Who: T.W. Walsh • Damien Jurado • Pedro the Lion
Where: Beachland Ballroom • Cleveland, Ohio
When: May 2nd, 2002
I met this boy named Aaron in one of my English classes about a month ago. We became acquainted when he asked to see the pins that I have on my bag and remarked on the fact that I like The Anniversary and Radiohead and Dashboard Confessional and such. He told me that day that Pedro the Lion was coming to Cleveland, so I Graffitied it in my Visor's datebook and told my friend Joshrea (my new shortened version of his actual name, which is Josh Rea; yep, I'm clever, all right) that I would be needing a date for the show. He gave me his usual run-around as if there was some chance that he might have other plans, more important plans, plans that might involve people other than me. I ignored him and assumed that he would be coming no matter what else came up.
And then one day, as Aaron and I paused by the tennis courts where our paths diverge on our ways home from English class, he asked if I was planning to ride up to Cleveland with his group of friends. I had been wanting him to ask me that very question, because I wanted to tag along but didn't want to barge in on his group of friends and their Cleveland plans. I told him that I had a friend who may wish to hitch a ride with me but that he should save me a spot in his car just in case. Many a conversation with Josh later, it was determined that he had an evening midterm that he couldn't get out of, so I was set to hop on Aaron's train.
And then Josh decided that I should wait until 7 PM when his midterm was completed, pick him up at the school he's attending right now, and arrive in Cleveland an hour after the show was to start. I was not pleased. So I more or less ignored his request and spent the next couple of days feeling terribly guilty for denying this boy a chance to see one of his favourite bands. But he was going to make me late! My actions were justified, darn it!
The day of the show, I slapped on my favourite denim skirt and pink shirt and ran to our tennis court meeting spot, where I found Aaron and Chad, the lead singer of Aaron's band, waiting in Aaron's car. We waited for a moment for Aaron's friend Paul and Paul's friend Pat, who I had met before because he's friends with one of my suitemates. When he got in the car and the introductions commenced, Pat said, "You live with Lauren." And I said, "You're the kid who listens to Dashboard Confessional." And then he said, "I used to." Apparently, Pat's one of those people who stops listening to a band when they get a little popular. Uh-huh.
We made our way to the house of the "pastor" of Aaron's church, Mark. You don't expect your minister to go to concerts with you. But Aaron's does. But Aaron's minister is also in his 20's, wants to start a new concert venue in Columbus, and is fixing up an old house in the OSU campus area that a few of the members of his church and his wife and baby are going to share. Aaron led us on a grand tour of the house, which is in various stages of life and death. I complained about tripping over the bottom of my skirt, and Aaron said something to the effect of, "Yeah, but it'll be worth it," which scored him all sorts of massive amounts of points. Girls only wear skirts because they want you to compliment their skirts, you know.
After the grand tour, we congregated in the yard to plan seating arrangements and exchange the bagels that Paul brought, which left Paul, Pat, Mark, and Mark's friend Ryan in Mark's SUV and Aaron, Chad, and me in Aaron's Corolla. On the way there, I got to hear all sorts of stories about Aaron and Chad's adventures and was made to rank their list of potential new band names, my favourite of which was The Salty Syringes. We listened to all sorts of Radiohead and Sunny Day Real Estate and fought over the correct pronunciation of the name of the band Sigur Ros. We shared tales of driving mishaps while Chad pumped us full of Lemonheads. Lemonheads and car wrecks--life's simple joys.
