an old post from another blog about why i love the weakerthans so much.
from feb. 16, 2001
please enjoy.

It’s a lovely Friday night in chicago and I’m sitting around waiting for a price quote. I’m so bored. Bored. Bored. I just want to get my quote and get the hell out of here. Need to stop by bluezeus and pick up my stationary samples that I designed. Have to enter them in a design contest. Then maybe I’ll go running and later I have to stop by whole foods to pick up robyn and jenny to go to the Sweep the Leg Johnny show. Blah. Blah. Blah. So to amuse myself while I wait, I’m going to try and recreate the blogger that I wrote last night since the blogger monster decide to eat it out of spite.

Here we go. Hope I can do this. It’s definitely not going to be as good as the one I wrote last night. Oh, well.

Saturday night, I went to see The Weakerthans at the Fireside Bowl. It was a completely sold out show. The line stretched around the building and down the block. I stood in line surrounded by packs of under-aged teenagers minus their coats bitching about being cold. I watched my breath crystalize in the air thinking about how I used to be that young, naïve and innocent. God, I hope Val, Jenny and Robyn get here soon so I don’t get stuck at the bar by myself while the show sells out and they can’t get in.

Jenny and Rachael pull up in a cab and cut in line with me. We sustain some piercing stares from the kids around us, but we ignore them.

We get inside and settle down at the bar. The venue area is packed with bright-eyed, punkers and vegans waiting for the show to begin. The bar is better. It’s good to be older at these shows. You get a seat. You drink. You get to talk and not go deaf as bands you don’t care about play. We sit around talking about jobs, boys, drums, music and things in general as we spiral into drunkness.

The second band takes their bows as I weave my way to the merch table looking for members of The Weakerthans. I need their persmission to shoot the band tonight. They, of course, comply. (what band wouldn’t? free fucking publicity!) I push my through the moist mass of bodies and walk across the stage. My usual shooting location is filled with a group of kids. I ask if they mind that I hang there and shoot the band. They don’t.

I talk to them for a while. It turns out they all go to school together and one of their friends, Peter, is a huge Weakerthans fan. They drove all the way from Ohio to quench his obsession and most of his friends have never heard the band. They're along for the ride. One of them lets me know that The Weakerthans have agreed to maybe let Peter play bass with them. I’ve heard these promises before from bands. I hope The Weakerthans keep their word.
The band takes the stage launching into their first song drowning the venue in their rock/punk/folk chord driven sound. Music pulses through the air leaving the crowd paralyzed in a wishful wonder while a few mouths move etching the lyrics. Good music is better than any drug. One of the reasons I like this band so much is the lyrics. I’ve grown out the teenager, idealistic ranting of the punk I grew up with. It no longer fits with my 26, jadded, wiser self. The Weakerthans express what I feel now. They speak of the bitter sweetness that comes in life after the shimmery newness wears off. It’s nice to have a band speak to me.

Half way through one of their songs, the lead singer stops and asks if a bass player from Ohio would like to get up and finish out the song. The kids around me grab their friend and push him up on stage. He stands dazed as someone hands him the bass. The singer then asks for a drummer. A kid bounds forward. Then he asks for two guitar players and a singer. A couple more kids swarm the stage and the make-shift band finishes off the song. Peter and the rest of the fill-in musicians leave the stage grinning. For them, it is one dream fulfilled.

I sit there watching the band finish their set smiling to myself. That night, The Weakerthans reminded me why I put up with dirty venues and mass mobs of sweaty teenagers to see shows. The simple fact that music touches the masses and the masses touch music back. The symbotic relationship created in those brief hours is one of the most powerful, fulfilling things in my life. During these moments, I return to that innocent, naïve sixteen-year-old seeing my first show. It makes me pure again.

I got my price quote. I’m going home. Time to eat a dinner of broccoli and a vegan corn dog and then head off to another show. God, I hope it is as good as The Weakerthans show.