Don't get offended if I seem absent minded

Friday night I went to see Bloc Party play at the Hard Rock. I met one of my friends beforehand so that we could drive over together. I pulled into the parking lot where we were meeting just as she was heading to her car. As soon as I got out she said "You really need to get a new car. You're never going to get girls driving that thing." She has a point. At the very least I need to get some new hubcaps on the front tires since they've been missing for about a year.

We got there just a few minutes before the opening band (The Go! Team) came on stage. I had never heard them before, but they were pretty good live. I'm probably not going to run out and buy their album anytime soon (I have way too much other music that I want first) but if someone wants to burn me a copy I'd certainly take it. My friend and I had to laugh because one of the guitar players looked a LOT like one of the professors in our department. Who knew that she could jam like that? We pointed this out another friend that was there, and I think it ruined the show a little bit for him. He's taking a class from her right now, and doesn't have a high opinion of her to say the least.

By the time Bloc Party took the stage there was actually some energy in the room. A typical concert in Vegas (at least from my experience) has a slight buzz from the people who are there to see the show and are getting excited, and a more prominent buzz from those who are there to be seen and/or because it's something to do and spend the whole time talking on their cell phones. In fact, this show probably had the most energy I've seen at a concert in Vegas since I saw Pearl Jam play at the MGM Grand a few years ago.

One guy in front of us started stretching out before the band took the stage. We're not talking just raising your arms in the air to stretch, but actually pulling his legs up behind him to stretch out his legs, leaning from side to side with his arms outstretched, etc. He was going to do some dancing! We'll call him Mr. Stretchmeister. His ears must be better than mine, because I made a comment to my friend about how it was funny that he felt the need to stretch, and he heard me and said something back, but I couldn't hear what he said.

As soon as the band started playing people started going crazy, and got more so by the end of the show. Security was pretty tight, but they did have to wade into the crowd a few times to take care of the people in the front who were getting really out of hand. I wouldn't have wanted to mess with any of those guys. They were huge and looked mean, just as a security guard should. Just as expected, Mr. Stretchmeister was getting into it too. No security guards had to come take him away, but my friend did have to poke him in the back with her finger to get him to stop moving back into her. It's a good thing he was loose, otherwise he may have pulled a hamstring or something.

(It reminded me of the first concert I ever went to: Naughty by Nature in Salt Lake City back when Hip Hop Hooray was on the charts. We had actually gotten there early enough to be pretty close to the stage, but once the music started people started working their way up past us with the exception of a guy we called Pelvic Thrust Man who stayed behind my friend's younger brother for the duration of the night doing just that. Even when he'd try to move away, Pelvic Thrust Man would follow. I wonder if he was able to get himself off.)

During Bloc Party's encore performance people started throwing CDs up on the stage, hoping that the band would give them a listen. One person threw theirs and hit the lead singer right in the back of the head. He picked it up and announced that it was one CD that would not be listened to, but we think he was lying.

After the show we went back to the parking garage where it took us over 30 minutes to get out. It was fine though because we were just sitting in my friend's car listening to her ipod and honking the horn (in mockery of the people who were honking because they meant it - do people not realize that in a situation like that honking isn't getting them on their way any faster and that it just makes them look like pricks?). The last thing we listened to before I got out and went to my car was a Dane Cook skit talking about a new trick he had learned where he could launch a cashew into his mouth by catapulting it off his erection (and no, I didn't try it once I got home - I didn't have any cashews).