I thought, to get us back in the swing of things, that I would tell some tales from the last couple months, a bit at a time.
I saw Yeasayer back in April...
The story goes: Coachella asked them to pause when they got to LA, just in case there was room to put the Brooklynites on the Indio bill. You see, acts performing at Coachella have a clause in their contract that says they can't play within a certain mile radius of Los Angeles within a certain time frame. (Of course, those super sorta secret shows never count.) So Yeasayer didn't book an L.A. show.
That's the rumor anyway.
And the, it didn't happen. Scrambling for a show, they hooked up with super hipsters, No Age, for an old school all ages show at the Ukranian Cultural Center in Silverlake. A place I'd drive by just about every day and wonder about... Tickets were being sold the night of the show at the ice cream place around the corner.
Being a super geek about this band, I got in touch with them via the ever-so-handy MySpace and asked if I could do an interview. The singer, Chris, wrote me back to say they would be SO happy to do that! I was pretty pleased.
As the show got closer, I figured it was going to be a pretty loose affair as we were just going to try to meet up after the show. I did find Chris before the show, and he was sweet as can be, and SO happy to be meeting up with his girlfriend after a long tour. (That should have been red flag number 1.) I then met Jason, the band's manager and label owner for We Are Free - a collective of sorts when it comes to music, management, and etc. Jason was also a nice guy, pretty busy (as managers are) but taking time out to bring me to the rest of the band so we could say hi and chat a bit. But this wasn't interview time - they wanted to take care of that biz after the show.
The show? Fan-fuckin'-tastic. They are so impressive live. I can't honestly describe their music and do it justice. Just go to their website and download some. Really. It's like indie hippie folk world music or something. And if all those things sound like bad things to you - well, they aren't when you mix 'em all up into Yeasayer.
After the show, well, everyone was a little drunk and/or stoned. Wrangling that band would have been like herding kittens, as they say. They were finding friends, getting hugs, eating hot dogs, smoking, and - well - generally relaxing and having a good time. And who was I to disrupt that with my little MP3 recorder? Sigh... no interview this time. But one day...
