We went and saw Tindersticks at the Henry Fonda Theatre in L.A. on Tuesday. This, of course, goes a ways toward explaining my absence from this site. Staying up til 1am on a weekday means I have to pretty much write off the rest of the week, what with being old and decrepit and all. I noticed something at the show (which by the way was great and you should have gone. Yes, you! I know you live in Nebraska. I don't care! Just shut up. I'm not even continuing this conversation).

What did you notice? I hear you cry.

Well let me tell you: I noticed the dancing. Concert dancing is a tricky field to get into. I know because I've been at shows where I find myself doing a little toe-tap head-bob sort of thing a few songs into the show, and next thing I know it's five songs later and I've been doing the exact same toe-tap head-bob thing for five songs in a row! I know, it's unsettling. I'd understand if you want to go to another site right now, and maybe look at pictures of ringtail lemurs for a while.

There. You back? OK.

Yes, the pressure can be intense. You have to mix it up a little bit. You may want to engage in some hands-over-the-head waving action that you saw in that one Motley Crue video that one time when you were cutting Autoshop.

Then there's the "how much am I annoying the guy standing behind me?" factor. If you really, really want to annoy the guy behind you, you can't beat some violent head jerking kind of stuff, making the guy behind you wonder whether your rear cranium is about to shatter the bridge of his nose. And, after all, screw that guy. He knows what he's getting into going to a show, right? You go see a band, you pay your twenty bucks, you have to expect that maybe you're not going to make it out of there without a little sinus damage, and maybe some cartilage trouble. It doesn't matter that this is a Tindersticks show, and you're dancing around like an extra from REM's Stand video to a song that has one beat every ten seconds. Go for it!

And, by all means, yell out stuff between songs. Not only does the band love it, the people around you think you're really, really funny. As a matter of fact, I may have paid $20 to see Tindersticks, but what I really wanted to hear was some yutz yelling in the breaks. Sometimes, when I listen to CDs at home, I yell things myself. I'm glad you have taken care of the yelling for me, yelling guy.

Hmm. Got a little sidetracked there.