Hey Michael, That was Cheap Trick.
Yeah, Cheap Trick played at the 9:30 Club last night, and it was a rock and roll show, and Holly and I were there to see it.
The opening band was a Brooklyn-based quartet called the Damwells. I’ve always been a sucker for a leader singer in a striped suit jacket, so you know, they had me at hello.
Furthermore, the drummer looked exactly like Husker Du era Bob Mould, and the bass player bore a most unfortunate resemblance to Carrot Top. The sound? Imagine the Replacements plus the Gin Blossoms — frenetic drumming over three-chord songs about girls. They were excellent, if you’re into that sort of thing, which I am.
Cheap Trick. OK, Wow.
First off, let me just say that it’s not really possible to review a Cheap Trick show. At least, I can’t do it. I mean, it’s Cheap Trick. I can only tell you what was cool, and then deliver a fanboy rant.
Of course it was amazing. Of course it was stupendous. Of course it was loud. Of course they played the songs we came to hear — Surrender, Dream Police, I Want You to Want Me, etc etc.
OK, Wow.
Holly and I were debating afterwards who put on a better rocknroll show, The Mooney Suzuki or Cheap Trick. She cast a vote toward Mooney Suzuki, while I chose the boys from Cheap Trick.
My reasons are these:
But that’s not what I came to tell you about. I came to tell you about Southern Baptist weddings. I attended one last weekend, my cousin Aimee’s specifically, and I have to say that they are a strange commingling of celebration and ceremony rivaled only by the Annual Adult Entertainment Awards. Sure, everybody wants to have good time, but there is so much work to be done.
I’m not gonna walk through the entire weekend, partially because alot of what I would say is superflous (the bride wore white, the groom, his shinest cowboy boots) but mainly because I don’t want to type that much.
In my opinion, the best way to judge the success of any event is by choosing a Quote of the Day. I was sure that Michael had the award wrapped up tight, when just prior to the ceremony, he grasped the pew in front of him with one hand, his wife’s shoulder (Hi Kathleen) in the other and said in a thin and grave voice, “Are the lights changing or am I blacking out?”
Over the past few years, my extended family has undergown a strange transformation. The Hamrick clan has traditionally been a generally tight-lipped, prudish, quiet bunch. Sure, we have our laughs and giggles, but those were always undercut by this sense that being proper Christian soliders requires a certain constant gravitas, so we’d better not laugh too much. Jesus died for our sins, so we’d best hush up, make like every day is Sunday and be good little angels.
More recently though, that undercurrent is totally gone and the Hamricks (especially my aunts) have gone off the reservation. The angels are a bit tired of being so insufferably good, and they are ready to slip out the to closest roadside dancehall, light up a Marlboro Red and throw half-empty cans of PBR at the band. And that band had better play some Hank Williams Jr., and not that Shania Twain shit.
It’s kinda strange, kinda cool, and I wished it would have happened ten years ago. I probably would have enjoyed Christmas dinner alot more.
Anyway, back to Quote of the Day…
After the reception I was standing on the lawn of the church talking to three of my aunts, a cousin, and my grandmother about their evening plans, which (at least for the aunts) included going out to the local blues club to see a band. The conversation turned to why one of their sisters (my father has 5 sisters) doesn’t go out with the rest.
One aunt (we’ll call her Sandra) turns to the other (we’ll call her Eunice) and says, “And what did Dorothy (yet another aunt) do for her birthday?” To which Eunice replies, jokingly, “I think she broke loose, got drunk and danced naked on the bar!.”
Gentle readers, that is somehow not the QOTD. The Quote of the Day goes to my sainted grandmother, Zena Mae Hamrick, who turned to her daughters, Sandra and Eunice and said… “There ain’t nothing wrong with that!?”
My seventeen year-old cousin Arnold capped it off with, “Ugh, mental image… I think I need a drink.”
And that my friends, was the first sensible thing I’d heard all day.