I Like Wearing Slippers When It’s Raiiiiining

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, July 18th, Prospect Park, Brooklyn

Need Your Love (Status Quo cover)/ Jo Jo’s Jacket / Animal Midnight / Vanessa From Queens / Witch Mountain Bridge / Dark Wave / Phantasies / new song or unidentified cover / Mama/ Grab It And Gone / Us / Vague Space / Old Jerry (!!!) / Jenny & The Ess Dog // 1% Of One / (aborted cover that I didn’t quite recognize with John on vocals/guitar and SM on drums) / Take Five (Dave Brubeck Quartet cover, brief tease) / 100 Years From Now – Dance The Night Away (Byrds cover with Van Halen tag, John guitar/vocals, SM drums) / Can’t Get You Out Of My Head (Kylie Minogue cover, Mike Clark vocals/keyboards, John on drums, SM and Joanna have left the stage)

It rained very, very hard during 85% of this show. Luckily, I had an umbrella, but so did most of the people in front of me, so it was hard to see the show through all of the umbrellas. Since this was a free concert, there were entirely too many people chatting during the songs, which really grated on my nerves. There was this one group of obnoxious girls right in front of me who would not SHUT THE FUCK UP during the instrumental sections of “Witch Mountain Bridge,” and I nearly snapped on them, but I managed to move over a bit away from them, so even if they were still audible they weren’t overpowering the music so much. My big thrill of the night came when they played “Old Jerry.” The part when the song breaks down towards the end (‘the walls are jagged and expanding’) was one of those wonderful you-had-to-be-there concert moments, with the house lights shining on the crowd as the rain finally stopped. It was like a collective sigh of relief, and it just felt so right. I had been waiting a long time to see “Old Jerry” live, and it ended up being an extra special thing, so I went home soggy and happy.

Blur, July 17th, Hammerstein Ballroom, New York City

Ambulance / Beetlebum / Girls & Boys / Badhead / Gene By Gene / For Tomorrow / Sweet Song / Morroccan People’s Revolutionary Bowls Club / Tender / Caravan / Out Of Time / Crazy Beat / Brothers & Sisters / To The End / Song 2 / Trimm Trabb / Battery In Your Leg / The Universal (!!!) // Popscene / On The Way To The Club / We’ve Got A File On You / This Is A Low