2010: Year of the Shockingly Honest Drunkard/Druggie Chicks (and other top albums)

The search for a distinctive trend to define 2010 can be a bit depressing in a year in which most top 40 hits were concerned only with getting down on the floor and extolling the virtues of alcohol and sex,but who are we kidding? That describes just about every year this millennium. 2010 wasn't quite as enamored with autotune as its most recent predecessors. In 2009, Lady Gaga raised the bar for shocking pop music with her gory live performances, but in this year, Gaga took a much-needed break from the spotlight (meat dress notwithstanding). Since other pop stars couldn't rely on gallons of fake blood to attract audience's attention (though we give M.I.A. props for trying), they had to turn to a more conventional outlet for musical showmanship: lyrics.

This year, two fresh faces stood out in two markedly different crowds: while Ke$ha dominated the charts with incredibly catchy songs about hard partying and a notorious line about brushing her teeth, Best Coast won the hearts of hipsters with incredibly catchy songs about getting high and a notorious line about talking cats. The success of these two young ladies, who sound totally different yet both rely on ear-worms and polarizing lyrics, can define 2010 as the Year of the Shockingly Honest Drunkard/Druggie Chicks.

Chances are that if you've been at all exposed to radio signals or teenage girls, you've developed both a burning hatred and a strange affection for Ke$ha's party anthem "Tik Tok." After all, it was the year's most-played song on top 40 stations according to Mediabase (I'm still looking for the chart online, but I read it in USA Today). Sure, its success can be partially attributed to its chorus that won't leave your head until a Justin Bieber song comes in to replace it and its perfectly adequate dance beat. But I like to think that in a year when Katy Perry took a break from humorously honest ruminations on kissing girls and waking up in Vegas to focus on unoriginal tunes about how hot California girls are and how everyone is a firework, Ke$ha took over as the queen of candid pop songs. Of all the pop stars extolling the virtues of hard liquor and casual sex, Ke$ha is the most blunt and gleefully non-apologetic (not to mention the only one who even touches on the subject of strippers in drag). Although she took some flack because "We R Who We R" is practically a sonic clone of "Tik Tok" and her new "mini-album" Cannibal pales in comparison last year's solid pop album Animal, there's no denying that Ke$ha was one of the brightest new stars this year - even if there's not much substance under the glitter.

Of course, Ke$ha's certainly not everyone's cup of tea, and although she boasts in "We R Who We R" that she and her friend make the hipsters fall in love, she'll have her work cut out for her tearing them away from Best Coast's Bethany Cosentino. Cosentino and her band have already won the hearts of critics everywhere, not to mention famous folks ranging from Jerry Seinfeld to Bruce Springsteen. Cosentino may be best known as the girl who wishes her cat could talk (but really, is that such a strange desire?) Though critics like to focus on her candid, stream-of-consciousness lyrics, they often neglect to mention that half her charm lies in her voice and simple yet catchy chord progressions. With a voice that's a dead ringer for Jenny Lewis and arrangements that resemble Rilo Kiley's janglier tunes mixed with a dash of She & Him's retro California crooning, it's no wonder Cosentino is the latest indie darling.

The one problem I have with Best Coast's delightful under-three-minute gems is that they tend to blend together into one half-hour-long track, which gets a bit tedious after a while. Though Ke$ha and Best Coast make up one of the defining trends of 2010, they didn't make two of the best albums of the year. In my opinion, a great album has an overarching theme or mood, but experiments with different genres within that mood. The best album this year was The Suburbs by the Arcade Fire.

The one problem I have with Best Coast's delightful under-three-minute gems is that they tend to blend together into one half-hour-long track, which gets a bit tedious after a while. A great album needs more experimentation with different genres, like how No Age's album Everything in Between contains one of the most exhilarating rock tracks I heard this year, "Fever Dreaming," and and two of the most moving ambient tracks, "Dusted" and "Positive Amputation."

But the most stark contrast of genres within an album this year was two of the last tracks in Arcade Fire's superb album The Suburbs. The sparse guitar and subtle strings of "Spraw I (Flatland)" and the electrifying synth-rock of "Spraw II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)" are equally beautiful yet as different as night and day. On the album, the band brilliantly toggles between virtually every variant of rock music, from the upbeat piano rock of "The Suburbs" to the dark, twisting rock of "Ready to Start" to the frenetic strings of "Empty Room." The album explores the suppressed anger, dissatisfaction, and vague fear of an art school graduate making his way in the world of suburbia. But although the band uses many styles of music, these feelings give it an overarching, unifying mood. The lyrics aren't necessary to understand the story; the music's atmosphere alone is sufficient.

This is in stark contrast with the second-best concept album of the year, Janelle Monae's giddy, genre-hopping story of The ArchAndroid. Monae dabbles in everything from orchestral pieces to old-school hip-hop (Wikipedia has a great list of all the genres included). Although she's better at some parts of the musical spectrum than others (the area around dreary ballads is a particular weak point), Monae creates the most comprehensive yet fun pop album of the year. The ArchAndroid tells the story of Cindy Mayweather, a messianic android sent from the future to save... other androids? Humanity? Freedom and love? Not that the casual listener would ever be able to figure out what's going on just by listening to the album. To tell the full story, Monae may need to release a series of comic books like prog-rock band Coheed & Cambria. But even though it's not always clear what exactly Cindy Mayweather is up to, it's always a joy to listen to Monae's statements about individuality, discrimination, and oppression, buried in cocoons of breath-taking pop and neo-soul.

Part of what makes The ArchAndroid great is the eclectic group of collaborators Janelle Monae enlists, ranging from hip-hop heavyweight Big Boi to eccentric indie stalwart Of Montreal. But Monae doesn't just ask for help with her albums; this year, she appeared on both Big Boi and Of Montreal's new albums. But my favorite Monae appearance was on B.o.B's terrific debut The Adventures of Bobby Ray. He may not be as much of a sci-fi fan as Monae, but B.o.B is almost as eclectic when it comes to incorporating different styles of music into his album. B.o.B enlists hip-hop legends like T.I. and Eminem, but he also reaches out to unconventional collaborators like Paramore's Hayley Williams and Weezer's Rivers Cuomo. B.o.B distinguishes himself from other rappers with his incredibly catchy choruses (getting "Airplanes" out of your head is as herculean a task as getting "Tik Tok" out) but more importantly, his ability to incorporate different genres and play to the strengths of each of his collaborators. Though he can still create a great rap song like "Bet I" (featuring T.I. and Playboy Tre), he can create an equally stunning remake of Vampire Weekend's "The Kids Don't Stand a Chance" (re-titled "The Kids," and featuring a Matrix-referencing message perfectly suited to collaborator Janelle Monae).

