  backstage, black cat. last time i had been there was way back in december with half the manchester crew. it was nothing, though. all gone away and ready for something else. when we first stepped in the doors and made our way to the back room bar, i heard strains of dirty on purpose and bolted for the backstage door. i stopped at the door when i realized that's where you usually pay and no one was there. and that's when some guy came up to me and told me it was only soundcheck. the few people in the bar stared at me. what can i say, i'm dop hardcore. so fuck off. the guy told me with his best condescending voice to relax and enjoy the bar and i told him with my best condescending voice, yeah, thanks.
courtney and i then stared through the little window in the backstage door until jin noticed and came out. everyone looked so different. or maybe they did only because i saw them in d.c. when they're supposed to be in new york. my ticket to nyc, i kept thinking through the night for some reason. that's what i kept being displaced with. walking through today, last night feels like it never happened. it feels like a dream, and i rarely remember my dreams, so it's one of those rare, fragmented ones that i can just barely recall through slants of windowblinds to know what it felt like. today i missed everyone. like seeing unfamiliar faces in a familiar place, but looking through the mirror to see it the other way around.
jin in pig-tails, enthused hellos and hugs, merch tables, pool tables. i bought a t-shirt and courtney and i donated $1 each in exchange for a sticker. gas money for schubas. jin leaned over to me in the middle of the set and yelled into my ear, how does it feel to be at a dop concert and not film them for once? she's right. southpaw, sin-é, and pianos, and the black cat is the only time i've never filmed them. d.c. is the odd-out. all through the set i measured the timing of the songs within the film in my head, the drained grey of the black cat stage superimposed with the colors of sin-é, and i was able to anticipate songs like heartbeats, the movements and colors of the film clouding out over them in time.
i always compare drummers to matt because the walkmen are the best i've ever seen. but last night i was elated. matt keeps his cymbals low whereas the lean, tall doug puts them way up high. he keeps time like that and almost looks the opposite, seeming to outgrow his kit rather than sit inside of it.
matt holds his own, though. just look and see. but dop is good . just as good. you might not think at first, but it's two-thirds through "your summer dress" when, after a rush of noise, it gets quiet and joe sings with everyone quiet behind him before doug creeps in with the kick drum and everyone launches in again. just like that. dop has become so intense and dynamic and i was stunned watching them a few feet away.
they're no longer the same people i used to know. they've been working hard, jin told me. it's felt like i was in new york for two hours without the beginning, middle, and end i usually need and i was sad to stay as late as possible before catching the last train out of the city before midnight, cinderella-style. abbreviations are sometimes nice, though, and i'm tempted to go up to new york for the saturday show at rothko.
i want to be there as much as possible when i can see films playing out in the flesh, like being able to see those old vaudeville acts come to life 80 years way after the fact, after they disappeared far before you're born. i've been focused with the walkmen mostly, but film dop is vying to be in place. i've got two lives to lead, i know, and i need to learn to be more evenly indulgent in both.
eat, drink, sleep, that's the way it is. in other highlights, i was once again reinstated as an ally sheedy lovechild when older friends, a married couple, of coworker josh happened to be friends with a friend of george's brother and made it to the show. immediately after introductions, the guy asked the question i haven't heard since my movie theatre projectionist days - do you know who you look like? two birds with one stone last night. 
