So I pretty much live in the hippest neighborhood in all of New York City–and certainly in Brooklyn–yet I never actually do anything there, because I’m too busy hanging out with Kamran the Boyfriend in his richie-rich when-you-look-out-my-bedroom-window-you-see-the-Chrysler-Building neighborhood. But on Sunday, that all changed on July 27th when I finally went to see the band MGMT at
I was pretty pumped, because my friend Sonya had been forcing MGMT on me for weeks before that to get me ready for the show, and to see them for free seemed like such a I-am-poor-and-I-live-in-Brooklyn-and-I’m-seeing-a-Brooklyn-band rad thing to do on a Sunday afternoon when I’d usually be watching Kamran do laundry. Plus, what beats watching a concert from inside a drained pool?
The gate was set to open at 2, but knowing that a line would form before noon, we decided to show up late with the hope that we’d be able to walk right in. We leisurely ate some faux-chicken buffalo wings and strawberry/peanut butter/cookie “milk”shakes at my favourite vegan restaurant, Foodswings, near Bedford Avenue while some mean stormclouds formed overhead, and then at 3:30, we approached the park.
The line was still huuuuuuuuge. Like, down three blocks and wrapped around the park with eight people across on the sidewalk. Sonya and her boyfriend, Adam, had been waiting since 12:30 and had barely moved. So naturally we cut in front of them, and then two seconds later, Jesus punished us for it by making it pour. Seriously POUR. For, like, an hour. The line looked like this:
and at the end of it, we looked like this:
Almost too horrific to share, right? But I can’t help myself. Plus, we didn’t look nearly as bad as the huge group of girls (+ 1 pimply boy) behind us who had brought the bags from inside boxes of wine and were drinking the stuff out of the spigot. And screaming. Incessantly. This kid near them said, “You girls are drinking wine from bags, and that is fuckin’ badass.” And then they all had a big screamy orgy. They were approximately 16 years old but already had the haggard faces of their mothers, and that pleases me.
The Ting-Tings had played while we were still in line, which was a real shame, because they sounded great. Instead we had to endure Black Moth Super Rainbow, who I will not link, oh no I won’t, because they were that uninteresting. To endure their set, we bought some fruity beer and checked out the intense dodgeball game that was taking place off to one side of the pool:
This picture is cool because a guy is getting hit in the face with a ball in it, but you can’t really tell that at this size.
And then MGMT came on.
They opened with a really slow song, and I was like, “This is a weird way to start a dance party,” but I expected that they were just working up to the awesome stuff. And then they played another slow song. And another. But, like, people were cheering and clapping, and Sonya was smiling her head off, and everyone seemed to be having such a good time. It didn’t make any sense to me. Sonya asked me how I was liking it, and I couldn’t help myself; I blurted out, “This is BORING!” And then I felt bad.
It’s just that I was expecting this and this, and I wasn’t getting it. I had specifically not brought a purse just to be able to dance like a wild woman, and this was not wild woman music. Not liking it made me feel like one of those shallow teenybopper who comes to a show and only knows the words to the single.
With the lame music and the crappy weather, the day felt like this:
But then! They played this, and it was great! And then they played “Kids”, and then they played “Time to Pretend”, and it was glorious! Look at how happy we are, with our wrinkly foreheads:
So in the end, I totally loved the show, and I’m glad we stuck it out. Especially because we got to have Korean BBQ at Dokebi afterward:
And just because I can’t help thinking this is the awesomest thing ever, check out this amateur music video of MGMT’s “Kids”. Soooo good, right?
5 Comments
Almost as cool as the Electric Feel video. Almost.
Funny you say that, ’cause I JUST realized the brilliance of that song yesterday morning and couldn’t help dancing to it four times on repeat. And then I made Kamran pull it up on YouTube last night so we could dance to it together. But I still haven’t seen the video. Guess I need to get on that.
“Kids” totally makes me want to wear zebra make-up every time I go out, though.
You know, I love and hate MGMT. Love because that album totally rocked my last fall/this January. I seriously listened to it for like two months straight and got really, really behind on listening to all the other albums I was supposed to be sorting through for assignments (in fact, the only way I was able to peel myself away from it was by getting my paws on the new Why? album, and then Son Lux). And also love because their show with Yeasayer at Emo’s on the day Heath Ledger died was almost as exciting as the day Arcade Fire opened for the Unicorns at the same venue and I shat my pants with the awesomeness of it. It would have even been as exciting if, you know, Heath Ledger hadn’t just died. That put a damper on things.
But I also hate them because they fuck around! I mean, yes, it’s great that you subvert the status quo by refusing to rise to your fans’ expectations. It’s so artistic of you to dick around on stage, often totally plastered, instead of performing the songs that these people paid to see you play. Wow, man, nobody has ever done that before. They blew their first tour so bad (the same one where they rocked panties off at Emo’s) that Columbia had to fire their friend/tour manager and send in a professional. Some people would say that’s revolutionary, but I think it’s just immature.
But I mostly love them. And I’m envious of your McCarren Park Pool Party experience. Jerk.
Oh, but I straight up love Korean BBQ. No hate mixed in that one whatsoever.