Of course, B.o.B's most famous collaborator I haven't mentioned yet is Bruno Mars, the angelic voice behind the hook of "Nothin' On You," one of many hits he helped craft this year. Mars proved his hit-making ability by co-writing Travie McCoy's lazy, reggae-tinged hit "Billionaire" and Cee-Lo Green's funky, jubilant "Fuck You." On his breezy debut album Doo-Wops & Hooligans, Mars creates potential hits while appearing about as stressed as a man lounging in a hammock. From the lovesick pain of "Grenade" to the blissful lethargy of "The Lazy Song," Mars covers a variety of emotions while maintaining a carefree aura. His enduring optimism reveals itself best in "Liquor Store Blues," where he croons "get messed up today; I'll be okay tomorrow." Though his "blues" sound about as sad as a puppy that lost its chew toy, Mars excels at happy songs like the delightful "Marry You" and the Chuck Berry-esque "Runaway Baby."

"Runaway Baby" sounds like it could be a companion to a number of songs in V.V. Brown's album Travelling Like the Light. Although Brown is best known for the breezy summer hit "Shark in the Water," the album is filled with higher-energy songs resembling fifties rock & roll. It's a shame the UK native's "indie doo-wop schtick" (I just couldn't phrase that better than PopJustice did) hasn't really caught on in Europe and has made even less of an impression in the States. It's just as easy to dance to as the electropop and hip-hop that dominated American airwaves this year, but infinitely more enjoyable.

While we're on the subject of ladies that are more popular on the other side of the pond, I would be remiss not to mention Sweden's long-reigning dance-pop princess Robyn. This year, Robyn released the most recent album in her decade-and-a-half-long career, Body Talk, in three installments. In Body Talk, Robyn both embraces and pokes fun at the recent trend of pop stars pretending to be robots. (In the album's most fun track, "Fembot," she boasts that she is a robot with "automatic booty applications.") But despite her Back to the Future references and unusual beats, Robyn's tunes are rooted in conventional pop melodies and structures (excluding the oddly experimental "Don't Fucking Tell Me What To Do," in which she sounds like a pop star robot that's malfunctioning). Despite what some adoring critics say, Robyn isn't a superior model of pop star; she's just programmed a bit better than the rest of them.

Many of Robyn's songs have beats that are a bit too slow and experimental to make for good dancing, but if you'd like to get people moving, I'd suggest Chromeo's Business Casual. Chromeo's latest songs are reliably danceable, but with the exception of the surprisingly breezy "J'ai claque la porte," they rarely stray far from the grooves of their previous releases.

In contrast, Hot Chip released a less party-friendly but more ambitious electronic album. On One Life Stand, the band deftly weaves Alexis Taylor's gentle vocals among delicate layers of instrumentals. This intricately designed album is, as Taylor described it, their most cohesive, warm, and soulful album yet.

It's always seemed inappropriate to compare Hellogoodbye's pounding, pop-punk-esque synthpop with the refined electropop of bands like Hot Chip, but now, such distinctions within the genre will no longer be necessary. On their sophomore album, Would It Kill You?, Hellogoodbye trade in their synthesizers and vocoders (not to mention most of the members that were around for their debut album, Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs!) to focus on string instruments (plus drums). The resulting jangly indie power-pop sound is often heart-pounding, especially as they giddily speed through tracks like "Finding Something to Do" and "When We First Met."

But even Hellogoodbye can't top the rush of one of the most exhilarating indie pop albums of the year, Two Door Cinema Club's intoxicating debut album Tourist History. The album's unrelenting pace and unfailingly catchy choruses caught hipsters' attention this year, and while the band still isn't very widely known, it seems they've got a blindingly bright future ahead of them.

Hopefully Two Door Cinema Club will gain some fans this winter, as they head out of tour with their sonic older brothers Tokyo Police Club. Tokyo Police Club are famous for giving fans similar adrenaline rushes through songs like "Your English Is Good," but on their latest album, Champ, the band slowed down and matured a bit. Though they still have high-energy songs like "Wait Up (Boots of Danger)" and "Bambi," they also take it down a notch on the mellow "Hands Reversed" and melancholic "End of a Spark," all without losing their boyish charm.

This summer, Tokyo Police Club toured with my favorite new band of the year, Freelance Whales. On their enchanting debut album Weathervanes, the band tells the story of a young boy who falls in love with the ghost that haunts his house. But most importantly, despite their often nonsensical lyrics, Freelance Whales create an atmosphere in which the listener feels engulfed in the story. With their eclectic array of instruments, the band doesn't so much tell a story as create a world that can be bright or dark but always hearkens back to a simpler era viewed through rose-colored glasses.

And now for the moment you've all been waiting for... You've read about 15 of my favorite artists of 2010, now here are my 25 favorite albums of the year:

Honorable Mentions

Broken Bells - Broken Bells

Bruno Mars - Doo-Wops & Hooligans

Bt - These Hopeful Machines

Jenny & Johnny - I'm Having Fun Now

NeverShoutNever - Harmony and What is Love?

No Age - Everything in Between

Passion Pit - The Reeling

Robyn - Body Talk

Sky Sailing - An Airplane Carried Me to Bed

You Me and Everyone We Know - Some Things Don't Wash Out

My Top 15 Albums of 2010

15. Girl Talk - All Day

14. V.V. Brown - Travelling Like the Light

13. Hellogoodbye - Would It Kill You?

12. Chromeo - Business Casual

11. Tokyo Police Club - Champ

10. Vampire Weekend - Contra

9. Hot Chip - One Life Stand

8. Taylor Swift - Speak Now

7. Best Coast - Crazy For You

6. B.o.B - The Adventures of Bobby Ray

5. Beach House - Teen Dream

4. Two Door Cinema Club - Tourist History

3. Freelance Whales - Weathervanes

2. Janelle Monae - The ArchAndroid

1. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

Oh, and before you rip this list to shreds in the comments section, I would like to note that this is a pop music blog, and I reserve the right to define Arcade Fire as "pop" because, you know, indie rock is similar to indie pop, which is a form of pop music. I also reserve the right to say that even though critics agree that Kanye's new album is perfection incarnate, I define it as rap, not pop. But B.o.B is pop. And I am totally not just saying that because I don't "get" Kanye's album and thought the three songs I listened to were lengthy and overproduced... Anyways... Yeah, go at it.

Your English Is Good (But Your Set Was Fantastic)

Several months ago, I read Entertainment Weekly describe Freelance Whales’ album Weathervanes as “the best electronic indie-pop debut since Ben Gibbard last tuned his laptop” The view from the windows of my train of thought looked a bit like this:
YAY, I LOVE THE POSTAL SERVI- HEY, WAIT A MINUTE, THAT HONOR DEFINITELY GOES TO ADAM YOUNG FOR OF JUNE! Oh well, might as well listen to it anyways. Just so I’ll be well-informed when defending the honor of Owl City.

