Performanceamnesia

I’m the sieve-minded gal that forgets shows pretty much as soon as they’re over.  It’s terrible, I know, to the point of me denying during a conversation today that I’d ever seen Paul Simon.  We were chatting about S & G and I said, “Oh, I’d love to see Paul Simon.”  Turns out I did at SPAC with Brian Wilson a few years ago.  That got me thinking about all those forgotten shows, some more interesting than others.  The most interesting ones were just me being at the right place at the right time.  Since the folks at work had no idea who I was talking about, here’s a sampling:

• Belle & Sebastian/Interpol (Hammerstein Ballroom, 2001) I was there for B&S and they were awesome, but it was Interpol who really stuck with me, maybe because their sound was such a contrast to the Scot-pop I’d gone to see.  It was hypnotic.
• Beck/Ben Folds Five/Elliott Smith (SPAC, 1998?)  I fully admit that I knew nothing about Elliott Smith until this show and was not sold, initially.  It wasn’t until a couple years later that I really joined in the idol worship.  But I still feel lucky to have been there.
• The Unicorns/CocoRosie (Bard, 2004) I’d heard the Unicorns album exactly one week prior to this show and pretty much just went along for the ride.  I was in for a pleasant surprise, which began an obsession that continues to this day even though Unicorns are truly dead.
• Rockets & BlueLights/Western Sky/Complicated Shirt (maybe?  Naked Truth? Others?  The girls’ basement on Myrtle, 200-sometime) Sorry, the details on this one are sketchy but I will never forget Western Sky’s set.  I think the way it happened was that the R&BL guys toured with WS (who were from NH?) Anyway, it was easily the best show I’ve ever seen in my life.  Ever.