10/20/04 by scott

So, last night I went and saw this band Rem. You may not have heard of them before. They're a band that is old like Led Zeppelin, but not as good. Their lead singer is Michael Stripe, who is probably the brother of Jack Stripe from the White Stripes. Now there's a band that rocks like Zeppelin!

If you'll kindly look over to the left, you'll see a picture of Mr. Stripe making the motion I usually do when I hear Rem's music. Only he's also smiling, which means he's glad cuz after he pulls the trigger on his fake finger gun, not only will he never have to hear himself whine and preach again, but he will also never have to whine and preach again. I usually just make a frowny face when I'm holding the Rem pistol to my head.

But my buddy Brock talked me into going to see them, so I agreed. Only Brock didn't go. Because Rem isn't even good enough to have their fans show up for their shows. Maybe Mr. Stripe should take a lesson from his brother in the White Stripes and learn how to rock and not act like a whiny baby onstage. Then maybe Brock would go see him.

Anyway, here's my review of the show:

Racheal and I got to the Fox Theater just in time to see the first band play their last three songs. The Fox theater in St. Louis is pretty nice. It has all of these ornate sculptures and wall fixtures and a lot of neat things to look at. So we get to our seat, and the band finished up their set. They were called 'Now It's Overhead' which is a stupid name. They were pretty good, but not nearly as good as Queens of the Stone Age when I saw them at the Pageant a couple of years ago. Man that show kicked ass. '...And you will know us by the Trail of Dead' opened for them, and they broke a lot of instruments and kicked a lot of ass. That's a good rock show.

So then after a long break where Racheal filled me in on what's been happening with her lately, Rem finally came onstage. They had these big flourescent light thingies hanging from the ceiling like wind chimes, and they lit up different colors. I had a lot of time to wonder how they worked while Mr. Stripe bored me to death with his 'beautiful songs' that he 'hopes you'll like as much as we do.' I couldn't figure it out. They kept changing color really fast and they sometimes had different colors on the same tube. I 'm no lighting expert, so I promptly gave up trying to figure out their mystery. Instead, I tried to use the power of my mind to bring them crashing down onstage.

See, I figured the last time I really tried really hard to move things with my mind, I was like 10 years old. Maybe now that I'm older and smarter, I could finally do it. You never know if you can move things with your mind until you commit yourself to it 110%. So I tried with all my might. I tried to visualize the lights coming down. I tried to focus all of my power on cutting the cables that were holding them up. I tried holding my arm out and extending my force in a giant fist that would pull the lights down onto the stage. And every time I tried something, I tried it over an over again so that I could be sure that I had given it my full 110%.

But alas, nothing worked. I guess I can't move things with my mind. But then I thought, what if I didn't have to move the lights? What if I just concentrated hard enough to move myself into another dimension where the lights were already falling? That seemed like a lot less work. But as I sat there trying, I thought of some flaws in that plan. Like, what if after the lights fell, I drove all the way back to Decatur but then found out that in that dimension I don't live there? I guess I could then just move myself back into this dimension and go home, but then when I told people about how the lights fell on Rem, they wouldn't know what the hell I was talking about because it didn't happen in this dimension.

So I couldn't really figure out the complexities of doing that move. So then I started thinking that projecting force outward was probably easier than pulling lights down, so I just tried to push Mr. Stripe backwards with my mind while making little Hadoken moves that hopefully no one else saw. That also didn't work. Then I just started looking around at what other people were doing, and that didn't keep my interest either.

Before long, Rem was done playing, and it was finally time to get the hell out of there. Except that no one was leaving, and the lights were still off. Shit! I forgot about the encore. I started yelling 'Orange Crush!' and 'Shiny Happy People!', but when they came back out they didn't play those songs. They did play What's the Frequency Kenneth, though. So at least that was good recognizeable.

Then I started thinking back to some other good shows I've seen. Like Nine Inch Nails at Carbondale. Man, those guys rocked. They couldn't play nearly as solidly as Rem, but they put on a hell of a show. And that's what it's all about. It's not about preaching to people to vote and prancing around like a pixie singing songs about sugar candy. It's about Rocking.

Thankfully, they avoided a second encore, so we got out of there and I kept myself awake on the drive home by trying to teleport my car to Decatur. That didn't work either, but it did almost get my pulled over when I tried to get my speed down to 88MPH so I could warp to the future and leave cool flame marks on the road. Someday I'm going to get my mind powers, though, and when I do Michael Stripe better watch out if I ever get sucked into going to one of his shows again!