magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

After work I headed down to South Street Squidport, for the last of their summer concert series, featuring Ted Leo. Last summer, I didn't come out from Brooklyn to see him because of the rain, although the show went on anyway. Two years ago he played the night of the blackout. (I did see him in Providence that summer.) Tonight was beautiful, and the show was great.

Chris and Dave.Z showed up part way through the show, and afterwards we wandered around lover Manhattan for a while, eventually up to a club called Rothko, where I had never been, but where a lot of the indie bands that I think about going to see play. Aimee had told Chris that Bobby Conn was playing tonight, who neither of us had heard of, but we were assured it would be a great show.

John described him a mix between the Jackson 5 and Ween. And I saw where one would come up with that, but if I had to do a mix and match, I'd say imagine Freddy Mercury fronting for P-Funk. If P-Funk were a laptop playing pre-recorded backing music. Apparently, he generally has a band in tow, but tonight it was just him on stage, and it's tough to pull off the playing along to canned music act. The songs where he actually played guitar and wasn't just doing karaoke to his own material worked better, although playing air piano on one song was a nice touch.

Afterward, Chris and Aimee (who was already lit up before we arrived) went to another bar, where I had been once before, for $2 PBRs (the first was ordered for me, and after that, what's the point of switching). And in a repeat of the last time, they got in a cab and headed out to Brooklyn, while I made my way to the subway.