how's that juke?

I never said, so here is a short rundown of my trip to New York City last week.  They played the Bowery Ballroom which I had been to before twice; once to see Rilo Kiley and once (the day before or after) to see Bright Eyes with the Faint I think on the Digital Ash tour.  Anyway, I skipped out of work early and headed to Northern Liberties where we set off in their big white van, stopping on the way for Wawa treats and one hundred black balloons.  They didn't have one hundred so we got fifty purple balloons and fifty black ones.  Listened to St. Vincent on the way and all the boys professed their love of her.  

Got to the venue, unloaded their stuff and I hung  around uselessly for a while while they set up and sound-checked.  Shervin was running around busy as was Jenny's band (co-headliner) who are all really awesome people.  They brought food to the green room including hummus, a veggie platter, pitas, a loaf of bread, peanut butter, jelly, and lots of beer:

Here's Shervin with the setlist he made, heavily edited by Tommy

Just some band lovin'
Ben and I went to park the van and thought we had done such a great job but we missed one of the four signs describing parking conditions and got a $100 ticket.

Oh, I forgot--I wasn't useless; I blew up a hundred black and purple balloons.  Not really, Brendan and I did with a few balloons blown up from other random people in and out of the green room.  My lips went numb and Brendan and I were convinced we had developed latex allergies.  We wondered what this would mean.

Put the balloons into seven garbage bags and hit them on the balcony in this super-neat little room with padded bench seats and a little starburst of lighting and a curtain for the door.  I wonder if people thought that there was for some reason a trash room on the balcony when they peeked through the curtain.

Tommy and I went to eat sushi because pb&j just isn't what we want to eat in New York City

Jenny played her set and I cut Tommy's hair in the green room during it, which was sort of exciting because Tommy had to play with them at the end of their set.  This is from that song; Shervin played the shakers, his "spirit instrument."

I got drunk by this point and Jukebox played and I hung out with Brendan and his friend Clair.  When Jenny's band came out to play two songs, we went to the balcony to get ready with balloons.  There are youtube videos of both the songs and Jenny is yelling about Tommy's new haircut in the first one:

And then we shook out bags of balloons over four hundred people for Temptation

which is super fun to do whilst drunk.  Then I ran down the stairs and a dude who I had met briefly earlier, a friend of Tommy's sister, grabbed me and ballroom danced me all over the place with dips that I was a little worried about but he was really good.  It was a moment of sort of pure and careless joy, dancing with a stranger while my friends were having a big musical lovefest on stage to a fun cover song.

Afterwards; drunkenly bothering Shervin.  I took his suspenders and put them on myself and I still have them though I feel less comfortable wearing them not in New York City at a show.

Some of us slept on floor/couches at this kids house in 'Alphabet City' and in the morning Brendan and I broke off and took the train to Brooklyn to meet up with his friend.  We talked a lot about Philly vs. New York and Brooklyn vs. South Philly.  I generally have a lot of loyalty for Philadelphia over New York but Brooklyn really is cool.  Here is so much more manageable though, with money, on bikes, with the number of people, ease of getting there, etc.

Anyway Clair's apartment was completely awesome and her job is to teach four year olds cooking and science at a Montessori (obviously) where Julia Roberts' twins go.  We ate vegan chinese and I got a stripey shirt and a skirt from the Salvation Army and then hopped on a subway, bus, and Chinatown bus to come home.  And that is, pretty much, that.