Boston Part Deux.

I am currently gripped with frustration due to the repetitive nature of my job. If I have to answer another question about Law School registration, there is a distinct possibility that I could go postal. Maybe a nice lunch in the shining sun will calm my nerves, but it seems like a reach.

Let me get back to our weekend trip to Boston. Before I go on let me say that Beach did redeem his Chili’s mistake, but I will get to that later.

Ian Perry The Drink Serving Fairy.

As I was saying, Perry took care of us from the moment we walked into his restaurant. He works with an intense fury only matched by his insane attitude at rock shows. He flips bottles and glasses with such grace and efficiency that you almost forget about the drink in front of you. He also hooked us up with some of the thin crust pizzas that Mistral offers. One such pizza had mashed potatoes and steak on top which you could top with a chili infused oil. Yeah, think about that combo and then believe when I say it was phenomenal. We struck up conversation with some guy at the bar who was reading a Billy Martin book and telling us how he had once seen The Kinks at the Orpheum, (but not the shitty 8T’s Kinks, we are talking heyday). A tequila shot later and we were in a restaurant provided BMW (I think) on our way to the venue.

The Orpheum is placed at the end of this ally and its innards have the look and feel of a decaying theater (which is exactly what it is). We had enough time to slug a beer before heading to our seats. We had to do this because the asstastic Massachusetts Blue Laws prevents you from doing anything with beer besides standing in one place and slugging it. In a city of alcoholics, how does this still exist? There is also the fact that there is no hard liquor sold at the venue meaning no Strokes tequila shots to which I reply, Horse Shit!

We found our excellent seats that had materialized with some work done by the Beach. He came through huge on this show, and many thanks go out to him. We were one of the few groups of kids standing during The Stills opening set. They were amazing and deserved more love than the sparsely populated theater was giving them. Their crashing sound filled the room with warm Canadian love and hits like Lola, Changes are No Good, Still in Love, Gender Bombs and my personal favorite Yesterday Never Tomorrows made my happy feet bounce around in their carved out spot in front of seat 110. At the completion of another impressive set, we headed back out to the lobby to grab a beer.

We waited in a crazy line to purchase our bevvies. Once we got to the front of the line the lady asked to see our ID’s. The fucking bitch rejected mine because it was a duplicate. Boston if you are reading this, your fucking town sucks. She said she was putting her liquor license in jeopardy. What the fuck does that mean? Could this woman get in trouble for selling a 23 year old kid a beer? Is that how fucked beantown is? I asked to see the manager of the Orpheum and she said “This is my place,” to which I replied, “Your place is Bullshit,” and walked away. Beach managed to score another beer for me while Oveis and Builder made out in the shadows.

There was a bit of a delay before the Strokes came out (I doubt it was due to cocaine use), but they were well worth the wait. In fact, they were fucking amazing. All the haters should cut the bullshit and give them a chance. Blah blah blah it’s been done before. Blah blah blah Julian puts a vocal effect on so he sounds like Lou Reed. Blah blah blah they bit all their new riffs from The Cars self titled record. Though many of these comments could hold water, who gives a shit, its music, enjoy what you are seeing because it’s fucking great and not because some jackass from Pitchfork told you it was ok to like the artist. Honestly, I haven’t heard stage banter of Julian’s caliber for quite some time. He was making fun of the crowd (“What do you do at night? Homework?”), the Redsox upon hearing a Yankees suck chant (“Shut the Fuck up. Are we at a baseball game? Anyway, check the standings.”) and blasting encores (“They are fucking stupid, we never do them”). He also climbed around the stage like a monkey. He ran up the isle a few times and also climbed the stacks into the balcony boxes during their final song, Take It or Leave It. That song sums up their entire attitude and after Saturday nights show, I will take all they are willing to give.

Speaking of The Cars, how awesome is this Rolling Stone cover?

After the show we stopped by the Hub Pub on a back street near the venue. We chatted up the bartender who was quite a Boston esq solo shitshow. When Beach asked if they served Red Bull (for me) the bartender quickly quipped “We have Budweiser.” Perry showed up and after we hammered down some bar food we made our way to the White Horse to see Builder’s friend bartend. He hooked us up with a couple drinks which was cool since I had been Culkined in his bar. The other cool part was that there was a huge line of Boston kids waiting to get in, and we got ushered right past them. There is nothing better than burning a pile of douche bags.

We made it out of that bar to meet up with Perry’s friends Mike and Russ. We stopped in Daisy Buc’s bar for a quick drink, but there were too many frat dudes singing Bon Jovi songs to teenage girls who dressed like tramps so we tried another bar down the street. We were quickly kicked out of that one because Mike (though he was trying to help) knocked a tray out of a waitresses hand before we had a chance to grab a drink. Our last stop was Berkowski’s which didn’t serve hard liquor either. What the fuck? By 2am we were ready to hit it (and it was last call) so we went outside to get a cab when all of a sudden we find ourselves in the back of a grocery deliver van. For some reason Perry knew the driver who hooked us up with a ride back to the apartment. I quickly passed out while watching Swingers.

The next day we had a solid brunch before hitting the road. As you know we stopped at the Danbury Chili’s for a quite margarita and some ribs. Cami came by after I returned home to help me eat some ribs and to catch me up on the weekend. Dan showed up and we sat around bullshitting for a couple hours before I passed the fuck out.