Upon listening to the album, however, I found the description of the music as “electronic” about as insulting as this slight to Adam Young. Freelance Whales employ a ragtag bunch of instruments, and singling out the laptop as the most important would be like saying the catcher is the star of the baseball team. Sure, he plays an important role, but his teammates are a far more interesting bunch. And Freelance Whales certainly has an eye-popping line-up: glockenspiels, harmoniums, and many, many more I’ll probably never identify. This team was put to great use crafting both happy and haunting tunes about, as the band’s website explains, a young boy in love with an elusive ghost who haunts his home.

After listening to their enchanting album many more times than I would like to count, when I read in my Ticket Alternative newsletter that they were opening for Tokyo Police Club, I jumped on the chance to buy those tickets like a child who’s been waiting in line for 20 minutes to use the trampoline during gymnastics camp. (I often jumped on trampolines like that in summers of my youth.)

Several months later when the concert finally rolled around, my trusty concert buddy and I found ourselves with an extra ticket and few friends in town. Seeing no other options, my friend turned to a bold new ticket-selling frontier: Craigslist. Apparently paying $20 for a ticket to a sold-out $18 concert is quite the deal, so we soon sold it.

Like the naive little girls we are, we thought it would be pretty easy to spot our mystery customer outside the club if we arrived half an hour before doors. Like, who shows up early for a Tokyo Police Club show?

Oh, only about a hundred people.

Thanks to the magic of cell phones, we managed to meet up with her. While she drove around the block in search of parking, I noticed the walls of the building were covered in posters for Lightfoot’s upcoming show. Since Jessica Louise Dye is kind of my best buddy, I took a picture of one of the posters, just in case I want to continue admiring it in the comfort of my own home. Here, you can admire it in the comfort of your own home (or office or hotel room or other favorite place with Internet access) too:

As we entered the club, our customer, who was several years older than us and began to refer to herself as our “chaperone,” joined us started talking about how excited she was to see R. Kells. I briefly became concerned that she thought she had bought R. Kelly tickets, but it turned out that after I bought the tickets, a band called Arkells was added to the line-up, and no one told me. That made much more sense than Tokyo Police Club sharing the stage with R. Kelly.

I was pretty excited to add the Black Cat to my list of venues I’ve been to DC. Since they tend to attract indie bands even I’ve never heard of, I was expecting it to be about on par with Rock & Roll Hotel: dark, stuffy, and the size of a walk-in closet.

Oh mighty Black Cat, I’m sorry I ever doubted you.

The interior of the club was gorgeous. With its black-and-white checkerboard floor and soft yellow lighting, it looked more like an elegant hotel lobby than a hotel room’s closet. And best of all, despite the monstrous line to get in, the stage area was nearly empty.

Okay, actually, the best part was the low ceiling, which was uncovered so you could see the ducts and air-conditioning vents. I thought 930 Club’s AC was as good as that of any club you could find, but their high ceiling and balconies give them a huge disadvantage compared to single-story places like Black Cat. At Black Cat, you could see the vents to plan the optimal air conditioned spot, then feel the cold, glorious air gushing down on you, as close to paradise as any area jam-packed with dancing people can be.

My friend, our “chaperone,” and I ended up with second- and third-row spots a bit too close to the speakers for comfort, then waited for Arkells to come on while our chaperone educated us on why Canada is the most superior country on Earth. Personally, I’ve always thought a significant part of why Canada is so superior is that Canadians rarely brag about their superiority, but hey, maybe that’s just me. One of her reasons why Canada is Heaven on Earth is that they have amazing bands, such as Arkells. Apparently the band is quite popular amongst our Northern neighbors, and they had an epic duet with Ke$ha during the Much Music after party. I can’t find it on YouTube, but it’s out there somewhere.

When Arkells finally took the stage, it was easy to believe they were a hit in Canada. Their lead singer Max Kerman’s male-model looks alone could have earned his picture a spot in teenage girls’ bedroom walls, and the band’s combination of solid rock songs that were by turns upbeat and moody certainly didn’t hurt.

Besides his striking good looks and rugged croon, Kerman had a great sense of humor to boot. His between-set remarks drew laughter from the audience multiple times. Sure, sometimes the crowd was laughing at him rather than with him, such as when he tried to guess the Black Cat’s location (“Columbia? Potomac?”), but it was all good-natured. When bassist Nick Dika had to replace a string, Kerman filled the awkward silence by jokingly chastising him for stopping the party, since Tokyo Police Club said they wouldn’t get paid if they stopped the party.

Despite their brooding lyrics in songs about personal and political struggles, Arkells were at their best when they were rocking out and having fun. The fast-paced “Heart of the City” was a stand-out because of its driving guitars and strong beat, not its lyrics on heartbreak. In “No Champagne Socialist,” multi-instrumentalist Dan Griffin played a catchy harmonica riff, giving the song about a young man trying to represent the working class a fun, bluesy feel. The “hey hey hey”s in the chorus of the upbeat, piano-driven “Ballad of Hugo Chavez”’s were more memorable than the song’s ruminations on solitary confinement, but hey, making your meaningful songs rock is hardly a crime.

Near the end of the set, Kerman engaged the audience in a sort of call-and-response in the moody “Oh, the Boss is Coming!” Kerman yelped “Punching in,” and the audience shouted back “Punching out!” The crowd seemed most enchanted, however, with Kerman’s Beatles-referencing moments, such as the song “John Lennon,” in which he repeatedly crooned “I’m John Lennon in ’67” over punchy pianos. Kerman seemed most in tune with the crowd when he quoted the opening lines to “Eleanor Rigby” and the whole crowd sang along to “I look at all the lonely people.”

After Arkells exited the stage, our “chaperone” left as well to go hang out with them at their merch stand. Her spot was quickly filled by the surging crowd. I doubted the crowd was truly that interested in Freelance Whales and began to dread the pre-Tokyo Police Club rush.

Freelance Whales set up an odd array of instruments used to craft their eclectic, folksy sound. The night’s line-up included a banjo, a glockenspiel, and a percussive instrument that looked like a whisk that got in a fight with a carving knife. They began playing through Weathervanes from the beginning: slow-building opener “Generator^First Floor,” followed by the cheerful and quirky “Hannah,” the soothing “Location,” and the bouncy electronic tune “Starring.” To my disappointment, they stopped short of my favorite song, “Kilojoules,” and skipped to songs later on the album. I decided that since the sunny, hand-clapping “Kilojoules” is arguably the most fun song on the album, it would be best if they saved it for last.

