Fight This Generation

Its summer in Chicago – one festival and two shows in three days....

Pig flashes Dog
The group of porcine frat boys sits circled in the grass. Yellow dust tendrils from between their toes, collecting into streams that pour skyward over the porta-potties. The boys, eerily uniform in blue Cubs caps, white t-shirts and khakis, heckle laughter into the dust. I give them a wide berth, but wait – is that – closer – oh my god, yes it is. It is a Chicago red hot tattoo on the arm of one particularly pig-faced youth and it looks like this:

Could this be the best tattoo ever? Yeah, probably not. But it is welcoming nonetheless to see a baseball-loving piggy boy who has paid real money to have a hot dog permanently inscribed upon his person, halfway between hand and heart.

New Hawk, Red Scalp - Battles
After falling in love with Grizzly Bear all over again we are standing next to Jamie Lidell watching Battles and laughing at all the kids with brand-new mohawks / badly burning scalps. I do not miss my opportunity to say “kids today” and grok in my wizenedness.

Waiting for Murder with Fujiya and Miyagi
Fujiya and Miyagi are running late, doing sound checks that seem both endless and recklessly pointless. Someone collapses in the heat; the shouts for a medic overlay the directions to raise the levels, lower the levels, tango with the levels, level the levels, check check check the levels. No one comes. The trixies next to me are scraping their manicures through ash blond hair, the tendrils clump and stick to their napes. They are trashing their friend whom they refer to simply as “Diva” and they laugh about how yesterday they made her cry. They smell of overripe fruit, they smell sticky. I do not like being so close to them and shift my weight to my far foot. Fujiya and Miyagi are now already 20 minutes late for a 40 minute set, I flip through the program again in boredom and I sweat. And I start to smile. Professor Murder is on next, and Professor Murder is not fond of waiting.

Grandpa is a Punk Rocker - Malkmus
The sun is setting behind Stephen Malkmus, who slips in and out of silhouette. He is in a pink polo shirt and white slacks, like he’s just returned from golfing for fish. It’s just him and his acoustic guitar, and he surprises me by veering away from his solo work and reprising Pavement instead. Other bands come on stage and start dancing, slowly. It’s weird, surreal to hear these anthems strummed softly through the gold of sunset like a sixties home movie on slo-mo. But there is also a pleasant acceptance implicit between us all, something about growing older together, something symbolic, something a little lovely.

Mexican Wrestling with Gogol Bordello
Three hours later I’m hot, wet with sweat, my legs are shaking with fatigue, my ears are numb, and I feel outstanding. Gogol Bordello has come to town. The old theater lurches and swells as two tiers of people explode.

Built to Spill Melts your Face Off
Two days later I walk to the same old theater. This would be a very different trip. I’m late. Weirdly, it’s not crowded and I walk right up to the stage front through the frozen tableau. Just then Doug Martsch starts the riff for Time Trap. It hangs in the air delicately, just there. The four guitars softly pick it up, coax it along, then set it soaring. The only sane thing to do at this point is melt into the floor, so first I pretty much freak on out and then I go ahead and just do exactly that.

It’s summer in Chicago. It is 80 degrees tinged with humidity, there’s a chance of epic thunderstorms, and a certainty that at some point you will explode.