I am waiting for Amy to meet me at the Paradise with my ticket to see Robert Pollard's new band Boston Spaceships play with Boston legends Big Dipper. I am late, and thus as I am listening to the chords of "She's Fetching" through the nightclub door, I'm assuming Amy and my ticket are both already inside. I plead with the limp 20 year old hipster girl at the door to let me in, but she shrugs in the most exhausted of ways as she expresses she can't let me past. I know I could knock her down - so deprived of red meat is she - and run right past, but think better of it. Luckily I am horribly wrong, and mid 3rd round of pleading I am confronted by Amy who is actually later than me, and thus has been standing outside the club with her friends oogling loitering Spaceship guitarist and postpunk hunk Tommy Keane. I join her group just as he's telling them he can't shake hands because he's really sick and that the band's set will go for over 2 hours. I am sure I will never see that.
I know I'm the only person left in the world who is not a giant Bob Pollard fan. I have come here tonight to see Big Dipper, whose song "Faith Healer" I believe to in possession of one of the greatest licks of all time. I saw them a few months ago on their first 'reunion tour' which featured all original members (tonight bassist Michener is replaced by a familiar looking Boston-fellow I can't place), an event which - like tonight - made me realize that even 20 years later the band sounds just as giant and fantastic as the constellation they're named after. Chiming their way through a set of an array of favorites culled from their latest anthology, Supercluster, the assembled throng of post-35's gasp with glee.
As for Pollard, I thought I'd stay for 4 songs or so and then hit the road to get home in time for The Daily Show, but instead ended up transfixed for a solid hour by the gyrations of the one time grammar school teacher. For a gray-haired old man, Pollard really and truly rocks, and I'm converted on the spot, especially when he tells the crowd "I always wanted to be in a Boston band, and now I am. But I must say I never wanted to be in a band *named* Boston".
Finally leaving the club I see I'm not the only aging hipster who has to go to bed on time, I'm followed out by David Minehan of the Neighborhoods. Hurrah!
Below - too loud and too dark video of Boston Spaceships playing Quick Fix
PS - Did I mention the Paradise smells like vomit now? And a friend told me that unpleasant odor has been going on for near 6 months. Swell.
