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| Arm-folders of the world, unite! Miss Black America - Paradiso, Amsterdam, 14.01. 2003 After a rather epic journey through an Amsterdam which seemed to be filled with randy Irakees who all found it necessary to engage me in conversation, I finally arrived at the Paradiso. To find that it was closed. They were modifying the large stage. Confused, I walked around to the side of the building, where there was a door, rattled it a bit, did not understand what was going on, and walked back to the front. At that moment, a flock of BRMC lookalike boys came by. They each looked completely delectable and I tried to remember if I had seen them before, but I did not recognise them so I assumed they were gig goers like me.So I followed them back to the side entrance, and waited while one of them rang a doorbell. This, however, did not ring any bells in my mind, and then one of them said “Hi,” in a tone of voice suggesting that my presence was not of any importance to him and that we had been meeting at this very point every night for many years. So, reassured, I said “Hi,” back, smiling in what I thought was my most charming way, and we all went through the door which was opened now. I wandered into the hall, looking for the ticket seller. I was amazed to find out there wasn’t one. It was only a few minutes until the show started (or so I thought), and I thought: “well, maybe they’ve closed the ticket selling thing down. Or moved it upstairs.” And thought nothing of it. Then I went to the wardrobe. I gave the wardrobe woman my coat, and she immediately asked me how on earth I had gotten in, because the venue was still closed. “I just went in through that door over there,” I said, and she told me that that was the door meant for performers and staff only, and that actually I had to get out of the place again. Because it was so very cold outside, I begged her to let me stay, trying to seem as young and innocent and foolish as possible, and in the end she let me stay “if you buy a ticket.” I said I already had a ticket (which I didn’t). So she gave in and let me stay. I went upstairs to some pub-like location, where I sat down a few metres from the BRMC flock, though unfortunately too far away to be able to watch them properly, and read Plato for a while, until the place started to fill up with other people, and I asked them all if they knew what time the show was going to start, but no-one knew. In the end I just went upstairs to where the stage was, and waited for absolute ages at some table that suddenly was there, and continued to read Plato. More and more people arrived, but no-one knew what time it was going to start. There was a DJ, annoying though cute, and the light went out so I couldn’t read anymore and then someone came in, went up to the stage and kidnapped all the guitars. A long time of total and utter boredom passed, until FINALLY the guitars returned and the band appeared on the stage. They introduced themselves with: “Hi, we’re Miss Black America, and we’re soooooorrrryy!” Nobody in the room seemed to be under the age of 27, and I felt terribly out of place and also as though I was the only one there who actually knew what band this was. It’s always dodgy when the band is younger than its audience, and to make things worse, this crowd reminded me of attending a meeting of the National Union of Armfolders. I just stood against the wall somewhere, moving around a bit, feeling really very sorry for poor Steve, who was swaying and jumping and banging his head as if there was no tomorrow. Everyone just stood and stared, like the wise, experienced, superior twats they were, way too cool to be enthusiastic. Well, the setlist was short but sweet (copied below, sadly without the beautiful rebuses thingy had drawn on his setlist instead of song titles), and Steve was being very intense, sitting down and swaying back and forth with his guitar on his knees, flopping his fringe around, and at the end of the very last song, he jumped right on top of Cooper (guitarist), in a loving puppyish way and they laid there for a moment before just falling over the edge of the stage, while the urbanites, who finally seemed to show something that very vaguely resembled interest, shot glances around to see where they had gone. I stood around for a while, and walked around totally aimlessly for a while, looking for someone to talk to, but of course everyone was too cool to talk to a stranger, so in the end I decided to make friends with the girl who was selling the T-shirts. We talked about nothing and then I bought a T-shirt and she was happy and invited me to come backstage. I agreed, and we went down some stairs into a very dodgy cellar. Apparently, this was my country’s lame excuse for a backstage area, and we made our way through a labyrinth of little hallways and rooms, filled with the worst junk imaginable (badly made copies of Van Gogh paintings, endless rows of lamps and electric fans, chairs, beams, benches, electric chords, and too many other things to mention, until we arrived at a very tiny room filled with a few couches and a few cupboards and some more junk. Oh yes, and four band members and a roadie. I sat down, introduced myself and chatted to them some more, after being handed the most enormous glass of wine I’ve ever seen in my life by the guitarist. Most of the time was spent explaining why Dutch crowds are so bad and why I wasn’t going to spend the night there (“I have to go to school tomorrow!” “Yes, but experience is worth a lot more than education, isn’t that right?” -followed by a long, intelligent discussion about the uses of education, at intervals interrupted by cries of “fucking hell!” and general amazement), and admittedly rather stupid remarks by the bass-guitarist (“Wow, I thought it was Christmas!” “No, it’s January!” “But I thought it was Christmas!) (him, pissed: “So……do you consider yourself a groupie, then?” me, raising eyebrow: “er….. nooo….”), until I really had to leave, and got terribly lost between all the junk and the tiny hallways, and Steve had to come rescue me and led me to the exit, mumbling incoherently to me all the while (aaw, bless), and getting very confused when we said goodbye and I put a hand on his shoulder (aaww, bless). That was the end of one of the weirdest nights of my life, and I’m still rather disappointed that I never got to see the BRMC look-alikes perform. Setlist: Pub Rock Coma Human Punk Strobe Beautiful Velocity Talk Hard MBA Heartbreak High Dot dot dot By Hanna Nierstrasz |