Franz Ferdinand, SOIL Auction, KEXP show

Bright Whites, Big City
Western Bridge, Neumos, Paramount - Seattle, WA

How to sum up a weekend that begins with art anxiety and ends on stage at the Paramount, 20 feet from Franz Ferdinand? With bullet points, of course!

Friday: SOIL art auction

-- Two other women are here with the exact same highlights as I have in my hair, and while we all look fabulous I vow to change mine immediately.

-- Two guys seated behind us during the auction are in suits and consult detailed notes before the auction begins. We decide they are Art Snipers and we are paranoid that they will bid on the pieces we want. In the end they bid on NOTHING, the posers.

-- Remember when we talked about filtering? My friend and I decide that art openings provide the perfect filter, and that we will attend these events in the future to shop for men.

Saturday: KEXP benefit show

-- When we arrive at Neumos, my friend points to the cute boy singing on stage and she jumps for joy. I think she’s pointing to the “No Smoking” sign, and I jump for joy in response.

-- The crowd claps and says "yeah!" to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah as if they can understand what the hell the guy is singing. They are so faking.

-- The highlight of the evening: witnessing a gal pour a packet of Emergen-C into a mixed drink. That’s Xtreme Health, baby!

Sunday: Franz Ferdinand

-- Opening band Cut Copy makes me feel like it’s 1987 and we’re watching the unknown opener for New Order. They rouse a still audience by instructing them to “jump up and down on the count of three!!!” Audiences love to be instructed. Remember that, bands.

-- We are in the bar and miss TV on the Radio because how can you walk away from a story about someone being arrested and repeatedly frisked by cops in Moscow?

-- A British fan find out that a member of our group was in a band he knew in London a long time ago, freaks out, takes pictures, chats him up, then confides to the rest us that he never really liked the band anyway.

-- Because of a random audiology-related favor that my friend did for Franz Ferdinand yesterday, we have all-access passes to this show. We follow a friend through various doors and end up in the wing ON THE STAGE, right behind the mixing board, where we stay for the rest of the show. Finally I am seeing a crowd from the band’s perspective.

My god, people, do you know how beautiful you are? That your smiling faces are dazzling and inspiring? That your immobility can be heart-wrenching? We all assume that the band can’t see crap because of the lights in their eyes, but they really can see you. Your reaction really does matter. If you love your bands, send them all of your good juju and your happiness and your motion, because they will feed off of it and deliver it back to you in spades, like Franz Ferdinand did tonight.