Why Don't We Get Drunk And Go to a Tegan & Sara Concert?

Monday night, Tegan & Sara of the band "Tegan and Sara" played at Webster Hall. Have you heard of them? I talk about them almost every day. They are two cute lesbian girl twins in skinny jeans and Converse shoes with killer musical talent, what more could you ask for in a wife makeout buddy band? Seriously though, their music has gotten me through the past five months of my smokin' hot life, including most notably July and August, which could've been a living hell and often was, but thanks to Haviland, Carly, Spashley, alcohol, and Tegan & Sara, totally weren't.

Okay, show recap starts now. Writing this at NOON: Before the show we had a meeting of Team Awesome at Haviland's house. Team Awesome, FYI, is Carly, Riese and Haviland. It's a little intense to have meetings of Team Awesome because Carly and I talk a lot, and we'd already started drinking. We killed a bottle of wine between the two of us fast. [And that was before the bottle of wine we drank DIRECTLY from the bottle in Haviland's hallway about an hour later, which is how we roll.] Sometimes being around us is like having front row seats to a kickass comedy show and sometimes it's like being around two people who talk too much. Either way, we both have cute haircuts. We discussed all kinds of new fun things that'll be coming this upcoming winter from us for You! at AutoWin and AutoStraddle, like more Vlogs and more posts and more for me, yeah-ah-yeah-ah, and boy briefs. There's so many things, tell all your friends! One of these things is figuring out how to make the content exciting for new readers without repeating myself to the point where it's annoying to long-time readers. That's sort of a problem in my overall life.

Oh also, I've noticed that whenever someone namedrops Autostraddle on Television Without Pity or some such thing (after-ellen, planet boards, qaf livejournal group etc), like someone I don't even know did this weekend, my traffic goes way up. So if you guys ever read message boards or are in various LJ communities discussing relevant topics like lesbian teevee shows or cute bands, feel free to namedrop me every day. Not this post though, that'd be a dead giveaway.

So! THE TEGAN AND SARA CONCERT (TIME-STAMPS ARE WRITING TIMES, NOT TIMES THAT THE EVENTS I AM WRITING ABOUT ACTUALLY HAPPENED)

9:31 P.M.: Now I'm really writing about the concert. OMG there's a Tegan and Sara song that talks about Top Tens! It's like it's in the stars. I just posted this blog where I asked y'all to send me songs and you totally all did. I love you. Well, most of you. Some of you i don't know very well and I wouldn't want to rush things.

10:04 P.M.: Okay so we went to this concert. First we had to go to McDonald's so Hav could get fro-yo. She was like, emergency you guys. I got some too, and Carly had fries, and Cait drove, and Stef was there too and then I hung up on Vicky because I couldn't figure out where we were meeting her and I have a very low threshhold for phone conversations. So then we got to Webster Hall and we were in the V.I.P area because we know people who know people, a.k.a. Stef. We had three V.I.P passes but we just swapped 'em out. Stef's strategy.

11:55 P.M.: I just had a good talk with Zoey about Thanksgiving and Phenomenol. Then I had a really good idea, which was to take half an ambien because I felt like drinking an entire Coca Cola at 11:30 was making me a little wound-up. My whole artificial stimulation/sleepification strategy is a little bit rough, I think it needs some work. I just took 1/4th an Adderall to counteract the drowsiness I was feeling from half that Ambien. Sooner or later, I'll reach baseline. And then my brain will go blank suddenly, like a dark room. Maybe I should have a drink. No, that is the last thing I need.

12:10 A.M.: Okay, so these are the important parts about the concert- CONCERT RECAP FOR REAL STARTS HERE

-Attendants:
-My BFF Haviland Stillwell, Rising Star and Co-Aspirant and Co-Vlogstar
-My Co-Captain Carly Usdin, co-creator of the world's next great gay sitcom -- I mean -- FIRST great gay sitcom -- "Living it Out"
-My Life-Star Cait, responsible for all kinds of goodness including but not limited to a vehicle that took us to and from the concert (which also served as our escape vehicle last weekend when the three of us were roped into this bizarre Pyramid-Scheme Potluck pitch in my very own living room lead by a fat guy in a ponytail and we had to run away, run very far away and fast.)
-Cruise Director Stef, who gets us into things like concerts and along with semicolon is responsible for the design of Havilandstillwell.com and the upcoming redesign of Marielynbernard.com.
-Also friends including Vicky and her gay Yose, and Carly's gays Cesar and Matt