Since I’d never seen a picture of the band, I was surprised at their diverse appearance. Their line-up included a woman in a mod polka-dot dress, a man whose yellow headband screamed jock, and a man whose newsboy cap and beard screamed hippie. Their eclectic outfits, however, suited the odd variety of sounds on the album. Their lead singer, Judah Dadone, wore a gray button-down shirt and large glasses that, with his dark, curly hair made him look like a dead ringer for Leonard from The Big Bang Theory.

While we’re comparing the band members to TV characters, I have to say that Kevin Read’s yellow headband was pure Paulie Bleeker from Juno, and Doris Cellar could easily have been Zooey Deschanel’s double in (500) Days of Summer. The jury’s still out on Chuck Criss and Jake Hyman. What do you think?

As I was saying, between Dadone’s nerdy charm, quirky lyrics, and the adorable way he smiled while singing, I must confess, I’m a little bit in love.

It was hard to judge whether the rest of the crowd was similarly enamored. By some miracle, I happened to be standing near a couple that were dancing along to the music. The girl behind us graciously moved back a little after I spent the first few songs sort of leaning in front of her to see around the tall guy in front of me, so then I could dance next to the dancing couple, instead of awkwardly by myself. My friend and I both thought that it sounded to us like lots of members of the crowd were singing along, but whenever we looked around, I was the only one.

Then again, our ears weren’t in the best shape. We were approximately ten feet from the speakers. Although Arkells played much more rollicking songs than Freelance Whales, Arkells played theirs at a reasonable volume. Whereas on their album, some Freelance Whales songs start soft and gradually build, in concert, these songs start ear-splitting, and if their volume increases, the change is canceled out by the gradual deterioration of the audience’s hearing.

The latter half of the set was a bit easier on the ears as Freelance Whales played their more subdued songs. “Broken Horse” and “Ghosting” were both stand-outs for their lyrics that were nonsensical yet sensitive. In concert, the band extended some of the instrumentals and repeated vocals more than on the album, giving some songs long, languishing intros and outros, which made the show very fluid. The transitions were also eased by the fact that the band spent little time talking between songs. Dadone told the crowd that playing in DC was special to him since he attended George Washington University. While the band was switching instruments between songs, Cellar made a comment about how much she enjoys the glockenspiel, though her voice was nearly drowned out by the sound of her bandmates tuning their insanely loud instruments.

They played “Kilojoules” as the second-to-last song of the set. I listened to the two verses and chorus and silently prayed they would repeat some of them. They played a long outro that wasn’t as catchy or fun as the rest of the song, and I desperately prayed that they would repeat the chorus. Alas, they did not, and they played another song after it that I don’t remember at all because I spent the whole time wishing they would play “Kilojoules” again. I decided that no one should ever give me a time machine because I would just use it to listen to them play that song again. And again. And again.

The only disappointing thing about their set was that they didn’t grow a forest on stage or reanimate any dead girls while wearing Day of the Dead masks. Wait, did that sentence not make sense to you? Then you need to see this video.

Freelance Whales - Generator 2nd Floor

Freelance Whales | MySpace Music Videos

They seemed much more normal in person, I swear.

After Freelance Whales’ set ended, my friend and I wondered aloud how much longer our ears and feet could stand all this standing near the speakers, but we decided to stay for at least some of Tokyo Police Club’s set. Meanwhile, the guys next to me started getting restless and pushing each other around. Four guys, near the stage, all friends, all starting to move around already - I thought these were prime conditions for mosh pit formation and figured we wouldn’t last three songs.

As I’ve said, predicting mosh pits is an art I have yet to master. I am happy to say that my prediction was totally wrong. The guys near me jumped around and danced, but they were remarkably good at staying in place and respecting other people’s space. There was a tiny rush toward the stage that left us with lots of room, I was right under the air conditioner, and the guy closest to me did some adorable fifties-style dancing instead of the usual fist-pumping. It made for the most delightful dancing experience I’ve ever had. Sure, my ears were probably going to fall off and get lost on the floor, but it was worth it.

And it wasn’t just the crowd that surprised me - I was a bit blown away by how fun Tokyo Police Club’s music sounded live. They began the set with “Favourite Colour” and continued to play most, if not all, of their latest album, Champ, as well as several songs from Elephant Shell. Although there were no major stylistic changes between the album versions and live versions, there was a little more of that spark of life to them. Chill songs like “Hands Reversed” became laid-back dance songs, and fast songs like “Wait Up (Boots of Danger)” sounded more energetic than ever. It’s hard to say whether the change was caused by the energy of the crowd, Dave Monks’ focus on the songs, the colorful stage lights the band was enveloped in, or a combination of the three.

Dressed in a plain white t-shirt, Monks kept his long hair in front of his face for most of the set, but he managed to keep the crowd captivated despite the fact that they could rarely glimpse his eyes. He wasn’t distracted by small talk or show-offy antics, only raising his guitar and shredding right in front of the crowd a handful of times throughout the set. However, the band had enough great songs that they didn’t need any gimmicks. The bright colored lights surrounding the stage and flashing at migraine-inducing speeds near the end of the set were by far the flashiest thing about it.

One of the band’s most charming displays of humility was their decision to include their most popular song, “Your English Is Good,” as part of the set instead of the encore. When they were finished playing, there was no awkward pause when the crowd stops cheering and waits expectantly for the encore they know the band will give no matter how quiet the crowd is. The crowd kept cheering the entire time until the band came back onstage for the two-song encore they earned.

During the set, I marveled at how good they sounded and how great the crowd was (and how long some guys can jump up and down without getting stomachaches - oh, how I envy them). There were two girls, however, that showed just how easy it is to ruin a terrific set for those around them.

Around the middle of the set, I felt something cold and wet on my arm and looked down to see a girl who had muscled her way into the fourth row next to me. By the way she was holding an empty glass, I speculated that she had bought so many drinks she could afford to pour one over herself. Then she started loudly complaining about how someone spilled their drink on her. I soon began to suspect it wasn’t an accidental spill so much as the liquid residue of popping someone’s personal bubble. Luckily for me, she and her friend soon decided the fourth row wasn’t good enough for them, so they muscled their way into the second row, right by our “chaperone,” who had returned from her chat with Arkells. My friend fought valiantly to keep them out, but finally our chaperone sarcastically told them that if they could find enough space to stand in front of her, they could go.

Never dare someone to squeeze into nonexistent space by the stage. It’s like giving dessert to a kid who says they’re too full to eat more vegetables. They’ll always find room.

Although none of the rowdy boys standing near me ever tried to mosh, one of these girls did. Well, she was either trying to mosh, or grind on all three boys around her at the same time.

After the set, the girls left a few feet ahead of my friend, our chaperone, and myself. As we walked, our chaperone loudly commented that they were a “stupid, entitled horse.” Except she pronounced “horse” in a funny way.

