Brian's World

Nine is not in the afternoon

I do not believe 9:00 is in the afternoon ever. It can exist in the morning, at 9:00am, or at night at 9:00pm. I’ve taken time to review the music video for “Nine in the afternoon” I have determined Panic at the Disco has their AM and PM confused. Originally I thought they may have had their afternoon and night confused, as they probably tend to play concerts at night (maybe around 9:00) so it makes sense for them to adjust to that being afternoon in their daily schedules. The music video presents no points to back this up as members of the band prance around in pajamas. That said, I do enjoy the song they tend to play first “We’re So Starving” where the group apologizes for being gone and taking time to write more songs. I find it humourous when they remind listeners 5 times that they need not worry about the band changing, when just recently they dropped the ! from their name. I am confident this is a significant change for the band. Yea, I know.. you’re probably thinking the same thing I am.. since when do musical artists care about punctuation… something is clear up. Maybe its because there is no ! at the end of Civic, or something like that.

If you haven’t figure it out by now, I attended the “2008 Honda Civic Tour Featuring Panic At The Disco” last night. The tour played across from my dorm, in the RPI fieldhouse. 4 bands performed, Phantom Planet, Hush Sound, Motion City Sickness, and of course Panic at the Disco. I think I enjoyed Panic at the Disco the most, the others were less appealing… maybe because I didn’t know any of their songs. Phantom Planet did play their “California” song, but that song has bad associations in my mind (it was used as the “We are currently experiencing technical difficulties” song for a web-radio station I set up a few years ago) so that song playing doesn’t inspire any calming memories or anything like that.

My ticket was for the “General Admission” section, which (little to my knowledge) didn’t have seats. I was expected to stand for >4 hours listening to music while being crushed by other people. That is exactly how I enjoy spending my Saturday night! The entire “lets see how densly we can pack ourselves” game has always been my favorite. Not. I understand some people like to move in correlation to the music being played (I am not one of the people if you haven’t caughten on yet), but there are some of us who would much rather have a seat with a predesignated space for ourselves. This allows me to better focus on enjoying the music and the performace, and not wondering who is molesting my right side. Needless to say, I took a seat after the first two groups performed. I was feeling weak after standing without being able to move more than 3 feet for a long time. The good seats were taken, so I took a seat off stage right. I couldn’t see much because of the lights poles in the way, but I could hear decently and isn’t that what concerts are about?

I did have a great seat to observe the security staff, who would assist people who were crowdsurfing to negotiate the wall they had seperating the crowd from the stage. I found that all female crowdsurfers were gently carried down, and friendly allowed to escort themselves to the side of the stage to get back into the crowd area. I found that most, *not all*, male crowd surfers were helped down, not always as nicely as a female, but then they were frequently shoved or pushed to the side of the stage by the security staff for doing nothing different from a female crowdsurfer. There were several instances were they were a male’s shirt was grabbed to assist in his removal from the stage, this practice never happened to females.

Being at the concert got me thinking about artists in general and their profession. I guess I get frustrated, maybe jealous, when I hear the story of group like Panic at the Disco who became famous while graduating high school. While I haven’t spent time biographing their members, I think there is a low probability most of them have attended college (at least for the academics). I spent my afternoon studying physics, they probably spend their afternoon relaxing with friends, family, or fans who would do anything to be next to them. Tomorrow will be the same for both of us, and probably the next day after that. Yes, I guess they have to put on shows somewhere in their.. but the show is established once and repeated several times. Its not like each show is terribly unique. They are going to play the same songs they’ve been playing for quite some time and people are likely going to clap their hands and scream in response to them. Where else but music does someone screaming at you imply something good. If I was at a programming something or other, and someone started screaming I would immediately prepare to evacuate and protect myself. Someone may have died, gotten severly injured, or the internet may have died. I guess it frustrates me, I’m likely going to be talking to a computer for the rest of my life. I like that, not because I enjoy feeding data to the machine, but because I like leveraging the machine to distribute data to others. There is a low probability I will ever have “groupies” or very dedicated fans. There is a better chance that I will get struck by lightening than I will “go on tour” in my “tour bus”. I didn’t show any extra signs of support for the musicians last night because I don’t think they did anything challening. It was not their first show, and it wasn’t their last show. I could have probably heard the music on my computer or something much clearer, without the dense people around me. I am likely going to spend some time thinking how I, as a computer person, can go on a “tour” and have people pay for me to do the same thing over and over again. I guess if I have to, I’ll wear tight pants, but only if there is someone to pick them out and iron them for me.

Othernews… I thought the dirty business would be cleaning itself up, that has not been the case though. I’ve simply found the infection spreading. Luckily I know that some immediate actions will happen on my part this week to temporarily put the problem at bay.

If you have any ideas, suggestions, or would like to join my group going on tour please let me know. I plan on getting sponsored by a car, and we’ll be eco-friendly by purchasing carbon offsets for our servers.

Good night moon.