First Concert!

Friday night Karl went to his first concert: The Residents!

For Christmas, Karl bought me a ticket and tonight I went with him and his mom to the show. We got there around 8:20. Before long Karl got bored waiting so we had him hold water in his mouth without swallowing for two minutes. Repeat! That kept him busy! The Residents came on around 8:45, only 15 minutes late.

A friend's mother once described The Residents as "nightmare music" and, with this show, they seem to have taken that description to heart. With just a keyboard, guitar and a singer, they have distilled their music down to a discordant ghee. The singer would start off tempo, then go off key, then the guitarist would do the same, playing nonsense and noise, and then the keyboard would end up playing one low nausea inducing note. Then, the song would snap together, throbbing, and right when you were understanding what was going on, the singer would play the worst harmonica solo you have ever heard. I have heard terrible harmonica solos, but seriously... gah!!

You know, now that I think about it, Willie Nelson does the same thing. Well, maybe just the off tempo stuff.

If you somehow found the music toe tapping and easy to listen to, the topics of the songs ensured nightmares would be had by all. Nearly every song was about murder and death. They started off with a song about a teenager who killed an infant. Another was about a woman's memories of how she caused her mother's death, how her father lied about it, and that she had gold fish that died once too. With one song, a white powdered faced man with red gashes came up on the screen and talked about how he was a sleep walker and how he killed his wife in his sleep. Then, the ghost of his wife came back from the dead and taught his daughter how to hold a knife, stab him in the face and kill him. I seriously thought Karl was going to lose interest.

The first song I knew was "Six More Miles to the Graveyard" followed a few songs later by "Semolina". If you are not familiar with The Residents, "Semolina" is a pretty decent introduction, although the version they played at the show was very different than the original released in 1978.

They did two songs for an encore. "Die, Stay, Go" was upbeat and had bright lights. Karl approved!

As we walked out, I asked if Karl liked the show and he said, "Yes." I asked Karl if he danced and he said, "No." I asked him what he thought of the show and he said, "Gruesome."

I think... yeah... gruesome... I think that covers it.