VERY IMPORTANT PERSONS: As I said, we were in the VIP area. Guess who else was there? Kim Stolz. We all admired her beauty in a way that was totally sophisticated and mature. Carly especially was a mature normal person, since she works with Kim at MTV-U so it ain't no thang, it was just like, hey what's up, we're all friends here, obvs. Vicky went over and talked to her for a while because Vicky, apparently, will talk to anyone about anything for any length of time ever. She's like got social super-powers. Or not, I guess it depends on how you look at it.

DANCING: I danced around a lot and got really excited when they played good songs. When they played Umbrella, I screamed and freaked out and said "This is the best moment of my life EVER!"

DRINKING: As the night went on, I drank more drinks. Some of these drinks, drank later in the evening, I remember only remotely how I obtained these drinks.

JUMPING: I wanted everyone to jump up and down with me like we were at Kriss Kross concert. Did I succeed? A little. Carly knew the words usually like I did. It's because of her that I listen to Tegan & Sara, she played me all their songs and now I like them. That's what friends do when they aren't doing drugs.

TACKLING: Carly wanted them to play "Living Room" and kept telling me how many orgasms she'd have if they would play it. I thought it'd be really funny if when they started playing "Living Room," if they ever did play "Living Room," for me to tackle Carly to the ground, but in a playful "I'm going to jump on top of you" way. Did I succeed? I think I did. Most people thought it was an accident and worried I'd hurt myself, but to these people I'd like to ask -- what could my "intent" have possibly been when I lept onto Carly from my post high atop the area? Unfortunately I forgot that, unlike me, most people don't have a ridiculously high thresh-hold for pain, let alone find it thrilling. However, Carly's elbows will definitely heal, as will my ankle, which I twisted on the street way later but totally played off so no one knew about it, including me I was mostly drunk enough to forget until I woke up in unbearable pain later and every 20 minutes all night long. Seriously, also, every time I think about this incident, I LOL. Re-reading Carly writing about it just now I LOLed again. I actually LOLed at the gym when it popped into my head again, even though I was reading an article about this woman getting murdered.

FUN! FUN! FUN! : I have a lot of ideas about being Andy Kauffman and about having fun fun fun fun! fun! fun! And maximizing experience. Also, sometimes i just lurk in the corner and whine that I'm ready to go home. Not this time! I was exciting! Excited! I don't remember what songs they played, they were all good ones, they played Nineteen, for sure. It's a good thing I asked Carly to do a write-up for me, because I don't know what to say.

SIDENOTE: Seriously, writing this on half an ambien and 1/4 an adderall is like being really focused on being really light-headed. I don't think there's any conditions I can't write under, I'm a warrior, like Hunter S. Thompson. Fear and Loathing in Planet Harlem. Good thing I'm seeing my psychiatrist in 9 hours. Good thing he doesn't read this. He was in the Village Voice as the best psychopharmacologist, it made me LOL. I can't spell that word and I don't care.

WALKING WITH A GHOST: When they played "Walking with a Ghost," Haviland was like "Oh! I know this song," and we danced a little. Also when we thought they'd left the stage, I screamed "CLOSER TO FINE! play CLOSER TO FINE!" which is an inside joke you may or may not get.

NORTHERN STATE: I also think I danced with someone from Northern State. Stef is down with them. The girls from Northern State are cute, they are really awesome live even though I don't like listening to their CDs as much. They are so cute in their trackpants and sneaks with their raps, you just want to lick them or make out with them in a bathroom or something.


Okay, THIS JUST IN: Carly's recap. Yay! I'm totally done writing mine now.

Here's Carly !:

The night started out like most nights: drinking. Riese and I almost single-handedly drank at least 1 bottle of wine (Stef helped, but I don't really think she made as much of a dent as we did) and then Cait, Haviland, and Stef went to leave and Riese and I were sitting on the floor in the hallway, laughing (again, not out-of-the-ordinary in the least), so I should've known early on that this was going to be a good night.

