On Wednesday I flew out to Chicago to meet up with some friends and to see Interpol. It’s kind of a long story, but the trip was originally going to be a bit more friend-oriented and ended up being largely Interpol-oriented.

They played at the Aragon, which is right across from the train station–it was impossible to miss it. When I got there I wandered around and only saw three other people hanging out on the side of the building. The band’s tour bus had just arrived and was maneuvering to back into this little driveway area when I got there. I set my stuff down at the front entrance, but a security guy came out and told me that people were lined up in the alley. The alley turned out to be this shitty little weed-filled lane full of broken glass and weeds and smelling faintly of piss–the things I do for Interpol. There were about 8-10 people in front of me, which was OK. The Aragon is big enough that we all ended up in the front.

I met some super nice people in line and had fun chatting, chattering (it got quite chilly when the sun ducked behind the clouds and the wind picked up), and generally hanging out. I got to meet my friend Rachel from Ohio and her friends Kim (from Atlanta) and LeAnne (from Oklahoma), who were both really nice. At one point Sam, Christy, and Mickey (their dog) waved to us on their way into the venue (yes, the dog waved to us!).

We wandered over to the other side of the building in the afternoon to hear soundcheck (at that point our spots in line were safe), and we could hear it really well. They played Take You On a Cruise, Specialist, Pace Is the Trick, Who Do You Think?, The Scale, and Pioneer to the Falls–a pretty great soundcheck.

Me and Lacinda waiting in line

After a harrowing journey, my friend Lacinda from DC arrived a bit after four. It was really great to see her. We’d met at the Portland show in 2005, but in Chicago we really had a chance to chat more. She’s great! At one point as we were chatting she stopped mid-sentence, turned to the guys standing behind us and was like, “You are not playing pattycake.” But they were. Not too long after she arrived, a DJ from a local station (or so I’m told) handed out a few black and white promotional posters. I got one (yay!), but it’s a bit mangled after the journey back on the plane (sniff!).

Around 6:00 security finally let us in. I was very happy to stake out my spot on Daniel’s side. There were little sort of balcony boxes on either side of the stage (or so it seemed from where I was standing), and I could see various crew and band people (including Sam) up there filling up plates from a catering spread before the show.

Liars’ went on around 8:00. Their set was pretty good, though I definitely enjoyed the first time I saw them the best. Angus said that it was his best friend’s birthday and motioned to the drummer/vocalist, revealing that he was turning 30. I was tempted to sing happy birthday. There seemed to be something wrong with Angus’s microphone for most of their set.

A bit before 9:00, Interpol’s crew taped down their setlists, but then just a few minutes later they came back and ripped them all up again. It’s hard not to wonder what was on that original setlist. My guess is that they switched up the encore at the last minute. Hm… Anyway, they came back with the new setlists and shortly after that the lights went down and the guys took the stage.

As I said, it was great to be back at home on Daniel’s side of the stage. When he really hams it up I can’t help laughing, and the rest of the time I feel like I’m right there with him in the song. The stage was really elevated above the crowd, probably because the venue is pretty big, but totally flat, so that if the stage weren’t high off the floor people standing in the back would have no chance of seeing anything. Because of how high the stage was and where I was standing, I couldn’t see Sam very well. I had a good view of the others, though. Carlos is definitely more into it now than he was a few weeks back. It’s good to see. He just seems much more engaged–like he’s enjoying himself and interacting with the crowd a lot more.

Here’s the setlist:

Pioneer to the Falls
Obstacle 1
C’mere
Narc
Say Hello to the Angels
The Scale
Mammoth
Take You On A Cruise
No I in Threesome
Slow Hands
Rest My Chemistry
The Heinrich Maneuver
Evil
Not Even Jail

Untitled
Stella
PDA

A big cheer went up when they started playing Obstacle 1. Narc and Say Hello to the Angels were great as always. I got a little smile of recognition from Daniel during The Scale (as Lacinda is my witness!). He was definitely giving a lot of looks and smiles to people in the crowd. I think Paul sent a grin my way later on in the show, but with his bangs down in his face it’s hard to know exactly what he’s looking at sometimes. I was glad to hear The Scale because I haven’t heard it live in a while. Same with Take You on a Cruise. I was actually kind of hoping they’d play both of those. Once again, Evil sounded amazing. They are playing the hell out of that song every night.

When I saw Daniel return on his own for the encore I knew we were getting Untitled (yay!). I would have liked to have heard Specialist, but I absolutely can’t complain a jot about getting Untitled instead. And since they played Specialist at soundcheck it was all good. Stella was great, and was again followed by a wandering little “jam” before they kicked into PDA. Daniel’s singing sounded particularly good to me during PDA–better maybe than it usually does.

Sometime during the encore I noticed that Christy was sitting at a little cocktail table up in one of the balcony boxes, taking pictures. She waved down at the band at least once, and I think I saw Paul make a funny face at her when he played a high note on his guitar during Stella or PDA.

At the end of the show Sam threw his sticks way back into the crowd. A security guy up front kindly picked up and gave me one of Daniel’s used guitar picks (he’s still flicking them onto the floor throughout the show, bless him).

Getting out of the venue was a bit nightmarish. I hate bottlenecks! I was starting to feel a little claustrophobic and suffocated when Lacinda urged me to just push on through, so we made a human train and got the heck outta there.

There were fliers all over the place and a guy out on the street advertising an “afterparty” across the road at another club, but it was just a promotional thing and had nothing at all to do with the band. I’d never gone out to the buses after a show, but I wanted to hang out with my new friends, I wasn’t sure what to do next, and I was a bit curious. Well, it was surreal. The buses were parked in this little lot behind the theater surrounded by buildings and a chain-link fence lined at the top with barbed wire. Before the show, the fence gate was open, but afterwards it was closed up. There was a huddled mass pressed up against the fence waiting for the guys. When we got back there Daniel was signing things through the gaps in the fence. People were making a ton of noise and it was just really bizarre to me. It was like they were in a cage or at the zoo. I don’t want to take anything away from anybody who was excited to say hi to the guys after the show, but it kind of creeped me out. Carlos came out after Daniel went back to the bus and he was out for a little while saying hello and signing things. We found a skinny gap at the side of the fence and we were like, “Carlos! Over here! You can escape!”

A girl who’d waited in line with us asked us if we were going to the secret show at the Empty Bottle. I hadn’t heard about it before (the show, not the bar) and as I thought it was pretty far away, I was skeptical. I’m kicking myself now for not going. Another lesson learned… EDIT:  Just discovered that the secret thing was sold out ahead of time, so I wouldn’t have been able to get in anyway, which is a sort of relief.

There wasn’t much open that looked appealing around the venue, so after that (and after I found an Interpol sticker on the ground) we bid farewell (too hastily, I’m afraid) to our new friends, and Lacinda and I got a cab back to our hotel, where we immediately went to IHOP. We were starved!

I found out that Lacinda does a lot of writing (I didn’t realize) and that, like me, she is a smart and creative person who sometimes watches ESPN. Yes, I’m not the only one.

I don’t have many pictures to share because I didn’t take my camera. I didn’t want to check any luggage, and I’d heard that the venue was very strict about cameras (which they were). My new friend Kim took a picture of me and Lacinda (above), and I think there’s a picture of me, Rachel, Kim, and LeAnne, too, but I don’t have that yet.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 13th, 2007 at 10:49 am and is filed under Blather, friends, music, wide world of vacation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.