We made our way over to the merch stand because my friend and I wanted to buy CDs by all three of the bands. Our chaperone was still a bit miffed that her conversation with the lead singer of Arkells hadn’t gone so well earlier, and she thought he was a bit pretentious. Still, we bought their CDs, asked them to sign them, and asked for a picture. When I was standing in line and told their [incredibly burning hot] lead singer that they were amazing, he thanked me, introduced himself, and shook my hand. I think you should be proud of me for not fainting. I am.

After that, my friend and I bought Freelance Whales and Tokyo Police Club’s CDs - $12 for both, an amazing deal that made up for the fact that before the show, I stupidly bought 4 Tokyo Police Club pins for $1 apiece. They weren’t even big pins. I don’t even have anything to put them on. But they came with a free poster, so it wasn’t so bad.

Two members of Freelance Whales were working their merch table, so I asked for their autographs, too. One of them signed the CD then gave it to their lead singer, who was in front of the table talking to someone. After he signed it, he gave it back to me. I tried to take this opportunity to convey that I think Freelance Whales is one of the greatest bands in the world, and I absolutely adore their music, and I could listen to “Kilojoules” on repeat for a million years, and I have attempted to do so on several occasions but given up after about 20 minutes, but it was hard to declare my love for him when he was being so darn humble, always thanking me for coming to the show and buying the album and all. Our conversation wasn’t nearly as long as I’d hoped it would be, but I think that had it continued, it might have devolved into an endless cycle of
“Thank you for coming to the show.”
“Thank you for playing such an awesome show.”
“Thank you for buying the album.”
“Thank you for recording such a great album.”
“Thank you; we love you for being a fan.”
“THANK YOU MORE; I LOVE YOU MORE.”
“Thank you-”
“THANK YOU TIMES INIFNITY!!!! Ha, I win!”

Anyways, he shook my hand and introduced himself to me (Judah, in case you forgot). I blame all these introductions on an incredible amount of luck and perhaps a bit of good karma, though it later occurred to me that the shirt I wore to this concert was much lower-cut than the shirts I typically wear to concerts, and I have spent several hours watching bands at Warped Tour totally ignore me in my t-shirt to talk to my friend in her tank top. If that’s why I got two handshakes at this show, I think I’ll go paper-cut my wrists with some feminist manifestos about how fashion and standards of beauty are ridiculous and boys are stupid.

I like to think that Judah could tell I’m kind of madly in love with them, though. He was so nice that after our little conversation, I decided that in the indescribably tragic event that Adam Young, Ben Gibbard, and Mika all die, Judah Dadone will assume the position of Love of My Life.

So after that, I could have been nice and talked to the two underappreciated members of Freelance Whales, but I spotted my dad waiting by the door and decided it was time to leave. He had come in time to see the end of Tokyo Police Club’s set, and his insight was that they sound like Al Stewart, the seventies rocker best known for his hit “Year of the Cat.” Stewart doesn’t have Monks’ pleasantly whiny growl (yes I am aware that sounds like an oxymoron), but I suppose the comparison isn’t too far-fetched. I wish I had my dad’s historical perspective on Arkells’ music, since I’m pretty sure they owe a great deal to some seventies rockers, but I’m not entirely sure which ones. Freelance Whales, on the other hand, seem pretty darn original.

Wet Hot American Concert

I know it’s one of the top-rated music clubs in the country (and a favorite of Gabe Saporta - more on that later), but I’m starting to think the 930 Club isn’t a safe place for me.

My trip to see Cobra Starship, 3OH!3, Travie McCoy (of Gym Class Heroes fame), and I Fight Dragons began much like my visit to the 930 Club over a year earlier to see the Ting Tings: my dad dropped my friend and I off at the end of the block, which just so happened to be the end of the line to get in. We hopped out and got in line, admiring the tour buses parked right next to us. Those weren’t there for The Ting Tings and Hottub.

Since it was the mid-May, I decided to leave my sweatshirt in the car, and although it was mid-May, within minutes, I was shivering and my friend was getting scared for me. Just like at Owl City, except this time, there wasn’t a nice area for me to run laps in to warm up.

When we got into the club, we were not offered cupcakes, so my bitter grudge against all my friends who have been served cupcakes at the 930 Club is now stronger than ever. My friend grabbed us a spot about five people from the stage while I hit the merch stands. Then I ducked into the Little Mermaid’s room and did not encounter any drunk birthday girls. Pity.

One of the reasons my friend and I had spent the past year desperately dreaming of attending a Cobra Starship concert was because we figured that unlike many crowds we’ve encountered, Cobra fans would know how to party. A girl standing behind us confirmed these assumptions when she started loudly explaining to her companion that she can’t stop herself from dancing whenever she heard something with a beat. She then went from cool-party-girl to crazy-party-girl when she started describing how her behavior on a camping trip earned her the moniker Drinks With Wolves. Then she went from crazy-party-girl to flat-out-crazy when she started talking about a grisly murder scene. Fun crowd.


(Click on images to admire them in full-screen splendor.)

I had told Brittany about how I Fight Dragons play music on their Gameboys, so when they came on, we were more psyched to see them than most of the crowd was. But the most psyched person in the club appeared to be the girl next to us, who sang along to every word of every song. Like with the Paper Route fans, I sang along to the choruses and felt unworthy of being in her presence.



Sadly, I Fight Dragons was not dressed like superheroes or video game characters, as they are in many performances I saw videos of online. Most of them wore ordinary clothes, like button-down plaid shirts. Two notable exceptions were their token sexy girl, a cute redhead in a top that bared quite a bit of midriff. Hey, I guess if you’re going to have a girl in your nerd-rock band, you might as well take advantage of all her abilities.



Though she was probably a favorite with the men in the audience, my favorite member was the man in charge of their NES Command Center. He was dressed in a shiny jacket and sunglasses that looked like they could have come from a Neo Halloween costume, and I mean that in the best way possible. But even cooler than the way he looked like he’d escaped from the Matrix was his Command Center. It looked as though the band found Doc Ock’s dead body, removed the human body parts, then put their instruments on the ends of his tentacles to store them while they played other ones. It looked really sweet.

I Fight Dragons played every song on their EP Cool is Just a Number, then demonstrated how their chiptune instruments work to prove they really were playing them live. The lead singer played one, and the girl played her supercool glove.



I liked the chiptune part of their act, but I had trouble dancing to their songs. They just didn’t quite work for jumping or dancing. I didn’t feel too bad about my inability to dance to them, though, because I noticed that the self-proclaimed unstoppable dancer, Drinks With Wolves, was not dancing at all.



After I Fight Dragons’ set was over and they told us we could meet them at the merch stand after the show, they started setting up for Travie McCoy. They took down the TV screens I couldn’t really see that probably showed videogame characters fighting dragons. Travie’s set consisted most notably of a big picture of his album art and a microphone stand that lit up. Ooooh...



