ST. FRANK :: the last days

[Not those last days.]

Saturdays during Bridge School Weekend have revolutionized ever since we started getting reserved seats. We used to have to wait in line super early and sit on the General Admission grass for hours, sometimes braving the rain. The second year, Billy & I were soaked with rain/sleet from about noon til 8pm on what quickly became a mudhill. It should be noted that, despite the threat of hypothermia and the fact that I was wearing snowpants, it was one of the best years. Since then, reserved seating has saved our sanity and Saturdays. If only they would let us buy a block of 8 seats again, like the good old days.

This year, we used our Saturday well, meeting up with friends Ben & Dana (engaged the night before) and Matt & Erin (great people, but with no real news to put in parentheses). We hung out in Ben & Dana’s sweet suite for a bit before heading south, picking up Bridge virgin Vito Esposito (Real name. Picture Adrien Brody & Hank Azaria’s lovechild, and ignore the biological impossibility).

We arrived just in time to make a speedwalk to our seats, to see Neil Young open the show like he always does. I think I might’ve mentioned the limitations of our camera.



The year doesn’t matter. Every time, Neil’s rendition of Sugar Mountain gets me. Sadly, that’s the only picture we took of the Bridge School this year. Oh, and this one, of the tent above reserved seating. Oozing festivity.



I’ll now go into a meta-review of the show. So if you’re one of Holly’s friends or get bored really easily with music talk, you might want to skip down to the part below that says, in bold: WE NOW REJOIN OUR BLOG, IN PROGRESS. If you do skip down, feel free to let me know, so I can take you off our Christmas Card list.



I sawREGINA SPEKTOR open for The Strokes with some friends in Vegas for New Year’s a few years ago. She was a sloshy wreck. But she completely redeemed herself, played the inenviable opening slot, but managed to shine. Everything she did just spilled creativity and sparks. Very quirky, genuine, a great singer, and a real deal artist. Holly’s favorite set of the night for good reason.

TEGAN & SARA have come a long way since being an in-joke for me and Billy in early Bridge years. But they played too long and were tolerable at best. Polite yawn.

I think I’m the only one of my friends who really loved MY MORNING JACKET’s set. Sometimes I feel bad hogging all the good taste.

JOHN MAYER is a great guitarist and a funny guy (Chapelle’s Show, his own show), but I guess I just don’t get into the songs. Perhaps we should just leave it at that.

TOM WAITS, on the other hand, was the greatest. Unreal. One of the great all-time performances. He just tore it apart, as crazy and wacky and electric and frightening and beautiful and heartfelt as you could ever in your hopeless romantic, hapless lunatic heart hope. The Kronos Quartet backed him up and nailed it- spooky, sad, longing, beautiful, sometimes all at once. A national treasure. The Day After Tomorrow was particularly heartwrenching. I felt especially bad for Billy, a big Waits fan, to have missed this epic performance. Other people I felt bad for: anyone else how had to try to play on that same stage that day. Especially Metallica, but we’ll get to that.



He’s a legend and I’m glad I’ve seen him, but JERRY LEE LEWIS felt more electric last time (when the old man tore it up). Still, all sorts of points for being a legend and still clinging onto the crazy bit.

As Dave, Billy, and I have said time and time again, “The Bridge School is always great, if for no other reason than the chance to see NEIL YOUNG every year.” Always good. He played with passion, mostly new songs, which is admirable in a world of sentimental oldies acts milking their glory days dry. He pulled out Oh Lonesome Me from After The Goldrush, which- in 13 times I've seen him- I’ve never heard.

METALLICA was a colossal disappointment. Honestly. And I’m a card-carrying member of the Metallica Fan Club (that’s another story). They stumbled through a bunch of ill-fitting covers, and didn’t exactly Big Papi their own songs. I can respect the attempt to give fans something they'll never get anywhere else, but it failed. They headlined too, which really made the terribleness all the more palpable.

All in all, a great year. Spent good time hanging with the Wheelers, took a break during John Mayer to hang with everybody, and lost the raffle again despite some convincingly encouraging premonitions.

WE NOW REJOIN OUR BLOG, IN PROGRESS.

Phew. You made it.

We slept in on Sunday and then Dave, Matt, and Erin dropped us off at the BART Station in Orinda.





Only to be picked up by my brother-in-law Scott and niece Lauren, who took us back to their house in El Cerritos to hang for a bit before our flight. It was great to see the Porters and their new baby, John Wayne Porter, if only briefly. [None of the above pictured because we are photographic morons.]

We left California happy and sad. Kind of like autumn. And its leaves. (Leaving, get it? Ugh. That’s so bad. OK, I owe you: you’re all back on the Christmas Card list.)





And now, back to the baby.