Drunk Yuppies and the Pernice Bros.
by: Joel Atkinson

Usually, a show is more interesting than the trip to and from.

However, there are exceptions. Take the Pernice Brothers show I recently took in.

Joe Pernice, otherwise known as the King of the Major Seventh Chord, is possibly the best pop songwriter these days. In addition, his band is widely heralded for their exciting live performances. Being a rabid fan (owning nearly everything he's released), I made plans to attend the show with several friends. So after a three-hour drive, three of my friends and I pull into the general area of the concert. Parking was difficult to find because...well, this appeared to be the area of town where the snooty artsy people hung out. You know, upper-middle class folk in their late 20s/early 30s who only drink imported beer or Zima.

The area has a lot of high class bars, coffee houses, whatever. I'm from a small town, so this was all strange to me. We ended up parking about four blocks away in a Hardee's parking lot. One of the funnier things I remember about the walk to the concert was a group of about 10-12 kids just hanging out...on a bridge. They weren't even talking. No, just standing around on the side of a bridge. A cop came over and shooed them away, but it got me thinking: There's supposedly "so much to do" in this town, and there are kids just standing around on a bridge not two blocks away from the "action"?

It just proves that humankind will search out the most boring things to do (hanging out in parking lots, malls, etc). I'd only been at one other show at a "bar". I saw the Lost Dogs in Dayton, OH at the Canal Street Tavern. It's a pretty nice place, had a good atmosphere (though that may have been due to the audience consisting of 45-50 year-old men). That's what I was expecting for this show.

The first thing I remember is walking into an almost tangible sheet of cigarette smoke. It was so bad, I had to put my clothes in the trunk the next day just so they wouldnt stink up my car. We got there just as the first act was finishing. Joe Pernice and his cronies were up next. My friends and I gathered near the front as the concert began. And then... OK, I could tell you about the show, but honestly, how much do you really care? "They played Song X with great intensity, then followed it with a harrowing rendition of Song Y..." You've heard it all before. Also, concerts tend to be intensely personal experiences. You can talk and talk and talk about how much this concert moved you to tears, or how that performance inspired you...but if you weren't there, how can you really KNOW?

I do remember a couple interesting anecdotes at the show...first, how about the drunk yuppies yelling at the band? "Pernice Brothers kick ass!", commented one astute observer. The guy in front of me did some sort of alcohol-induced robotic jiggle during each song, and would then raise his beer aloft and yell something incoherent. But the best moment was when the young man in a Minnesota Vikings football jersey walked up to Joe after a song and asked :"What the hell y'all gon' do now?" (I did not hear this, but one of my friends who was next to this guy can vouch for this.)

Perhaps this is common behavior at a bar show; I just figured the average intelligence and motor skills of a Pernice Brothers showgoer would be higher. Then again, I'm not sure most of the people there knew a thing about the band. At times I had to ask myself, "Why oh why is my view blocked by a bunch of drunken fools who wouldn't know a good pop song if it landed in their Miller Lite?" Oh well.

As we left the concert, we again crossed the bridge that had been populated by bored twentysomethings. I happened to notice that someone wrote "F*** ART" on the metal railing. I pointed this out to my friend who nonchalantly pulled a Sharpie out of his pocket and proceeded to significantly modify the meaning of the graffiti. We left it as "I want to F*** ART Garfunkel".

One final oddity occurred on the ride home. A car pulled up next to us and wildly signaled for us to roll the window down. After some hesitation, I did. "What are you listening to, man?" I'd just popped in a Pernice Brothers album, so I told him. "Oh man, that's some good s**t. See ya!" I should have told him we were listening to Willie Nelson.

posted 10.25.03

2003 White Elephant Productions