This post was submitted by Zack Rosen

As my life has become busier, I have increasingly become the kind of person who has to skip fun things because he needs the sleep, or would rather play with his dog all night then go to another party, or because he hasn’t yet folded the laundry he did five days ago and is tired of walking naked from his bedroom to his living room to dig through the laundry bin for a wrinkled pair of clean boxers while worrying that the site of his pale, dangling manhood will somehow corrupt his innocent young she-puppy.

So yeah, between The New Gay and trying to get a good night’s sleep once in a while free time has become a premium in my life. And usually the first thing to go are rock shows. The list of concerts that I had free tickets for, and skipped, is criminal. Vampire Weekend. Ted Leo. AC Newman. Peaches. Do you want to hurl a brick at me yet? It’s ok, I want to hurl a brick at me sometimes too. Which is why I set a challenge to myself last week: I had tickets to see TV on the Radio, Passion Pit, Santigold, Jenny Lewis and Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head. (sample videos of each can be found at the bottom of this post.) That was one show for every day of the week. And I was going to drag my lazy, tired, but always appreciative of good music ass to every single one. No sudden illnesses. No laziness. I would ignore the call of the couch and actually go out there and see how much good music one could take before collapsing. And here’s what happened.

1. Monday, June 8th — TV on the Radio at the 9:30 Club:

My first ever 9:30 show was TV on the Radio in October of 2006 and it made an indelible impression on me. It could have been the excitement at having just moved to in a new city, or a realization that I was now an urban, employed adult who could do things like see concerts on Sunday night. More likely, it was a desperate scramble to scrape and smoke a minute amount of resin from my bong while drinking a bottle of sparkling wine that had been left in my fridge by my domicile’s previous residents when I had moved in the day before.

Regardless,  my memories of the night are dominated by three distinct elements. The first is the band’s music, which can be earthshaking on their records and which blew my mind live. But forget music. The real thing I took away from the night was that two seemingly innocuous body parts — hips and arms— can be downright dangerous when moved the right way. That night, TVOTR’s frontman (and former TNG interviewee)  Tunde Adibempe whipped, spun, pointed and gestured himself into such a dirty little whirlwind that I was convinced he wrote makeout music about himself. It was a beautiful thing.

But that was two and a half years ago. I don’t know what happened in the intervening time — if I changed or the band did— but I actually found myself bored. Not unmoved, not slightly less impressed than the other times I’d seen them, but actually bored. Tunde spent most of the show parked behind a mic, hiding his physical gifts from the club’s expectant eyes. Either that or I wanted too much. This has been a theme for me, actually. Every band that’s blown my mind — The New Pornographers, Hot Chip — has dissapointed me the second time around.

I actually left early and wondered if it was going to be a long painful week. Isn’t distrust of rock music the first sign of getting old?

I came home around 11:30 to find my boyfriend playing iPhone mahjong on our balcony. We talked about us for a while and went to bed.

2. Tuesday, June 9th — Passion Pit @ The Black Cat:

The experience of the 9:30 Club, which some say is the country’s best venue, and The Black Cat, a slightly smaller indie club/bar, is night and day. 9:30 is where the greats go. It’s where I saw Lou Reed and Debbie Harry, and future Lou Reeds and Debbie Harry’s like LCD Soundsystem and Neko Case. Black Cat shows are slightly smaller scaled, and tend to be just as much about the experience as the music. While 9:30′s cavernous space allows for the music, and the music only, to take your focus, The Black Cat is like being in a movie, like maybe “Blow Up,” where the music is on, and it sounds great, but you can also flirt and people watch or go get a beer between songs without feeling like you’re never going to fall back into the rhythm of the crowd.

This atmosphere is perfect for a band like Passion Pit, what have enjoyed about eight months of indie “it” status despite the near-universal agreement that their last DC show ate ass. I think their albums are fun, but I came in with low expectations. And scarred by the experience the night before, I decided that a gin and tonic or two might make for a more interesting experience. And then one of my friends offered to share a joint with me in the alley.

Flash forward to 3:30 am, as I stumble home with my ears ringing and a smile on my face. What a pleasant surprise! Passion Pit, a band I expected to be, at best, an amalgamation of falsettoed hooks and prerecorded beats, actually throws a great party. Immediate recognition goes to any band who can make the Black Cat audience  dance like they have termites in their skinny jeans, and PP did just that from about their first note. Favorites like “Sleepy Head” actually benefited from the lack of samples present in their live version, and others, like “Little Secrets,” had previously never been on my radar but were now on loop in my head and headphones. There is a special feeling that comes with emerging sweaty and buzzed into the night after hearing what is, simply, fun music.

