we rule the school

I felt like a helpless Berkeley student on a quest for live music last night on my belle & Sebastian adventure in Cambridge. Not only did I find the Berkeley-est of cafes to catch a bit to eat (Rainbow- a delightful vegetarian restaurant where I had an organic cup o’ lentil soup and a whole wheat bun. Mmmm tasty!) but I also was faced with the problem of catching the last train home before being stranded. Luckily I made it to the Cambridge train station with a few minutes to spare. Unfortunately, the train didn’t make it back into Central London in time for the subway trip across town from King’s Cross to Earl’s Court (they all shut down around midnight). And so I shared a taxi with myself in the freezing cold. 20 pounds 80 p. It hurt. A whole lot. But it was all worth it to see B&S in England and at a relatively small venue.

About that venue. The Cambridge Corn Exchange is just that. An old corn exchange turned concert hall. I got there about 20 minutes before the show was to start and cozied up to the front row without a problem and a gin and tonic in hand. And gin and tonic is officially my drink in England. I waited a while and then the brakes came on and were off within 25 minutes.

Apparently they only know how to write really short song. “this song’s called comma comma comma end” and that’s all the song was. The lead singer shouting those words in a thick accent over wailing guitars. “one more time on that one, I missed a note.” The brakes couldn’t quite figure out what genre they belonged to other than bands who play really short songs and played a range of longer songs from country to pure rock and the ever popular dance punk which seems to have taken over the british music scene with art bands topping the charts like bloc party, the Kaiser chiefs, the Killers, the Bravery. But for some reason- the dancing that is requisite of that genre hasn’t caught on. Even during B&S, the Cambridge crowd was the deadest I’ve even been in. While it was nice to have a large bubble of personal space around me, it was a bit awkward being the only one smiling, singing, and dancing along. My lovelies put on an amazing show. They were witty as ever and Stevie stole my heart again with his “I’m really a shy guy” style of dancing/playing guitar. I got a great clip of it and heaps of pictures. Just loads of great ones. All in all, the concert was great and has given me a reason to give their new album another listen. Today I woke up to find my entry stamp still smeared across my hand and remembered how much I LOVE going to concerts.

(check out that melodica action!)

In other news, the Australian and I hit up the science museum, which is lame in comparison to the Exploratorium. They did have a neat exhibition on aliens and science fiction though. And a bunch of really cool old sundials. And I knew exactly how they all worked (thanks Prof. Benton). Hot stuff!

Lets see…. I had a spinach and salmon tart for lunch and added jamba juice to my list of things I miss about the states.