psychedelic youth aged to perfection

Last night I went to a concert by myself. It's a common occurrence. Second only to going to movies by myself.

The show was the Psychedelic Furs and I felt it was a good opportunity to catch some 80s vibe before all my idols die (and even though apparently Weird Al was playing at the state fair at the same time)

The Psychedelic Furs are unusual. I can't place them well. They're unique enough to not be "mainstream 80s nostalgia" if that even makes sense. They're probably best known for lead singer Richard Butler unofficially winning the prize for the Britishest accent while singing. I always found their songs to be dripping with cynicism while sort of trying to be romantic.

I wondered if after all these years, he'd look sort of pathetic.

He looked far less pathetic than he sounded if that's even a compliment in any way.

He looked giddy. Giddier than any of his songs. He looked like he went through pain and confusion in his youth, expressed his emotions and is now reaping a cathartic reward for his past suffering. It's actually inspiring. It doesn't hurt that the guy is still 80s skinny. I hope I'm always 80s skinny.

Strangely every time I go to The Depot to see a show I get a wonderful dose of 80s sax. 80s sax is so joyful. Does anybody even play the saxophone anymore? If they play it, is it just to be ironic? It seems like there's an emotional, almost dreamlike (I almost typed "almost fictional" there, but I'm not sure you'd understand what I meant by that -- obviously I don't mean it doesn't exist -- I mean more otherworldly than music actually is) quality to it that we're missing now. This euphoria is lost today. We need 80s sax equivalent.

Strangely, more inspiring was the opening band Tom Tom Club, which I knew very little about before the show.

Tom Tom Club is composed of two Talking Heads members, one of which is singer and bassist Tina Weymouth. They have another chick singer named Victoria I believe. Tina and Victoria must be grandmothers. They look like grandmothers. That did not stop the both of them from wearing tiny black dresses and dancing like teenagers while on stage. At first it was sort of embarrassing. Grandmothers have no right to do that -- that's the involuntary knee jerk. Of course, who are we to tell grandmothers what to do?

I hope I'm that cool when I'm a grandmother.

Hey, I know it's not likely that I'll ever become a grandmother, but I like to dream big, okay?

The girls in Tom Tom Club certainly looked old, but their voices really sounded 20ish. Sort of like punk angels.

I think our voices are younger than our looks in many ways. I've always said (well, ever since I got old anyway) that the worst thing about getting old is actually feeling young, but being old. Voice is a double meaning. It's the audible sound from our throat, but it's also an expression of feeling. Usually our feelings struggle to catch up to our chronology.