The First 'mats show I ever attended
I have a ton going on in my life and around me that has my head feeling like a couple of hardcore racquetball players are using the big empty cavity that is my skull as a racquetball court.
Today though, news got through to that small fragment of my brain that cowers in the corner that the Replacements have reunited and are touring this summer. Instant mindgasm.
Riot Fest, September 21st & 22nd, Byers Colorado.
Generally speaking I am way past my fanboy days. Not that I'm jaded or inured to the joys of what made me happy when I was younger, it's just that I have other priorities in life, and I've learned that there are far more important things than buying the latest CD from a band I like or the latest book from a favorite author.
However, all of my developed decorum and hard-won maturity goes out the window when it comes to one performer, and it goes completely out of the galaxy if that one performer decides, after a 22-year hiatus, to reunite the band that I consider one of the top 2 bands in the existence of recorded music and headline a major rock festival this summer.
Yesterday it was announced that the Replacements will be playing RiotFest this year, and that the tour includes Denver, Colorado (well, close to Denver - it'll be held in Byers, about 50 miles east of Denver).
I was beyond elation when I heard the news. I texted Thibs, telling him this is the equivalent of a Beatles reunion for us, and that he needed to get his ass out here for the show. Tickets are on me.
Yeah, I'm well aware that this gives the appearance of me being at best akin to a burnt out Deadhead following Further around the country, and at worst a Quiet Riot fan trying to recapture a taste of a wasted youth at a show with all of one original member of the band at the county fair.
I don't give two fcuks. Paul Westerberg & Tommy Stinson
together again on stage. If they recruit two guys off the street to play drums and lead guitar, I'm going to be there.
Everybody, or at least everybody with a heart and that abstract concept known as a soul, has a musical interest that has affected them in some way, that makes them crank the volume when that music comes on the radio.
For me, that band is the Replacements. Of course, the 'mats really don't get played on the radio all that much, but that only makes it all the more exciting when they are.
Hearing a 'mats tune in the background while watching a movie (whether it's My Chauffeur, Feeling Minnesota, Say Anything, He's Just Not That Into You, Life At Forty, etc.) makes that movie all the more enjoyable for me, even if it's a crappy movie (i.e., most of the aforementioned).
Today, despite all the bothersome or worrisome concerns of life, was one of the best days in recent memory, just because a couple of guys who play music I like are getting back together and coming to my neck of the woods. Crazy, I know.
But I take my happiness where I can find it, and it beats the hell out of a heroin addiction.
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