It isn't that often that the Troubadour is packed by 9:00 p.m. Hell, when Carlos and I saw Stereo Total a few years ago, maybe twenty people arrived early enough to catch some opening band called the Raveonettes. (In fact, we only heard one or two songs.) Last night, though, both the floor and balcony were lined with young people by the time Scary Kids Scaring Kids, billed second on a line-up headlined by Silverstein, hit the stage.
Given that we were, perhaps, the only people over 21 inside the sold out venue, Estelle and I essentially had the VIP lounge to ourselves. We perched ourselves on stools by the window, basked in our godlike position for about a minute and waited for the show to start.
"Check out the drummer," Estelle noted, motioning her head towards a ripped, shirtless fellow banging hard on his drums.
"Emo has come a long way since Boy's Life and Cambria [Can't find a link]," I remarked.
"Yeah, these kids could kick their asses."
(Maybe that's because the band is more screamo than emo. I don't know. I'm not good with these things.)
Throughout the beginning of the set, we averted our eyes away from said drummer and towards Fanboy. As you might gather from the nickname, Fanboy was standing right up in front, hanging over the tip of the stage. He was about nineteen or twenty, I would imagine, with a thick football player neck and a shaved head. Fanboy knew every word to every song during the set. He also knew every note of every guitar solo. Fanboy became our knew hero, a symbol of true music appreciation in an age where hype serves as a hindrance to developing a true following. He was the anti-scenester and, for that, we salute Fanboy, whoever you are.
Later on during the set, our attention turned to Pouyan, the keyboardist. If this boy had a keytar, he would be hamming it up like Yngwie Malmsteen. I'm kind of glad that he didn't have a keytar, though, because the instrument is just way too hipster and that would have ruined the set. Pouyan, though, has moves, lots of slithering, back-bending, high-kicking, pole-climbing moves. And when Pouyan pulled one of these moves, every girl in the club screamed.
"You know, I'd scream like that too, if I was fifteen," I said to Estelle.
She nodded in the affirmative.
Then the mosh pits started going and we sighed with relief that we were only overlooking the action. Neither Estelle nor I do mosh pits very well.
We started talking about how big and fanatical the crowd was for a band we had only heard recently opening for a band that Estelle did not know and that I had only heard in passing.
"There's this whole scene and we are completely clueless to it," I said.
"Yeah, because we're ten years too old."