Let's start from the end. Xiu Xiu's Jamie Stewart flicked his sweaty locks out of his eyes, and breathed into his mic, "Thanks. Good night." He waved, and the band walked off stage to a smattering of applause and some whoooooo's. The guy next to me yelled my thoughts: "ENCORE!" and his call was picked up by several others, but then petered out. This was followed by more nervous applause, then a couple of uncomfortable random shouts. "What's going on?" I thought. "Why aren't people screaming their heads off? This show was amazing!"
Rewind two hours. The venue, Chop Suey, was already at capacity, with a line of kids going down the block, futilely hoping that they could get in. By the time we finally made it inside, local band Pica Beats was already in full swing. The crowd inside was ravenous. People kept saying between songs, "Oh my GOD! Xiu Xiu! I can't believe it!" After a brief pause, Thao with the Get Down Stay Down took the stage, and quickly got people dancing—girls and boys, boys and boys, girls and girls, some drunk girl and my elbow—or at least vigorously nodding their heads. Thao, wearing a cute black and white t-shirt dress over tights and cowboy boots, jokingly told the audience to "pretend like you know this one," and the crowd did its best. Then there were some real and fake birthday wishes to various people and, hey! What do you know? The bassist's family was in the crowd! Awwww...
After a brief pause, Xiu Xiu began their set-up. Ches Smith had replaced the usual Xiu Xiu drum machine with a virtual wall of cymbals, toms, kicks, weird hi-hats, hanging metal discs, electric drum pads and other things I couldn't see. Jamie was getting a lot of loud verbal attention from the crowd about his physical attractiveness, which he studiously ignored. While I waited for the band members to finish setting up their own individual equipment forts, I started listening to the conversations around me: "Jamie totally looks like the young dad from Back to the Future II," gushed a girl next to me, eliciting snickers from her friends. Huh, haven't heard that one before. Some other guy asked his neighbor, "Have you heard them before? They're supposed to be good. I've been warned that they're weird though."
The crowd, whether distracted by chatter or waiting with bated breath, wasn't prepared for the sudden SMASH! SMASH! SMASH! SMASH! of the band suddenly lurching into "Puff and Bunny." No one was talking about Back to the Future now. Jamie, eyes rolled back in his head, eyelids fluttering, wavered out:
Of a life that's allotted to be yours
a trifle
Oh take it from me
that tonight is closed
The space between the performers and the audience had suddenly narrowed: the band seemed to be right in our laps. The crowd, after some initial yells and rash requests for "I Luv the Valley Oh!", became pensive and silently nodded agreement to each word, each beat. There was no dancing now. The band floated deftly from the soft piano of "Buzz Saw" through the quiet "walla walla walla walla walla walla hey" of "Bishop, CA." Ches Smith's drumming was constant, spacious, and lush. He teased tones out of his huge cymbal by drawing patterns with the end of a drumstick, while Jamie muttered the closing lines to "Clover." But wait! Suddenly the delicate ambiance was shattered by some guy in a blazer pushing to the front row, holding what may be the brightest, cutest, weirdest doll I've ever seen. "Thank you! Thank you!" he kept saying, thrusting the doll (I've been told it's a Pandapple—you can see details here) towards a surprised and now grinning Jamie, who grabbed it and started laying a bunch of theatrical kisses all over its strange, panda-apple head! "It's going to be impossible to sing this next song because I feel fucking great!" he laughed, handing the fan a special button of some kind.
From then on, I'd like to say the show took on a less somber note, but Jamie's acoustic guitar broke on the next song, "Fox and Rabbit". After trying unsuccessfully to fix it, the band did a quick set list change, and Jamie tried to tease as many haunting melodies out of his electric as he could. "Oh my GOD! They're so good!" seemed to be the communal murmur between songs. I couldn't help noticing that the Chop Suey stage hand seemed to agree. He was sitting off stage, eyes closed, nodding his head in time with the music.
The band closed with a truly majestic rendition of "Clown Town," and seemed abruptly to abandon the stage. From my vantage point in the front row, I could see that they'd lined up behind the stage curtain. The applause was subdued. There were some shouts of "encore!" but they seemed out of place. I could see Jamie's cousin Caralee McElroy look at someone, sort of shrug, and then the band just walked away. The venue lights came on and some surf music started. "This is bullshit!" a bearded guy next to me exclaimed to his friends. People were milling around and then started to stream outside. What happened? Why didn't everyone freak out? This was an awesome show! We waited around for the band to come out and get their stuff. They seemed as confused as everyone else, although Jamie was kind enough to pose for us with his prized Pandapple doll. Still too excited to sleep or write anything, my girlfriend and I headed to our favorite bar. "Maybe it's just the music" we wondered. "Maybe people just got too into it?" I know it did sort of feel wrong to cheer and carry on afterward . . . . As we settled our bar tab, Marion sighed, "I just want to go back to the show! It was really good!"
