Xiu Xiu Xiu

Wow! Incredible show last night! Okay, but I'll back up and cover things in a more chronological fashion. I'll start with the mail: I got a couple cds therein: Slow Blink: Time Constant and Slow Blink: Pangea. Also there's some really dull work stuff. Been struggling with the whole google migration thing as google is awful and wants everything done in-browser which is absolutely ridiculous for things you use all the time at work like email and chat and meet. Email you can at least hook up to an email client (which I'm currently struggling with, I think due to the volume given that everything was migrated into one damn folder (including all the massive amounts of auto-generated emails from our processes in all environments)), and I'd found a wrapper app for chat. But then yesterday I discovered PWAs, a thing where if any website meets some standard of criteria then the browser can create a wrapper app for it that's it's own separate instance of the browser but packaged up into its own app that the os can treat as a separate app so that's at least going to be a huge step up! (Yes, google does fit that and I was able to get a Firefox browser extension to enable PWA creation and I got that set up, so I can at least use that for meet, and hopefully have separate apps for the other two things I'd primarily use.) Okay, that's a bunch of boring shit when I have an awesome show to talk about!

Mary Beth and I got there right before the doors time so we were one of the first people in (two of?) and got settled in with some seats nice and in the middle. Lots of people we know were there. So chattin' it up with some folks. The Pop Ritual opened and they were good. Then, you know, Xiu Xiu played. Really great show. Not familiar with the last two albums (yet) but they did a good bit of stuff that I did recognize especially towards the end (and probably some stuff I should have recognized but didn't) (and quite a bit that was surprising! and more on THAT in just a bit): "Fabulous Muscles" (really great version, the best I've heard the song), "Falling", "Ceremony", "Girl with Basket of Fruit", "Apistat Commander", "I Love the Valley Oh" (for the encore), and ..."Ian Curtis Wishlist"!!! I fucking cried when I realized they were doing "Ian Curtis Wishlist" and I'm pretty sure I've never cried at a show before. I was NOT expecting it! (Wasn't expecting "Ceremony" either, but then when you think about David Kendrick's drumming, it makes sense they'd want to do that one while he's in the band!) Oh yeah, and I should mention how awesome David's drumming was! Really impressive drummer and nice to see him in the band. Of course Jamie and Angela are both amazing as well. Well, fuck. What else do I say? I was moved in a way that was very rare for me. After the show I got merch: two shirts (one with some weird monster thing and one with a black cat's head) and some cds: Xiu Xiu: Ignore Grief, Xiu Xiu Larsen: Düde, and Former Ghosts: Fleurs. When I was getting the stuff, I guess since I was getting so much (plus a shirt for Mary Beth) Jamie threw in the two side-project cds in for free when I asked for them too so that was nice! Then I got the chance to tell him about my crying and he was very nice. He thanked me for sharing that and said it means a lot. He seems like he'd be nice like that, so...yeah! Afterwards before we left, we were over by the art bar and Scott and his wife Johana came up and talked to us (Scott's the guy whose art installation I played last year with the big instrument cable sculptures). We talked a good while about stuff and cats (mostly about cats!). Anyway, reeling from what a great show it was and feeling happy and humbled.