I know Riese wants me to talk about the performances and about the bands, and I'll get to all of that soon enough, but first I'd like to point out that we got into a shouting match outside of McDonald's (OMG I just remembered that we had McDonald's before the show like, as I was typing that) over whether or not Cait had just driven past us (I WAS RIGHT). Moving on... [SIDENOTE FROM RIESE: She was totally driving a different car than usual, it was white not grey, for one thing.]

Stef is awesome and got all of us into VIP. All of us = 10 people (that's just how we roll). More drinking ensued, we got there just as Northern State was starting. Well, actually first we went to the bathroom, which reeked of incense. Riese thought the bathroom was on fire, but the smoke was just the actual incense burning! Anyway. I have loved Northern State forevs, back when I worked at Urban Outfitters and we got their first CD and Kai and Serena and I were the only people in all of Orlando, FL who liked them, so we played the CD constantly just to piss everyone off, and then this one time we were ringing some stupid boys up and they were like "this music is so awful" and we told them to shut up cause we were -- in fact -- the three ladies of Northern State, and we were really proud of our album. That shut them right up. Anyway, this was my 2nd time seeing them, the first time was a few months ago at their CD release party also with Riese (thanks Stef!). They are so good live, sometimes I think that they are more awesome live than they are on CD. Totally energetic, totally awesome. They played some stuff from all 3 albums, but mostly new stuff (obvs) and they talked about how they met Tegan and Sara and how two of their songs were recently on Grey's Anatomy (which I totally knew and totally told everyone like 20 times, which I'm sure was not annoying at all). Tegan and Sara are on Grey's a lot too, and both bands were featured last week which was rad. Northern State was also in an episode of Damages, but I'm pretty sure that my family and I are the only people on the planet who have seen it. It's really good! And it just got renewed for two seasons! Totally amazing show. Sorry, I'm off-topic. Anyway, Stef and I shouted lyrics at each other, much to everyone's dismay. Then they were done and we drank more.

Then! Tegan and Sara! Yeah! This was also my second time seeing T&S, the first being in Orlando a few years ago. They put on such an amazing show. Lots of adorable stage banter (and I know from adorable stage banter, as my former band -- Sarah and Carly -- was all about adorable stage banter, and we covered T&S's "More For Me"). They are the two cutest people on the entire planet and I want tattoos like theirs. They sounded amazing live and most of the songs they played were from "So Jealous" and "The Con" (I think they played the entire "The Con" album, or at least most of it, can anyone verify this?) Honestly a little bit of it is a blur still, which is a shame, but I had a great effing time. They opened with "Dark Come Soon," which is one of my favorites songs of theirs. Their encore consisted of _________ (does anyone remember what song was first?), then their AMAZING cover of "Umbrella" (apparently they did not play this in Orlando, I have no idea why), and "LIVING ROOM" which is basically my favorite T&S song ever. I kept saying "play Living Room. You guys, they're totally going to end it on Living Room" because my former bandmate Sarah (see above) texted me at the show (after I texted her and said that the show made me miss our old band, obvs) and said that their last song in Orlando was "Living Room," so I had some insider info. So then it came on and I SCREAMED like a schoolgirl and then everything was a blur. What I can piece together was that Riese screamed too, jumped on me and we went crashing to the ground. My head nearly went through a glass table and all of our combined weight landed on my pointy little elbows. So, needless to say, they are totes achy right now. But it was totally amazing, I was so drunk it hardly stung, just a massive rockstar moment.

Anyway. Compared to seeing them a few years ago in Orlando, I think this was just as good. It's hard to say, really, because the show in Orlando was at the Social which is a much smaller venue and I was close to the stage and could see them really well. They completely rocked at this show, and speaking as someone who has been a fan since the "Under Feet Like Ours" / "This Business of Art" days, I am just thrilled to see the transformation that has occurred over the course of their career. They started as a small folk-rock duo and have turned into total effing rockstars, which is completely badass. I fully love them.

Oh! I forgot to mention that ONCE AGAIN, due to the awesomeness of Stef, I got to meet Hesta and Spero of Northern State and Sara of Tegan and Sara. You rock, Stef! There was a lot more that happened, but I'm sure Riese is going to cover it, or we are going to omit it entirely, because we have to leave some things to the imagination, ya know?