Poptarticus

All this week I have been in a sort of melancholy. I thought it was exhaustion at first, but now I realize, it is because I am pondering. Sometimes pondering is good (I always like to ponder menus) but sometime pondering can be weird. Like when you ponder directions your life has taken, or how your life would be different if other paths had been offered to you.

It all started with last Sunday night. This is when this great mystery thing happened. Basically it went like this: Colleen and I were suppose to see Mercury Rev and the Doves play at the Fillmore. I like the Doves, but I love Mercury Rev. And I was sort of bummed that Mercury Rev was the opener, since openers never really get a fair shot at mind blowing.

So, we got to the Fillmore but it was all locked up. So we thought we were maybe just too early, so we went to that weird Ethiopian restaurant/jazz club across the street and had a drink. Back to the Fillmore, and still all locked up, with no signs saying “show cancelled,” nothing. So then we went to the Boom Boom Room (uh, across the other street) and had another drink, where the bartender and door guy were both as perplexed as us.

I went back one more time and there were a few other people scratching their heads over there. None of us could figure out what the hell was going on.

Obviously there was no show, so Colleen and I walked up Fillmore to maybe eat something, but we passed a coffee shop and I grabbed a Bay Guardian paper, and there it was - an ad for a show at the Independent on Divisidero. A Mercury Rev show. I went from being really bummed to totally excited in less than a second. We barrelled down there in Colleen’s car, and for some reason I was really worried we wouldn’t get in. I needn’t have worried. There were maybe 200 people there.

So instead of seeing Mercury Rev do a short set in a sold-out Fillmore, we’d be seeing Mercury Rev front and center, in shoe-licking distance. I was pretty ecstatic, let me tell you.

Mercury Rev is one of those bands that has to be seen live to really get it. The records are good, but after seeing those songs live - man, you just want to play them forever after that, just to remember them live. The band is just so fucking good. Even my musician brother, who doesn’t get any of the bands I like (except the Arcade Fire, now) LOVED Mercury Rev live. Colleen, who didn’t know Mercury Rev from the MC5, LOVED them. She was totally blown away. Even I, a die-hard fan, was less than impressed with the new record, The Secret Migration, until I saw those songs played live. Then everything changed.

If Wilco live is better than sex, then Mercury Rev live is better than sex with Johnny Depp, or even Josh Homme. (I think.)

The music is a kind of ethereal sonic blast with some truly killer guitar. The singer, Jonathan, has so much charisma - he is pretty weird, but it’s hard to take your eyes off him. He kept looking down at us, smiling enigmatically. I couldn’t believe I was standing there. It was so much more intense, since it was so unexpected. They blew me away, and then all I wanted to do was get on a plane and go to the next city Mercury Rev would be playing. And I was already 550 miles from home.

The feeling didn’t stop there. All week all I wanted to do was drop everything and follow this band. And then I remembered when I saw them in Munich in 2001, and there I was so blown away that I thought I wouldn’t even go back to the States unless I could go to New York and work at Tarbox Studios, where they record. I sent off an email, but of course nothing happened.

But what would have happened if something did happen? What would my life be like today, if I was a brownie fetcher for a bunch of musicians? Would it be like Venice, where the colors of the dream faded a little with each passing day?

There is something about Mercury Rev’s music that goes straight into my soul; I can’t really explain it. I feel that all my life I’ve looked for replacements for some major hole in my soul’s structure. And right now it is this music. Do all people have a hole in their soul? Or am I fatally flawed with too many frivolous fantasies?

As you can see, pondering too much can be hazardous to your mental health.

Thanks to Cecilia Broburg and Nite-and-fog.com for letting me use her wonderful photo of Jonathan in action.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 8th, 2005 at 12:53 pm and is filed under Adventures in Rock and Roll. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.