On Aging, Sadness, Happiness, Cocaine, Heroin, and the Lemonheads

As an FYI, the Guatemala entries have also been updated. You can find the most recent one here. 

Firstly, while this entry is contextualized in the Lemonheads show from Monday, it is not about the Lemonheads show from Monday. If you are about to stop reading because you have no interest in a review of the Lemonheads show, then you’ll miss out on my winding philosophy on aging and sadness. On the other hand, if you are looking for a review of the current Lemonheads “tour,” then this is not the spot for you.

So, on Monday, Ferris, Pookie, girlfriend of Pookie, TPalk (that’s the best I can come up with) and I ended up at the Lemonheads show at Stage AE. There were also these two epically drunk people who we met at a bar before the show with us. This is important later.

Firstly, let’s maybe consider that some of you are not familiar with Evan Dando or the Lemonheads. That’s a shame, because It’s aShame About Ray is truly a nearly flawless album, and Baby, I’m Bored is really good, too. They were in that whole Indie pot smoking acoustic yet not acoustic movement in the late nineties. If you’ve never listened to It’s a Shame About Ray, maybe you should. If you just want a brief overview, go here, here, or here for some Lemonheads classics on YouTube or here, here, or here for some Evan Dando solo work (of which I am a fan).

Issue One: Stage AE

Maybe there was a part of you right there that said, “Does that stand for Stage American Eagle? Certainly it can’t.” But I am here to tell you, oh yes, it can. Not only is Stage AE the venue of a subpar suburban clothing manufacturer, but there’s a huge McDonald’s: I’m Loving It poster RIGHT NEXT TO THE STAGE. Not only is it sad overall that this is what it’s come to, but it’s sad that one of the most sensitive indie-esque groups of the nineties is now playing there. Somewhere, backstage, Evan Dando was clearly saying, “This is what it’s come to. A Monday night gig with a McDonald’s poster ten feet from the stage.” This depression will be important later in the story.

Issue Two: Old Folk

I mean, listen, I include myself in this. But this was a show of people in their mid-to-late thirties, because that’s who loved that band. This is an actual conversation that I had with the woman behind me. She was thirty-nine. Her husband was forty-two.

Her

I mean, it’s already 9pm and they haven’t come on yet. I hate that I sound like an old person, but he’s got to understand that his crowd is old now. We have an all night babysitter. If he doesn’t play until ten, that cuts into our all night babysitter time, and that’s rare. We don’t want to spend it standing in a club next to a McDonald’s poster.

"Hey, did I tell you about the conversation I had at will-call when I went to pick up the tickets? I asked them what time the band was coming on, and they were like, 'I can’t tell you.' And then I pressured them, and they were like, 'The first opener will come on at 8, but that’s all I can tell you.' And I was like, 'Ok, that’s enough for me to plan how long we can stay at dinner.' Then I asked what the venue was like. Was there seating or tables? And the guy was like, “'It’s standing, like OLD SCHOOL.' Like I was too old to know what that meant."

Yep.

Also, there was a straight up BABY at this show. This is who we are now, people. We’re bringing our babies to concerts given by big time heroin addicts.

Also, that drunk woman whom we met at the bar before the show? I should point out that she, too, was thirty-nine. At the show, she wrote a note to the Lemonheads inviting them to hang out at a bar and then announced that she was going to put it between her huge boobs and then flash it at the stage to get them to come. I wasn’t in a position to see if she really did it or not, but I believe that she probably did. See, this is everything I’m fighting against being. There was a time when flashing your boobs at a show was acceptable. That time has passed, and it passes long before you’re thirty-nine years old. I’d like to wear booty shorts on  my trip to Vegas next month. What I’m instead going to wear is an age-appropriate (but still really trampy) cocktail dress. Because I have aged out of booty shorts. You need to know and understand where you are in the journey, people. You can’t be happy if you’re still trying to be twenty-five at thirty-seven. That is all. This entry is a little, like, “Oh, the sadness of age.” But I wouldn’t trade it. That doesn’t mean, however, that you can still wear booty shorts and flash your boobs around. I’m just saying.