And then we were in Cleveland. In no time at all. Which would have been great, except that the Beachland Ballroom isn't in Cleveland. It's in a suburb. A tiny, ghetto-y suburb, no less. And it's old. Well, the building is old. What the building is being used for is new, though. Okay? Okay. Aaron, Chad, and I stood by the doorway for a few minutes waiting for Mark's clan to show up, and as we did, I noticed that I was being talked about by a platinum blonde and her cronies. Whether or not they were saying good things escaped me since they were the type of people who always have a sour look about them. When Mark arrived, we decided to grab something to eat but couldn't find much of anything in the area, so we settled for a little place called My Hero, a name that's lame to begin with but was made lamer by the fact that someone suggested how clever the owners could have been if they would have called it My Gyro and served Greek fare instead of pizza and chicken fingers. Paul, Pat, and I stayed behind and read a review of the new Pedro album in a random free Cleveland newspaper while the others went around the corner in a pack to protect each other at the ATM, heeding the advice of the My Hero hired help. After many horribly meaty treats were consumed, we headed to the corner store to stock up on Mike and Ikes, 5 cent juices, and canned meat, all of which I was forced to carry in my bag. Mark attempted to buy some ChapStick but was told that the last one had just been sold, leaving him with no other option but my pot of berry-flavoured lip gloss.
Once inside the venue, I knocked a girl out who was standing right in front of the restroom door and then joined Aaron and Chad, who were nearing the stage as Mark and Ryan sat on the floor against the wall and Paul and Pat explored the merch table. When Aaron decided to buy some Damien Jurado paraphernalia, Chad and I were left standing in a ridiculously awkward silence, so I asked him to tell me his life story. He talked a bit about being a third year engineering major at OSU for a moment and his engagement to a girl my age until Aaron came back with a Damien Jurado pin in hand. Ryan and Mark joined us for a discussion of our likes and dislikes of the club. It was a pretty cool place, with an old-fashioned moulded ceiling and paintings on the walls and stage lights that reminded us of Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit video. I spotted a guy with a shirt which I thought said My Music:, and wondering what it was about, I approached him and found out that it actually said My Muse: with a little plastic pouch underneath, into which he had slid several pieces of paper. Upon my request, he took them out and read them to me, and they all turned out to be actresses who were in the movie version of West Side Story, which he had watched earlier in the day. It also turned out that he had made the shirt himself, sewed on the plastic pouch and all, so I took a picture of him and his girlfriend so that I could remember all of his creative glory. And then Aaron and I had a discussion about alcohol, since he's going to turn 21 this month. He's never been a drinker and is trying to decide if he's going to start being a Guiness man in a couple of weeks or not. I got to share the story of last summer and fun times with drunken stupors, which I don't think discouraged Aaron at all, but I'm sure it helps me to remind myself of my own stupidity from time to time.
And then T.W. Walsh began. I like T.W. Walsh's website a lot. He talks about how he made it himself and is employed as a software engineer and such. He's touring with Pedro the Lion and he still calls himself a software engineer. Yeah, I like that. But I didn't really like T.W. Walsh's music so much. He was all right as far as opening bands go, but he seemed pretty out of it. Pretty drunk, Aaron claims. His voice reminded me of the singer of Bright Eyes at times, a likeness that I won't even attempt to explain; if you know Bright Eyes, you know what I'm saying. If you don't . . . you're probably better off. I got the feeling that he doesn't really sing as off-key as he was, though. Seemed sort of put-on to me. But like I said, he was okay. No matter what the other guys said, I wouldn't have shot him in the head for no good reason after the show.
Then Damien Jurado played. I don't know why I didn't know Damien. If Sunny Day likes Damien, I should like Damien. But despite all of my hearing how great he is, I had never bothered to buy or download his stuff, so I was interested in hearing him. His band made me laugh, because it was T.W. Walsh's band. T.W. Walsh's band with David Bazan (who is Pedro the Lion) on drums. So, so weird. Damien is funny, because he's this middle-aged guy with a pot belly that hangs over his guitar. You have to wonder why any record label would pick him up. You have to be amazed that there must be record labels that aren't selling their artists based solely on appearance. You have to think that Damien's great. Because he is. He's all folksy and quiet and unsure of how people feel about him. His soft voice cracked as he thanked the crowd for boosting his ego by requesting songs and making him feel wanted by berating him from the floor for not touring more. I spent Damien's entire set flirting with his guitar player with my eyes; the boy was quite receptive of it and came over to talk to me at the merch table when Damien was finished. Ahh, to be a groupie.