Travie came out carrying three big, white balloons that looked really incredibly bright under the spotlight. He sang a bunch of songs whose names I don’t remember because the only song he’s released so far under his solo project is “Billionaire.” I expected his entire set to be him and an acoustic guitar or ukulele, playing cute little songs like “Billionaire,” but he had a drummer and a DJ with him. I think he introduced both of them as members of Gym Class Heroes, but don’t quote me on that. His music was more hip-hop-leaning than I expected based on “Billionaire,” and they sounded quite a bit like... Gym Class Heroes songs. I have no idea why he didn’t just bring the full band with him and release these songs as a new GCH album. I’ll have to investigate.

Not to brag or anything, but after playing two or three songs, Travie said that even though he’d only played a few songs, we had already made this the best show on the tour. Not to totally shove it in your faces, but he said he loved how much energy we had even though we had never heard any of these songs before. Not to say we’re way cooler than all the other cities, but he pretty much loved us... Or was a really good liar.

Near the end of the set, Travie sang “Billionaire.” But he didn’t really sing it. The DJ played the song with Travie’s recorded vocals while Travie sporadically sang and rapped and talked to the crowd. It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever heard, but I was quite looking forward to seeing him sing it with his acoustic guitar and/or ukulele...



Oh, and as if the color-changing light-up mic stand wasn't enough, the tips of the drumsticks lit up too.

After Travie’s set ended, there was a mid-size surge toward the stage, presumably so everyone could get close enough to kiss Gabe Saporta’s awesome ass (and smile while doing so). Thus, my friend and I went from being five people away from the stage to nine people away without actually losing any ground. Isn’t it amazing how that happens?

That’s not to say we didn’t fight to hold our ground. I tried my best to shift my weight around so one surging battalion would be stopped just behind us. After a few minutes, their front lines broke through, but I tried to angle myself to cut them off and stop them there.

This silent battle was made all the more passive-aggressive by the fact that they were playing Ke$ha and Jay Sean, so everyone was kind of dancing while trying to save their energy for Cobra’s set. I got in a long skirmish with the battalion’s second line in which he would move so that his shoulder was in front of mine and he could slip through, then I would turn and dance so that my shoulder was back in front of his and he was effectively trapped behind me. The Battle of the Shoulders continued for the majority of “Tik Tok” and some of the next song. After a while, he relented and I suffered an attack from the rear. Specifically, his female friend pressed herself right up against my rear.

When faced with a girl trying to push you around by shoving her boobs into your back, you have a few options: move forward and shove your boobs into someone else’s back, setting off an unstoppable domino effect, or hold your ground and wait until she becomes uncomfortable enough to relent. Although I was internally shrieking “THIS CHICK’S BOOBS ARE ALL UP ON ME, AND I AM SO HETEROSEXUAL IT’S UNCOMFORTABLE,” I could not let her win this power play. If she wanted to stand awkwardly close to me, she would have to suffer the awkward consequences.

After several of the least comfortable minutes of my life, she let up a little, and I no longer felt like I was being anal-raped. Her male friend (the one I engaged in the Battle of the Shoulders with) then began doing some weird hand movements directly above my shoulder that didn't quite touch me but sort of tickled. He then began running his hands through my ponytail, but since my hair fortunately does not have nerve endings, I could not tell whether he was actually touching my hair or just coming very close to it. His awkward female friend mimicked his hand movements, and I just smiled and laughed uncomfortably, and tried to see what they were doing without making eye contact.

After several minutes of waiting for Cobra to come on, the troops got restless, and a second surge occurred. The enemy battalion charged past us, and my friend and I were pressed so tightly between the new people next to us that I was able to relax my legs because I no longer needed them to hold me upright. It was pretty cool, as far as uncomfortable and disturbing experiences go.

When Cobra Starship finally came on stage to put us out of our misery, the entire crowd in front of me did a little mini-surge, leaving me with almost a foot of empty space on each side of me, which, let me tell you, is the most space I have ever had in the middle of the crowd in a seatless venue.



It soon turned out, however, that we were going to need all the space we could get because the guy behind me somehow lost his glasses to the small-objects-eating monster known as the dance floor. Turns out, I was pretty lucky when my glasses got knocked off during Unicorn Kid’s set at Rock n Roll Hotel and only had to suffer about ten seconds of blind panic before finding them. This poor guy spent at least three minutes looking for his. So many people were trying to help him look for them, I almost thought Gabe would pause before the next songs and ask us what was going on. He didn’t, though, plowing through the end of opening mosh-fest “The City Is at War” straight on to the even more moshable “Pete Wentz Is the Only Reason We’re Famous.” Really, of all the times you don’t want people jumping up and down...

I thought about telling the guy how I lost my glasses like that at Unicorn Kid’s show, but it didn’t seem like an entirely appropriate thing to say while he was scouring the floor with only the light of his cell phone to guide him. Then after he finally recovered his glasses, I decided the music was too loud to make it worth the effort of shouting.

Cobra followed “Pete Wentz” with “My Move Are White [White Hot, That Is],” and I was glad I could dance to it after having to refrain from jumping during the previous songs for fear of smashing anyone’s glasses.

And, you know, I still hate to brag, but I have to tell you about how Gabe told us that the 930 Club is his favorite venue. He said they’ve played there like 14 times before, which I found hard to believe since the only times I recall Cobra coming to the area in the past year, they played Merriweather Post Pavilion twice and Black Cat once. Regardless, Gabe said this was the first show on the tour to sell out, another reason he loves us.

Between songs, someone threw some Pink Floyd boxers at Gabe.

“Pink Floyd boxers!” he exclaimed. “I’ve been looking for these for months! I’m going to wear them every day, okay?... I’ll wear them over my tighty whities every day.”

omgheisthecutest.

After that, Gabe asked who had seen Cobra Starship before. That cheer was loud enough to make me feel like a loser for never having seen them before, but when he asked who was seeing them for the first time, that cheer was even bigger. I wonder if my fellow Cobra-novices were as surprised as I was about the awkward, passive-aggressive between-set surges toward the stage.
In a move that made me understand why Gabe and William Beckett are buddies, Gabe then welcomed us to the club, teaching us the Cobra hand sign: two fingers... well, actually, I’ll let you go to a concert and learn it for yourself. (Or check out the Too Fast for Love tour t-shirts, which have a picture of it. Bet you can’t figure out which hand symbol goes with Cobra and which goes with 3OH!3.)



