it in just a couple of hours.  driving i think takes longer to get thru the city than it does to walk thru it.  maybe not but i love walking and san francisco is a great walking city. 

nevertheless, we were pressed for time.  we got to our hotel [a pretty skeezy kind of place, really, but it was clean] near cliff house and asked the front desk dude to call us a cab.  we just threw our bags in the room when the taxi pulled up.  we got to the warfield exactly at 8:00 pm. 

we took our place in the huge line.  the show sold out pretty early.  i was surprised there were so many fans as slowdive never developed into a recognizable brand.  the average age of the concertgoers was about late twenties.  so goddamned young!  the band broke up in 1994 and reformed this past summer.  still, it made my heart leap to see so many fans of my second favorite band.

we got in right after low, the opening band, took the stage.  i don't know them very well.  i do know they recorded the theme song, 'half-light', for the richard gere horror movie the mothman prophecies [2002] but that's really about all.  they were good, a little too lo-fi, i think, with great vocal harmonies.  the two singers of low have beautiful voices.

slowdive took the stage at 9:15 pm.  they started their set with the eponymous song 'slowdive'.  they were great.  i mean that in every sense of the word.  the band was tight.  the vocals of neil halstead and rachel goswell sounded fantastic.  they had a great strobe light show that accentuates the syncopation and soaring guitars.  and they were loud!  real loud.  louder than loud.  when they played 'catch the breeze' i didn't want that song to end.  same goes for '40 days' and 'allison'.  i didn't want the show to end. 

but end it must.  when slowdive left the stage and the houselights went up i looked at my watch.  it was five minutes to midnight.  slowdive played for nearly three hours!  this was one of the best shows i attended in a long time.

our ears were ringing.  it took a few minutes to get outside on account of the size of the crow.  the lobby of the warfield was decorated in orange and black with the s.f. giants logo in repeating patterns  a witch, also dressed in orange and black, in homage to both the newly passed high holiday of halloween, and the recent world series championship won by the giants, stood watch.

b. and i walked into the cool, refreshing air of market st.  we didn't hang with the crowd milling outside.  we hailed a cab and got back to the hotel in no time at all.  then b. and i decided that a few hours in the city was enough.  we wanted to return to our wives and children.  we decided to leave the skeezy hotel [it was cheap by s.f. standards] head back across the golden gate to hwy 37 back to sac.  i was in bed by 2:30 am with my ears ringing happy and exhausted.