So I was lucky enough to squeeze in to the sold out Irving and Silversun Pickups show last night, as a "crew member" (a title made laughable by my inability to describe Irving's van to the doorman, as well as my referral to
Brent's cymbal case as 'this thing'). But oh well. I had to show up at The Troubadour at 5pm, and then ended up staying till about 1 am, so it was quite an experience.
Let me just say that SSPU is one of my favorite bands so I was a little star-struck. (Okay, I was a nerd.) But they are pretty damn nice and good friends with Irving, so about an hour in, I was setting up merch right next to their drummer Christopher, and everything was cool.
Until, that is, I discovered that the merch bin Irving had given me to set up was completely devoid of t-shirts. So I asked the band and they said "Oh yeah, they're in the van, we'll get 'em later." After which I wandered off to eat (good ole Hamburger Haven), and returned to find members of both bands watching a basketball game in the front bar. A little while later, everyone was up in the dressing room near the sound booth, smoking up a storm (under the NO SMOKING sign), and struggling with the bottle opener, which was hooked to the wall at a strange angle. (Brian from SSPU stood there and mocked me while I tried to get it to work.)
Tigers Can Bite You showed up and chatted and ate the comp snacks - carrots and celery and dip. TCBY's Byron and Irving's
Aaron discussed whether or not carrots do improve your eyesight or if it was all a myth, perpetrated by the government during WWII. (I'm still on the fence.)
Then the doors were opened and TCBY went on, so I rushed down to keep an eye on Irving's merch table. Only to realize they still had no shirts. The band was waiting on
Brent and
Alex to return, assuming one of them had the keys. Of course, one girl came immediately up to Irving's table and asked what size shirts we had. I told her none. Just kidding, I asked her to please, please come back later! In no time, Tigers were done and Brent had returned, with every intention of going to the van for the t-shirts. As far as I know.
But then Irving had to set up, because they were on next. A phone call to Brent proved he never made it to the van - he was onstage already, setting up drums. So I ran out and climbed up on the side of the stage to ask Aaron for the keys, to get the shirts myself. At which point, he started to laugh and said he was sorry, but they had lost the keys. !!?@#
Musicians, man.
So Irving went on! It was "If You Say Jump, I Will Say No", one of my favorites! ...But there was no sound from the keyboards. Sound guys scrambled up onstage to help Aaron while the band carried on without him. Steven decided to start singing the keyboard melody into the mike, which the crowd loved. It was definitely an enthusiastic crowd, so the show turned out to be a lot of fun. People who didn't even know Irving swarmed the merch table and asked "Is this the band on now? Okay, let me get the cd." The t-shirt girl returned and I sold her the display. (Thank god she was a medium.)
Silversun Pickups were next and they are truly stars these days. Steven wandered onstage about halfway through the set and started playing around on the synthesizer with Joseph, which the crowd also loved. Brian pulled a girl up onstage to tell jokes, which the crowd didn't love. (She was bad.) The sound was pretty fantastic the whole night so cheers for The Troubadour! Luckily, someone found Irving's van keys at the end of the night (otherwise they might've had to live there.) I got a free SSPU shirt from Christopher (score!) and went home with ears buzzing.
I've been yawning a lot today.
Jan 6th - Goldenboy will ALSO be in San Francisco, CA (who's staying over to catch both shows??) @ the Rickshaw Stop.