Finally, David set himself up, brought out the same band that played with T.W. Walsh and Damien Jurado, and went to work. He started out with the first song on his new album, Control, and proceeded to tell us that only three songs in the set would be from albums other than the new one. I was perfectly content with it, because I've seen Pedro before and know how the old songs sound, but as Control just came out, I haven't heard a single thing from it in concert. However, I'm guessing that only about a tenth of the crowd had heard the new album and therefore wasn't so pleased with the prospect. Nonetheless, he played nearly the entire thing. I believe the only song that he left out was Rejoice, but I could be wrong about that. The three songs off of old albums and such actually turned out to be four: A Mind of Her Own, Bad Diary Days, Backwards Nation, The Longer I Lay Here. My favourite song of the new album and of the night was Priests and Paramedics, which was so brilliantly simple and good that it made me want to cry all over David's shoes. In fact, everything about the concert made me want to cry on David. You should see how unassuming this guy is, to use Aaron's word. He stood up there with his little gut hanging over his guitar like Damien's, off on the left corner of the stage, talking about the new album in his barely-there voice. He seemed so old and tired and beaten, but I really don't think he is. I think he's just troubled a bit as all artists are.
And the greatest thing about Pedro concerts is that David asks for questions from the audience. And he'll answer the most asanine questions so seriously. For instance, one guy asked during the show, "Why don't you guys sound like Pantera?" At first, David simply said, "We have so many inadequacies," but then he went into the differences between Pedro and Pantera's guitars and drums. So funny. Someone else asked where the glimpses of hope are on Control, which had been the thing that concerned Aaron about the album. Instead of answering that, though, David told us that Control is the second of a three-part series, and the middle of anything is always dark and brooding. So, apparently, there's no hope on Control. Lovely.
That's probably what makes Pedro the Lion shows what they are, though. During my first one a year ago, I remember finding a seat in the back of the bar and laying my head on the table to let David lull me to sleep. They're so peaceful. Even the loud songs are peaceful. It's ridiculous. And by ridiculous, I mean really, really good. And dark. There's no jumping around, nor is there a lot of singing along. There is a whole lot of emo kids nodding their heads robotically, though. Picture 100 kids, 20 years of age, dyed-black hair, too-tight t-shirts, vintage jeans, and Rivers Cuomo glasses, all slowly allowing their heads to rise and fall in time with the music, all identifying with this bearded man 10 years older than they are, all wishing that they were able to write these incredible lyrics about death and divorce and killing your wife because she's cheating on you. That's a Pedro show. And the best part is that after this two-hour bit spent in meloncholy reflection, everyone leaves amazed, and no one actually goes out and kills his wife even though she's cheated on him. Because no one has a wife. Because everyone is 20 years old. And emo kids are too lazy to exert the effort it takes to kill someone, anyway. Am I making sense?
The thing that interested me most about the show was what happened afterward. When David finished his last song and put down his guitar, everyone turned in unison and left. There was no sticking around for an encore or sticking around to talk to David. All 100 of us walked out of the building, took a picture of the sign on the Little Hands and Feet Day Care (okay, maybe that was just me), and got into our cars. Weird.
On the way home, I used a borrowed digital camera (thanks, Jonathan) on the night setting to take hundreds of pictures of random lights. I also snapped photos of Aaron in his rear-view mirror to temporarily blind him, causing him to barrel into passing cars. We stopped once for nurishment, whereupon fig newtons were dispersed through out the car and I remembered that half of the bagel that Paul had given to me still remained in my purse. It had grown too stale to eat, though, so I photographed it instead. After two hours of me hitting my head on Aaron's seat as I kept nodding off to sleep and two hours of me poking Aaron to see if he was still awake, we arrived back on campus and parted for the evening, our stomachs full of fig and our hearts full of emo-y goodness.
