I saw Matt & Kim and Telekinesis, and you didn't

September 5, 2009 at 10:45 pm (A Misanthropist Goes to the Shows) (Bumbershoot, Matt & Kim, Telekinesis)

So, Day One of Bumbershoot is over (well, it is for me anyway; not for the people who stuck around for Sheryl Crow, which I, as anyone who knows me, obviously wouldn’t do), and here are my impressions:

Matt & Kim, outdoors on the Broad Street Stage.

Don't they just look Californian? I mean, why would you think otherwise, you know?

I have never wanted to punch so many teenagers in the face in my life. Now don’t get me wrong: I always want to punch teenagers in the face, just not usually in such quantity. (There just happened to be more teens at the Matt & Kim show than anywhere else I’ve been in my life, which explains it.)

I did learn that Matt & Kim (which happens to also be the names of the people in the band Matt & Kim, but don’t ask me their last names, because, as I am soon to reveal, I don’t know much about them) are from Brooklyn, N.Y., and not California, as I thought they were. Yes, it was something I could have easily discovered through the inspired usage of Google, but I just assumed they were from California because they seem so cheerful (not that people from New York can’t be cheerful, I just think of people from California as being the most cheerful because California is nice and warm and sunny).

I also learned that white people like Matt & Kim quite a bit, and that white people also like jumping up and down and they think they’re dancing. (Incidentally, on Monday, I plan to see the gent who does the “Stuff White People Like” blog.) Jumping up and down is not dancing. It’s called hopping. Bouncing maybe.

Also, it smelled quite a bit like pot, and not old pot, like people smoked a bowl and then got on the monorail, more like they were lighting up right there at the Matt & Kim concert! I was shocked, as pot smoking was clearly prohibited in the Bumbershoot official rules, as was my flask that they confiscated. Ha, ha, just kidding. I don’t have a flask and if I did have one, it certainly wasn’t confiscated. Had it been (had I one), I would have totally narced on the the people who were smoking pot, especially the guy with the accidental white-man dreads (you know, from forgetting to wash, not from planning for ‘em). Yeah, I won’t be the only one not getting wasted, you damn hippies!

Telekinesis, indoors at the EMP stage.

He didn't wear glasses at the concert. I wonder if he has contacts, or if his legions of teenaged fans are less terrifying when blurry.

Later, I got in line for the Telekinesis concert 45 minutes prior to its beginning, as it was an indoor concert and there was no guarantee I could get in. No guarantee, people! You don’t know the terror that struck into my heart. So I got in line 45 minutes early and endured the idle gossip of a group of teenaged girls (never before have I wanted to etc., etc.), and one of them was all, “Oh! My! God! You wouldn’t believe the lame thing that happened to me!” and she was obviously the leader teenage girl, so the other girls were like, “Oh! My! God! What happened, chick who is cooler than us because teenage girls have a hard time if they don’t fit in and that creepy lady should stop glaring at us because it’s not our fault, it’s society’s!” So 45 minutes of that, except with less social commentary, more “Oh! My! God!”s and more teenage girl lingo that I just don’t get.

Eventually, they let us in.

Thank God, I thought to myself. Now I can get away from the teenage girls and boy, this venue is awfully tiny, isn’t it? I wonder if I’ll have a panic attack or just get really crabby. Probably crabby. It’s my natural state, after all. Why are so many people texting? What’s that smell? Has that guy showered? Why is that teenage girl chatting on her cell phone while Matthew is singing “Great Lakes”? Doesn’t she know that’s one of their best songs and also that I want to punch her in the face?

Despite the presence of teenagers (all right, I hate them because they make me feel old and occasionally overweight), the Telekinesis show was excellent, and Matthew Lerner played all the songs that I like, and finished up with my absolute favorite, “Coast of Carolina,” and it was wonderful, and I hope they will play in my hometown someday. (They won’t.)

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