do make say think / fourtet
10-07-2005
city hall, ottawa
(when i get back to the alter-reality, something else will appear in this space.)
i was not at the chicago show, but i was at the show at the ottawa bluesfest on july 7, 2005.
i went by myself. my no-good girlfriend was in fact there, but she was now my no-good ex-girlfriend. or, more accurately, my no-good ex-girlfriend and remaining friend with benefits, sometimes. it was winding down, but not quite dead yet; we no longer lived together, and it was clear that we were moving in separate directions. she would have her first child less than a year later.
the good news is that she actually found something that interested her enough that she conjured up enough of an attention span to watch it, namely a canadian hip-hop artist named k-os. she was a longtime fan of k-os (we saw the 2003 set, and his band was actually pretty tight). the k-os set happened concurrent to the do make say think set, so i wasn't able to bother her during it, although i would have liked to.
but, she did something strange at this show that she didn't do once while we were dating: she took the time to find me in the crowd and say hello, between the four-tet and dmst sets.
"do make say think. that's the one with the bassist from broken social scene that we saw at the folk festival last year, right?"
"yeah. they're actually one of my favourites going back about five or six years, though. i've seen them several times; we didn't see them, though, because they were touring right when we met (actually, that was almost our first date) and then again when we were backpacking. actually, we missed them in vancouver by one night so we might have...."
"yeah. i remember that, actually. you were visibly upset. j, you should slow down on the vodka - you're really drunk. and, i know when you're drunk. you're shit-faced."
"naw. it's do make say think. this is how it's done. i get really drunk, and i dance like a lunatic in perfect synchronization with the delicate syncopation. you should stay..."
"i've seen you dance like a lunatic enough, j. i want to see k-os."
"k. you're crazy to pick k-os over do make...but have fun..."
"you're the crazy one..."
i caught her standing at a distance watching me go. twice. she may have wanted me to go with her. fat chance...
this set was at the very end of the "winter hymns..." period and went through a good range of their existing material. and, i did what i do at a dmst show, in the way that i do it, as absurd as it is to watch (and incredibly fun as it is to do).
at the end of the set, i got a call out by charles spearin. he recognized me from previous sets as the crazy ottawa drunk. it was decided that i must be their biggest fan, to get the timings as right as i do, as i flailed myself around, as i did. he looked forward to seeing me again...