After breaking down a ton boxes and getting Bessie back to her home on Bedford, I hoped onto the L train to make my way to catch Metric and Broken Social Scene. When we arrived at the door to the China Club, we still weren’t sure what to expect. There are secret shows, then there are shows that NOBODY knows about. This was one of the latter.
We made our way up some stairs and Metric was on the small(ish) stage in the corner. The club probably holds a few hundred but there were maybe a hundred people milling around. Jeremiah and Vanessa are huge Metric fans and have shot and reviewed them a couple times. (Fonda and El Rey). After posting those pics and reading the reviews, I’ve been wanting to catch them for a while. One of the things I was impressed by was how much their sound varied. It was soon obvious that the people in the audience weren’t familiar with the band. Emily asked what songs they wanted to hear and you could just about hear crickets chirp. They broke into another song but one of her keyboards was acting up and you could tell she was getting a bit frustrated. They decided to take the space-jam approach to finishing their set and somehow I think the angst made it all work.
Once the band was off, the extended Holy Fck gang, were all talking about exactly what was going on. The event was obviously sponsored by Miller. There were logos behind the stage, the only beer was MGD, and the laminates we were given had Miller all over them. Come to find out that there was a big international competition and the hundred or so people in attendance were flown in from all around the world for this show. I instantly had to test that theory and asked the guy next to me where he was from….Switzerland. Next over was a guy from South Africa, then a small group from Poland. We broke down the cost of putting on such an event and realized that it was about a thousand bucks a head. And, somehow, we ended up here. We couldn’t erase the permagrins all night long.
Broken Social Scene slowly made their way to the stage in matching orange shirts that read “Shut Down Guantamo” (see www.witnesstorture.org for more info). This was their fourth appearance in the last two weeks in NYC yet there was no sign of fatigue. When Kevin, the lead singer, got on stage, he held his hands above his eyes to shield the light and noticed less then 50 people in the audience. He tried to do some math about how much the band was getting payed per person but gave up pretty quickly. Since most of the people there didn’t even know who BSS were, they decided to kick things off with ten minutes of instrumental funk. They seamlessly worked their way into a BSS tracks and everyone was digging it. About half way through the set, I yelled/requested “It’s All Gonna Break”. They didn’t play it at the Tag Team party a couple weeks ago and it’s my favorite song. Kevin said, “Well, we’re not really following a set list anyways, so….sure”. I started jumping up and down then got so damned excited I briefly forgot how to dance. No worries….just jump around, scream along, and smile. They followed that with “Major Label Debut” which kept the crowd moving. I think people in other countries might dance more than your average American, I’ll have to test that over the coming years as I travel around. It was about time for them to wrap up the set so they said they were gonna jam out a bit, ala Holy F_ck style. Brian and Graham jumped on stage and another 10-minute-plus instrumental jam session closed out the show.
At this point we didn’t think it was possible to get any better. We were all amazed and giddy and sweating when someone said “Ok, now everyone head upstairs, DJ Premier is spinning” We couldn’t believe it. I flagged down one of the people putting the event on and asked, “Is there another, separate party going upstairs?” She said, “nope, it’s just for you guys”. WHAT? We made our way up the stairs and sure enough, DJ Premier was at the tables spinning some great R&B tunes. Everyone was hanging out on the terrace and I was doing it solo on the dance floor. I wondered…this might be the only time DJ Premier has spun and only had ONE person on the dancefloor. After a bit we rounded up some of the band members from down stairs to come up and a mini dance party was underway. Every time I found myself dancing with someone new, I’d ask them where they were from; South Korea, Canada, Poland, and just about everywhere else. I was thinking two of the cute girls I had seen earlier were from Iceland or Sweden but found out they were from Tennessee, where I happened to be about three weeks ago. The dance floor had filled up a bit by now and the songs gravitated more toward the rock set with some AC/DC, Maroon 5 (yes I got down to that too), Gnarls Barkley, and some Clash. Everyone was dancing with everyone else and having a great time. Graham from Holy Fck jumped on Lowell’s shoulders for a bit. He tried to shake up his beer to spray on everyone but that threw Lowell off balance and Graham did one hell of a face plant in the middle of the floor. Once everyone realized he was alright, they all started laughing, even the bouncers.
It was sometime past three by now and there wasn’t any signs of stopping. I followed my rule of, “It’s not how you dance, it’s how long you dance”, and kept shaking it and putting down Miller Genuine Drafts. Not my favorite beer but it never tasted so good before. Danced with the Tennessee girls for a while until they started kicking everyone out around 4.
What an amazing night. That, coupled with the huge Pool Party during the day made for the best day of my life, outside of the day me ma popped me out….thanks MA, love ya.