“Once you’re a cobra,” Gabe told us, in probably the most inspiring little speech I have ever heard at a concert, “you’re a COBRA FOR LIFE!!!” *insert hand symbols and cheering here*

Gabe then introduced William Beckett of The Academy Is... and Maja Ivarsson of The Sounds. I kind of thought they were actually going to come onstage until he announced Samuel L. Jackson's name. I mean, “Snakes on a Plane (Bring It)” is an awesome song, but bringing Samuel L. Jackson on tour with you just seems a bit excessive.

Neither Jackson nor Beckett and Ivarsson were there, but Cobra Starship did play “Snakes on a Plane.” Gabe invited a member of the audience onstage with him to perform the rap part. A boy named Josh volunteered, and Gabe seemed especially excited to have a guy take a shot at it.



“Normally girls want to do it,” he explained, “but let’s get some testosterone up here!”

Based on Josh’s initial performance, it seemed like letting boys do it might not be the best idea: Gabe helped lead Josh into the rap section, but Josh started to sing the beginning of the song. Then Gabe told him to do the rap and led him in again... and Josh sang the beginning of the song. In as friendly a manner as possible, Gabe warned Josh that if he didn’t get it right soon, he’d have to get off the stage. The third time, Gabe helped him by starting to do the rap with him, and the third time was the charm: Josh made it through the entire rap with great timing and rhyming skills.

“See? He knew it all along,” Gabe said at the end, looking proud and impressed. “He was just nervous.”

“I’d be nervous,” a member of the band whose name I don’t know because I only know Gabe and Victoria’s names, said, “getting up here in front of all these people.”

The other members of the bands whose names I don’t know agreed.

Josh got down off the stage, and Gabe finished up the song.

After playing a couple more songs, Gabe asked if there was any Latin blood in the audience. Either I failed to notice that most of the audience was Hispanic, or Latin blood gives people the ability to cheer really, really loudly. Either way, I was impressed.

Gabe then explained that Cobra Starship is all about mixing things that aren’t normally mixed. For example, their next song had some nice Latin music for the ladies to dance to, then some hard rocking for the guys. That song, of course, was “Smile for the Paparazzi.”

That brings me to the coolest thing about Cobra Starship’s set (besides Gabe and his love of Pink Floyd boxers): the set. As in the stage and backdrop. While I Fight Dragons had opted for the classic black-backdrop look and Travie had gone with the increasingly-popular gigantic-album-art, Cobra Starship’s set was performed in front of thousands of lights. Lights that changed color to show pictures of dancing girls and spell words and do something involving X’s and O’s during “Wet Hot American Summer” that I totally did not understand.



For the dancing parts of “Smile for the Paparazzi,” Gabe sang in front of a backdrop of twinkling stars. Then for the rocking parts, the word “POP” flashed on the screen as Gabe and the crowd chanted “Pop-pop-pop-pop-paparazzi.” It was pretty freaking sweet. In fact, when combined with Gabe’s almost-unmatched charisma (William Beckett is still the only performer I’ve seen who can compete with his stage presence), the flashy backdrop made Cobra Starship’s set the greatest live set I have ever seen.



The set sort of ended with “Hot Mess,” in which the backdrop showed the silhouettes of dancing girls, which seemed rather unnecessary. I mean, the club was already packed with teenage girls sweating through their tank tops (but somehow never sweating off their liquid eyeliner - I will never understand how that works). How much more hot and messy can you get?



At the end of the song, a rainbow of balloons fell from the ceiling. It seemed like a fitting end to the set, but since it’s not proper for opening bands to demand encores, the set went on.
Gabe told us about how, somehow, Cobra Starship had a hit on the radio last summer. This perfect introduction to “Good Girls Go Bad” led into... “Guilty Pleasure.” Because, Gabe explained, before that, everyone knew why Cobra Starship was there: “I came here to make you dance tonight...”

After snubbing “Good Girls Go Bad” for “Guilty Pleasure,” I expected Cobra Starship to send a message to any audience members who only care about their hit single that these concerts aren’t for them by refusing to play “Good Girls Go Bad.” But turns out, Cobra Starship aren’t as bitter about fair-weather fans as I thought: they played “Good Girls Go Bad” as their final song.
I also expected them to play Leighton Meester’s part on a laptop a la what-Owl-City-did-for-“Saltwater-Room”-before-Breanne-started-touring-with-him, but instead, Victoria sang Leighton Meester’s part. And unless they secretly were playing Leighton off a laptop, I must say, Victoria sounded really good.



Fun fact: Did you know Victoria directed an iPod commerical? Or that she’s Paul McCartney’s ex-fiancée’s niece? I love Wikipedia.



At the end of the song, to signify the real end of the set, a rainbow of confetti fell from the ceiling. This might have been cooler than the balloons if the majority of the audience hadn’t been wearing tank tops that showed quite a bit of skin. Really sweaty skin. The confetti landed on everyone’s shoulders and chests, became saturated with sweat, shriveled up, and died. It was a horrible sight.

Although I was a bit too far from the stage for the confetti to reach me, right after the band exited stage left, I got a good view of wet-confetti-covered girls as there was a mass exodus from the front rows. Apparently even though 3OH!3 was headlining, most girls didn’t really give a crap about them.

The mass exodus was rivaled in size only by a surge toward the stage even more massive than the pre-Cobra surge. Moving forward in the pre-Cobra surge was like salmon swimming upstream into a brick wall. Moving forward in the post-Cobra surge was like salmon swimming upstream into a lake that actually has room for most of them. My friend and I might have been swept up in the current because I smiled at a guy who said something unintelligible to me that I now think was along the lines of “Want me to push you until you’re in the first row and I’m in the second?” Whether it was because of his plan to get us to the front or just the force of a crowd of crazed 3OH!3 fans, Brittany and I went from being nine people away from the stage to being five people away again. It was good to be back in front. At first, anyways.

Since my friend and I had no more control over where we ended up than two water molecules have when they’re carried to shore by a wave (and unlike those water molecules, we didn’t even have hydrogen bonds to help hold us together), we got separated by a few people. I was okay with this since I knew where she was, but I think she tried to bring me up to the third row with her, but her plans were thwarted by a girl with shoulders of steel. I wish I’d had her on my side during the pre-Cobra surge.

Although we weren’t quite next to each other, we were both quite close to a group of girls that found an extraordinarily large beige bra on the floor. Apparently someone had attempted to throw it at Gabe during Cobra Starship’s set, but the bra hadn’t quite made it all the way to the stage. These resourceful girls knew better than to let a perfectly good bra that was much too large for any of them them go to waste, so they borrowed a Sharpie from a man nearby and wrote all their names and phone numbers on it so they could throw it at 3OH!3.



3OH!3 came onstage against an American flag backdrop that had their name (literally) written all over it. It looked cool, but it couldn’t compete with Cobra Starship’s fancy lights. What with the lackluster set and the way Cobra had balloons, confetti, and more fans, I put 2 and 2 together and concluded that Cobra were supposed to be the real headliners.

