INCREDIBLE!!
That pretty adequately sums everything up. Seriously though, the show was awesome. Around 6pm a buddy and I drove from Cleveland to Detroit to see Ted Leo play in concert. The drive was fine (a little rain at the end though) and we got to the club (that’s the only way I can describe it because it was part café, part bowling alley, part bar, part other-bar-with-stage) just after nine.
The band they’re touring with (and who opened for them) is called Love of Diagrams. I really wasn’t a huge fan of these guys. I think my biggest problem with them was that all the instruments just melded together into one blob (blob being a negative word…) of sound and I like to be able to pick out different instruments.
Then TL and Rx came on.
One of the best parts of the show was, before they started playing, Ted Leo showed his support for Net Neutrality. That was sweet.
Around the middle of the show, between songs, while TL was fixing his amp or something, someone shouted out “I want to be just like you Ted Leo!” then added “…when I’m old.” TL’s first reaction was a direct “Fuck you!” but then asked the guy how old he was. The guy said he was 20 to which TL responded “Yeah, yeah…when you’re old…” The little interactions between TL and the crowd were what made the show so awesome. Most bands will talk to a fan or two between songs but usually it’s just to say that they did it. TL had actual conversations and seemed not to care that it was only making the show longer. He’s a cool guy.
OK, here’s what made the show incredible.
During the last song, TL (and I think pretty much everyone) was having problems with his equipment. It took him a few minutes to get everything sorted out but finally got it together enough to play the last song. They finished the song, said thank you, and left the stage. Obviously everyone kept cheering for a few minutes until TL came back on stage.
Except, initially, he didn’t have good news. Basically, they really couldn’t play because their equipment was all screwed up. Everyone was all sad and whatever until TL offered to sing a song a cappella. Umm…HOLY SHIT!!
After a few shout outs from the crowd (I yelled Freebird…) TL sang Dirty Old Town. This was so cool and the last thing I thought he would do (and apparently he doesn’t do this often because I checked youtube for videos and couldn’t find any).
The ride home was pretty sweet too, basically reliving the whole concert over again between my buddy and I (oh and the huge thunderstorm we had to ride through kinda sucked).
So yeah, I probably should have been studying for exams rather than driving all over the midwest going to a concert but I can’t say I regret going to one of the best shows I’ve ever seen.
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