i will fuck this up

On 24 March, I went to the Beat Kitchen to see the Menzingers, current Band Of My Soul. They put out this album, you see, On the Impossible Past, and it has been a very long time indeed since I loved a new album the way I love this one. It is their Epitaph debut, and those fucking punks quote Nabokov, against which I have approximately zero defenses, and then I had this conversation with a tattoo artist:

me: well, there are these lines of poetry in this book, where a bird slams into a window because it only sees the sky, and probably it dies. I think it’s about triumph.
artist: …maybe I’ll book you for TWO appointments.
me: yeah, that’s probably best.

So anyway, I went to the show. Openers were Captain We’re Sinking and The Sidekicks, both of whom I would go see again in a heartbeat; and Cheap Girls, whom I would not. I’ve tried with that band, I really have, because they are super nice guys and we have friends in common, but — I can’t. They drained the energy out of the room and I’m just not into it.

Then the Menzingers came on, and they opened with “Good Things” (which also opens the new record), and I let it have me.

There’s this [Tom Stoppard] quote: “we cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke and the presumption that once, our eyes watered.”

That’s how I feel about the best concerts. I have nothing to show for them. No photos, no words, just a visceral memory of the bodies around me, a ringing in my ears, a sore throat. Presumably, my eyes watered.

Go see the Menzingers, you guys. Do it for me.

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