onions and good concerts make me cry

my first concert was michael jackson. my parents got me tickets for my birthday; i think i was nine. i might have been 10. the three of us went and it was pretty much awesome. it was the tour for whichever album it is where, on the cover, michael's face is a big mask that's also a gate... anyone? maybe it was "black or white." i'm not sure. but he sang "beat it," so i feel like other details don't really matter.

it was a great first concert experience, to be sure, but it didn't really turn me into a concert lover. i feel like i can, and do, appreciate good music, but i've just never been the type of person to spend time and money catching every live performance i can. i have managed a few really great shows in the recent past, including bonnie raitt and the indigo girls and erasure, but i usually only hear about good concerts after they're over. and i'm usually not too bummed.

this weekend might have changed all that, though. thanks to hip and concert-loving em and chelsea, i heard about the hotel cafe tour 2008 and, since tickets were only $15, i decided to check it out. and thank goodness for that. because it was so. good. so. so. good. soul-soothing good. tear-jerking good. dance in front of strangers good. don't mind standing for hours good. can't sleep that night good. never want it to end good. so. so. so. good.

the headliner was ingrid michaelson who i had heard good things about but never really listened to before. now i love her with a love that is true. there is something i appreciate about a busty woman who still wear glasses, and tell stories on stage about chewing her hands when they fall asleep (the hands, that is). she was darling. and i just know we would be friends. my favorite song of hers was one she had just written two weeks before (so new it doesn't even have a name!) about being on tour. i had never before witnessed a newborn song. it was sort of like holding a newborn baby really, comforting and somehow familiar.




and the other performers were oh-so-good as well. meiko was so cute and shy and cruddy on stage and she sang my new favorite song, "you and onions make me cry." it's sort of about hot dogs, and i had a hot dog for lunch that day, so i sort of felt like it was fate.



and jim bianco was kind of like that guy who you love even though you know you shouldn't, the one who can get away with doing and saying all kinds of dirty things because somehow he makes it seem charming, the one who sweet-talks all the ladies, but always makes you feel like it's just you. you know the one? that's jim bianco. (i feel like this could become part of our vernacular. like, "oh, that guy is such a jim bianco!" or "don't pull a jim bianco on me, mister!" i am going to work on this.)



carey brothers sang my favorite song of his, "blue eyes," and told funny stories about having a song on "grey's anatomy" during a montage of a character born with both sets of reproductive organs (yes, you read that right) trying to decide which ones to keep, and about getting dumped and being single and all that good stuff. (i couldn't help but think that if he cut his hair and washed it every once in a while, things might turn out differently for him. but that could just be me.)



carey brothers is also, apparently, the man behind the whole tour concept. and, let me take a moment to say that it is a concept of which i whole-heartedly approve. each of the artists played rotating 15 minute sets, so you got to hear everyone more than once but not all at once, so you never got sick of it. this was especially handy when dan wilson came on stage.



his gyrating hips are nothing to be scoffed at (in fact, i spent most of the night imitating them), but he was a sort of awkward old man with bad jokes and white sneakers and we couldn't figure out what he was doing there. until, in the largest revelation of the night, he told a story about writing a song with his old band about the birth of his son, and then launched into "closing time." holy...!!!! remember that song? semisonic was not joking around. ponder on some of the lyrics and it will all become clear. "this room won't be open 'til your brothers or your sisters come"...? it was right there in front of us, the whole time.

the highlight of the evening, though was when jim bianco announced that all the artists were now going to "penetrate the crowd" (me: "i love being penetrated." em: "blog that!") and the next thing we knew, everyone was down in the crowd, inches away from us, singing a little song. chelsea touched ingrid michaelson, em said "hi" to meiko, and i sang right in the ear of the drummer. i think heaven is probably something like this.




the only non-heavenly part of the evening? the most foul smell any of us had ever endured, coming from one of the people standing in front of us. i don't know what the problem was, but i seriously think it might require medical intervention. em's eyes tell the whole story.



but even that could not ruin a night of magical goodness. and now, all i want is more.

(and thanks to chelsea for all these pictures. credit where credit is due, right?)