Issue Three: Cocaine. Heroin. Those are Powerful Drugs. They Take Their Toll.

If you’re familiar with the Lemonheads, then you know that Evan Dando has been on a massive heroin and cocaine bender for the last twenty years. If you are not, then that is information that you need to understand what I’m about to talk about. This guy isn’t new to drugs. He’s been more high than sober pretty much for his entire musical career. And he got divorced last year, which is most likely why he’s on a tour playing Stage American Eagle on a Monday night.

When the Lemonheads were huge (It’s a fact that It’s a Shame About Ray was written while on a bender), everybody found his serious drug issues very rock star, and even romantic. Because in our youth many of us find that idea of live fast, die hard romantic. We’re also more empathetic to the pain of existence.

I saw Evan Dando play during the Baby, I’m Bored tour. That was…at least seven years ago. Maybe more. He was really messed up through the show. But it was more amusing than anything. It’s not really like the show suffered. I mean, it was what you would expect from a druggie playing a primarily acoustic set. shamus and I joked about how terrible the show was. We joked about how he was such a druggie. But, you know, we enjoyed the outing. Especially me, because I’m quite fond of several of the tracks off of Baby, I’m Bored.

Evan Dando is 44 now. Almost 45. The drugs are no longer romantic. They are no longer even funny. Now they are tragic, and that was on display that this show. There’s a lot that’s sad here.

The show started with Evan Dando playing four or five acoustic songs. I’m not sure if it was four or five, because it was a mess. He was so high. He couldn’t even open one eye. He couldn’t get a handle on the guitar feedback. Lyrics were lost. He restarted the same song several times. Pook was up near the front, and he said that when that opening started the guy next to him said, “Oh  no. Shadow of his former self.”  While I’m not sure that the rest of the show supports that theory in total, I think in an overall capacity it’s true.

He was high. And in a lot of pain. And sad.

Then the band came out. I’m not going to get into the debate about whether the show was bad musically. I enjoyed it. I LOVED the sections where the band played with him and to me it felt like authentic Lemonheads. They played the entire Ray album. For me, it was magic. For a lot of people there, it seemed to be. But here’s what I found sad about it. It was like playing that album with a band made him happy, because it took him back to a place in his life that is a place in our lives that we’d all like to go back to sometimes. The place when we were younger. When we hadn’t made bad decisions that screwed up our lives. When our pitcher wasn’t as full of sadness. It’s an easy place to want to get back to. It’s not that our lives are anywhere near as sad as his seems right now, and it’s not even that our twenties (or early thirties) were necessarily better. But much as happiness accrues during life, so does sadness and disappointment. For some people, that’s harder to fight off. For all of us, there are moments where it’s hard to set down our baggage. I get it. And suddenly the band was there, and it was fun, and he was happy. And pretty soon after that he was going to be forty-four and a junkie again. And that’s what the last twenty years amounted to. Sometimes, it’s hard to look at what you built and what was beautiful in the last twenty years. It’s easier to look at all of the ways the world let you down, and you let yourself down. I think for him, it’s harder than for most.

Oh, but the sadness did not stop.

At one point, he actually said into the microphone, “I don’t want to do drugs any more.”

I can’t even remember that moment without wanting to cry.

The show ended with an acoustic encore. It was supposed to be a song or two. After every song, he kept saying, “One more song.” I would have too, if after that song I was going back to a place that broke my heart.

I love this song. But it hurt me when he played it in the encore.

We all age. It’s really, really easy to make that about what we’ve lost, given up, not achieved. The things we want but don’t have. The holes in ourselves that we haven’t filled yet. You have to choose to focus on the wins.

I don’t want Evan Dando to do drugs any more either. I guess that’s where I’m going with this.

I loved the Lemonheads show. I’m glad I was there. I recommend downloading an album called The Color Fred, from one of the openers. But I probably would have felt less old at a Pete Wentz show, and that’s saying something.

Stage American Eagle, indeed.