Mark my Words: Grunge is Back
9.4.2008

Millennium Park Stage







Labor Day picture taken by (and stolen from) Kelly

(You always make me laugh)

Stefanie & I joined a bunch of fellow thrifty concert goers to see Andrew Bird perform for free at Millennium Park Wednesday evening. The evening started with potential rain threats but the coolness of the air and overcast sky towering above the prudential building only set up a perfect atmosphere for a dawn of fall evening. We set up a little blanket on the grass underneath the exoskeleton of a dome with speakers. I scanned the audience- checking for a common denominator among Bird fans. Plaid button downs, accessory scarves, Timbuktu messenger bags (yikes, I was part of the denominator!), etc. Grunge is back, I realized with dread.


"There's always one," Stefanie laughed as I scanned the crowd for a person who would no doubt become that dancer of the concert. You know the type: to freely wave the arms and sway. I was ready to watch. The opening act was literally named Dance Band and it's Spanish flamenco roots encouraged my favorite spectacle of the evening. I couldn't stop being amused.


A small crowd-nine or ten highschool boys all standing within a very small space- dancing, no leaping or jumping and wiggling their hips and jumping some more and side stepping and leaping and crouching low and springing to the top. They were, in short, amazing little buggers with the kinetics of an atom. The highschool rude boy meets energetic physics of a cosmo.


My favorite, of course, being the runt of the crowd. He clearly had the most energy in a little green John Deer cap waving his thin arms crazily around his friends, occassionally doing a hop and complicated jazz fingers toward a friend. It was like a millenium version of Singing in the Rain.


"Oh Jenny," Stefanie laughed when I verbalized my amusement re: the runt. "Of course that would be your favorite- the one with the most energy. That's what always catches your eye. As if you think anyone else can keep up with you." And it's true. From friendships to cats and hamsters (little Noggin was the wiggliest/ fiestiest hamster and there was and I had to have her!): I continue to bias toward the vibrating, ants-in-the-pants beings.


The concert was good and I hate to admit that I was one of those who only knew a few songs. But the songs I knew have been blasting on my car stereo to work every morning a la 7:25 am. I sing- trying to harmonize- as if I am also a suicidal sex maniac. So when the bow hit the strings of that violin for Fake Palindromes and the girl in front of me with her orange parka leapt into the air to dance, I must say, I was wowed by the several hundred other people who also sing in their cars trying to relate to something that is perhaps hidden within all of us. We danced to the beat which I find reminiscent of riding a horse up until our morbid last line ended with a roar of applause.


"and she says i like long walks and sci-fi movies/ if you're six foot tall and east coast bred/ some lonely night we can get together/ and i'm gonna tie your wrists with leather" -Andrew Bird

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