3OH!3 began their set with “Starstrukk,” sans Katy Perry, unfortunately. They followed it with “My First Kiss” (sans Ke$ha, less unfortunately) and “I’m Not Your Boyfriend, Baby.” I considered this to be a strong beginning, since it consisted of almost all their songs that I actually like.



A girl a few people in front of me made a t-shirt that said “I’m Not Your Boyfriend, Baby.” She held it up during that entire song so the guys in the band could see it (and us folks behind her couldn’t see the guys in the band - gee, thanks). At the end of the song, the cute one with short hair - the general consensus on GoogleImages is that he’s Sean Foreman - read the shirt.

“Yeah, you’re not my boyfriend!” he told her. “You don’t even look like a boy!”

Despite his acknowledgement of her shirt, the girl still felt the need to hold it in the air for him to see it for the first couple minutes of the next song. This just made us folks behind her want to punch her in the back of the head even more than we did before.

During the next song, which I didn’t like enough to remember the name of, the girls with the bra decided to throw it. Sean caught it while singing, and without missing a beat (literally), he tossed it right back into the audience. The man who had loaned the girls the Sharpie caught it and tossed it back to them. In that moment, I decided that, although I’m still not crazy about most of 3OH!3’s songs, I have so much respect for Sean Foreman.

For me, the bra-tossing was definitely the highlight of 3OH!3’s set. Although I can’t say I enjoyed the set overall, it taught me a lot about crowd dynamics. To extend the ocean metaphor I used earlier, a whirlpool formed right next to me.

So it was really just an ordinary mosh pit, but when all of a sudden, the relatively calm group of guys standing to your left start running into each other and you try to move to the right as far as you can to get away from the rapidly-expanding circle, it sure feels like being sucked into a whirlpool.

For most of the beginning of the set, I had been trying to avoid the rather large guy next to me, who kept jumping up and down and fist-pumping dangerously close to my face. I tried my best to stay away from him, lest my glasses meet the same fate as those of the guy who was behind me (who, by the way, I never got to bond with over our shared lost-glasses experiences before the tide of people swept me away). One time, the guy next to me even knocked my glasses off. I quickly caught them in mid-air, then held them in my hand for the rest of the song.

When the mosh pit appeared next to me, I was initially glad he now had a more appropriate place to release his fist-pumping energy. Unfortunately, most pits don’t have walls for moshers to bounce off when they get to the edges. Well, they kind of do have walls. They’re called the people standing next to the mosh pit. AKA me.

I was reminded of the vastly underappreciated Son of Dork song “Murdered in the Mosh.” I would just like to warn you that you don’t have to be a poser who claims to like Jane’s Addiction but is actually a Backstreet Boys fan to suffer such a horrible fate. After about three guys bodyslammed me then bounced back into the pit, I was convinced that my life would end that way.

One girl in the same situation as me finally had enough of being pushed around, so she barreled into the mosh pit and started pushing back. She was kind of my hero. She also made me realize the silver lining of being near a mosh pit: if any jerks who fought their way in front of you show up in the mosh, you have the perfect passive aggressive excuse to get revenge. Since I managed to eventually escape the edge of this mosh pit, I think my demise will actually occur in a future mosh pit, doing just that.



As great as it was to be within ten feet of 3OH!3, almost close enough to touch them (and much closer when they actually reached into the audience and everyone surged forward to touch them), I really felt like the set went on a bit too long. I can really only stand being pushed around and stepped on while listening to them announce their plans for a house party in their house. (Really? You’re not going to rent a hotel ballroom for that?)

While we're on the subject of their song "House Party," I would like to note that repeatedly exclaiming “[screw] the club” while performing in a club sends mixed messages. Unless they actually meant “[have sexual intercourse with] the club,” in which case I am immensely glad no one attempted to do so.

By the end of the set, I thoroughly wished I had followed the legions of Cobra Starship fans who left after Cobra’s set. It wasn’t that 3OH!3’s music was that bad. I wasn’t nearly as worried about my ears bleeding as I was about my toes, nose, and internal organs. But then again, it didn’t help that 3OH!3 ended their set with their most insufferable song, “Chokechain.”

Although I desperately hoped that they would end on a low note and leave the stage without an encore, alas, no closing band can ever go without an encore these days. 3OH!3’s performance had none of the balloons or confetti of Cobra’s, further proof that I should have gotten out while I still could. They played two songs for their encore, one of which I didn’t recognize. The second was “Don’t Trust Me,” and as much as I like that song, I didn’t think it was worth being treated like the wall of a moonbounce just to hear that Sean’s a vegetarian.

After 3OH!3’s set ended, my friend and I hit up the free ice water at the bar, then headed back to I Fight Dragons and Travie’s merch table corner because Travie said he’d be there after he put on his jammies. (Seriously.)

Travie had evidently already hit the hay (er, mattress on the bus) by the time the show ended, but several members of I Fight Dragons were there, signing CDs and shirts. We realized when we got there that the members of I Fight Dragons emulate their superhero role models in an unfortunate way: although they may be Superman onstage, offstage they make a pretty convincing Clark Kent.

We each bought a copy of their EP to get them to sign, then awkwardly smiled at their bassist for a bit too long, afraid to ask him if he was really their bassist or just an ordinary guy who looked an awful lot like their bassist. Then we retreated to a nearby trash can to take the packaging off the EPs so we could actually get them to sign them. We decided we would approach the ones who were already signing things since we knew they had to be in the band.

We got their lead singer and token sexy girl to sign the EPs first, then moved on to the guy we’d awkwardly smiled at, who really was their bassist. I realized that although they wear normal-looking clothes, each had a colored patch somewhere on his or her outfit that contained his or her elemental power symbol, or something like that. Very Power Rangers chic.

Armed with the ability to identify the bandmates by closing examining their outfits (or just seeing who was signing autographs), we doubled back onto the floor of the club to get another member’s autograph. As a bouncer tried to escort us out, we got the cute drummer’s autograph. I finally worked up the nerve to start praising them as they signed, and he seemed genuinely grateful for my nervous gush of words about how really really good they were.

Since the bouncer wouldn’t let us back on the floor, we headed for the door, a bit disappointed to get all their signatures but one. Two guys standing by the door tried to sell us I Fight Dragons’ EPs, and we showed them we already had them.

“Awesome!” one said. “Did you get them signed?”

We showed him we were missing one signature.

“What?” he exclaimed. “You can’t miss one!” Then he called over their final member, the guy who looked like Neo playing music out of Doc Ock’s dead body thanks to a really strange glitch in the Matrix. He signed our EPs, and our concert experience was complete. All that was left was to face the annoyed wrath of my dad on the ride home, who hates how we’re always the last kids out of the club, and to marvel at the fact that we survived.