Unfortunately, that feeling often is highly inconducive to just going home and knitting. Hence the late night. And the trip to 17th St. And the inappropriate thing I did in an alley.

3. Wednesday, June 10th — Santigold at the 9:30 Club:

I have an amendment to my earlier statement about the 9:30 Club. While the Black Cat maintains a consistent vibe of laid-back cool which its bands usually just amplify, whatever their tempo or volume, the 9:30 Club tends to act as more of a blank slate whoever it is hosting. So Donovan can transform the place into a concert hall full of politely sitting baby boomers, or Yelle into a french immersion camp of bad manners. Once in a blue moon the place can turn into a gay club. The Presets have done it. God knows Yaz did it. Add Santigold to the mix. Brooklyn’s genre-hopping queen of hipster self-awareness managed to pack a mixed crowd of homos and lesbots that would make a Benetton ad proud. the geographical center of the club, where I was parked, had not one straight person in site.

Santigold herself is a formidable stage presence. Flanked by two identically robotic dancers in glittering jackets, she dropped her two biggest songs, “Lights Out” and “L.E.S Artistes,” within the first quarter of her show. Unfortunately these were the only two songs of hers that I know. This lead to the surprisingly pleasant experience of just experiencing (sober, this time) sensual happenings of songs I was hearing for the first time. Without worrying about singing along, or comparing a recorded version to its live sibling, you’re free to notice things like which parts of the crowd dance in which separate ways or the glint that appears in Santi’s eyes when she hits a particularly deep chorus. The only song familiar to me after “Lights Out” was her cover of “Killing An Arab,” and it was great.

Beside finding out that I can sometimes still have weird crushes on pretty girls, I also learned that it can just be fun to get out of the house to see something which might give you 45 minutes of pleasure. It was definitely worth what I gave up. Namely, another good night’s sleep.

4. Thursday, June 11th — Jenny Lewis @ The 9:30 Club:

This is getting ridiculous. Why do I do this to myself? I don’t know the first thing about Jenny Lewis, save that I find Rilo Kiley overrated (“Silver Lining” aside) and that she’s probably in some kind of secret war with Neko Case for the title of indie music’s most lovable redhead. And I’m getting so tired. Who knew that I was now the kind of person who couldn’t go out three nights in a row?  But I figured I’d probably be experiencing some fatigue at this point, so I had insurance. I invited TNG’s Rocky, an avowed superfan, along with me. It’s easy to cancel on yourself but way harder to cancel on a friend. So after another “kissing my boyfriend on the cheek after a record-time dinner and running out the door while cursing how late I always am for things” we made it to the club halfway into Jenny’s first song. The place was packed and the only place for a decent sightline was the balcony.

But she was great. I finally saw the country charm that makes so many people fall so hard for the perky ginger and I was totally smitten. I can’t tell you the name of a single song she played, but I stared raptly and swayed for the better part of an hour. I generally don’t prefer the baloney but it was cool to stand above everything and just watch a large number of people be happy. And one unhappy person be carried out by his friends after Jenny stopped mid-song to note that he had fallen down and to ask if he was OK.

But I’d finally hit my limit. I left before the end of the encore, ostensibly because I was going to melt from exhaustion. But also because of my extremely crotchety desire to “beat the rush” of departing concertgoers who bottleneck at the club’s doors and cause me practice deep breathing exercises to prevent myself from doing something extremely unchristian.

I also caved to a week-long temptation that I had there-to-fore resisted: the merchandise table. You’re going to love my gray Jenny Lewis hoodie come fall. And I’ll never get my $30 back.

5. Friday, June 12th —  Natalie Portman’ Shaved Head at DC9:

I couldn’t. I really wanted to see this show. I wanted to go out on the Friday of Capital Pride. I wanted to stick to my word. But I couldn’t. The idea of exposing myself to one more night out, no matter how great the band, was making me want to swear off music forever. That’s the side effects of too many concerts: It can take something you truly love, music, and turn it into a chore. I like sex too, but if someone put a gun to my head and made me perform it eight times a day I’d probably run screaming for the nunnery.

Oh well. So I failed. But I also got to watch 5 hours of Dexter on the couch with my boyfriend. I got a good nights sleep and I saved some wear and tear on my eardrums. TNG

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