musicology

on saturday jaron and i made the trek out to merriweather post pavilion in maryland to see vampire weekend.

everyone told us that going to merriweather post pavilion was a total pain. that it would take forever to drive out there, that parking was a nightmare, that no matter what we did we would be walking along dusty paths for miles to get to the amphitheater and that basically it would be the worst nightmare of our lives. but, you know, have a good time!

i didn't see how it could be that bad. i mean, people still go there, after all. and the web site has directions to the venue from space. so i figure if you can get there from space in a reasonable amount of time, you can certainly get there from northern virginia.

turns out all those people made it seem approximately 1 kajillion times worse than it was. or maybe they just have bad luck. because we got there in record time, were directed to a sweet sauce parking spot, and spent the rest of the night dancing our heads off in perfect evening weather to a band for which my love only grows.

and, just to seal the fate of our magical evening, we made a list of six songs we wanted to hear them play and (drum roll, please) they played all of them! that has never happened to me before! every single one. you could attribute this to the fact that vampire weekend has only put out two albums. or you could attribute it to magic. i prefer the latter.

one of our favorites, here.

then last night we made the trek to the 9:30 club to see janelle monae. if you are not listening to janelle monae right now this very second, you are making a big mistake. and her live show is a wonder to behold. crazy strobe lights, a dude in a top hat, catchy catchy tunes (that lady can wail!) and superhuman dancing. if you are wondering whether the goal of my current hip hop dance training regimen is to be able to move like this, the answer is a resounding yes. check it out here and here. (the second clip is a little on the long side but so, so worth it.)

(sidenote: has anyone else noticed that practically every video on youtube has embedding disabled these days? what is that about?)

i am not usually one to have near-religious concert-going experiences, but this was pretty dope. i sort of never wanted it to end. and, luckily, thanks to the residual ringing in my ears, the party is still going on. care to join me?