Show: Do+Division Street Fest/Renegade Craft Fair with Camper Van Beethoven and more
Cost: Street festivals are technically free but theytry to enforce their $5 donation
Reason for going: I really like Camper Van Beethoven
"We've been together like three years."
"Long time."
"Maybe we should get married."
"I think I saw some handmade wedding invitations over at the Etsy tent."
"Oh, cool. Do you think they could cross stitch some with pictures of birds or maybe giant squid?"
"Probly. Where are you gonna have the ceremony?"
"We were thinking about the Hideout, or if they're booked, that loft above Diana's shoes. Half off admission if you RSVP to Going."
"Of course... you could have Flosstradamus do the reception."
"With special guests Million Dollar Mano and the Cool Kids."
"Yell some vows at this bitch!"
"Throw a ring on this bitch!"
"You could have a 21 moped salute."
"Naw, too gaudy. I was thinking maybe just a pair of Just Married mopeds. We were gonna register at Warbux anyway."
"Fuck that, I'm registering at Tiffany's."
"Fuck that, you're registering at Gramaphone."
"We'll talk."
"No. We won't."
This is how it starts. The hippest goddamn street fair I've ever seen. On one side, it's all silkscreened shirts and handmade buttons. On the other side it's all funnel cakes and Polaroid pictures in front of a surfer backdrop. Hipsters and yuppies pass freely between the two worlds like before and after pictures of one another. When we're done cracking up about our ultimate West Town wedding, we feel a little embarassed and a little empty, because we're not above it at all. We crumple up our plastic cups, each one stained with a different flavor of Carlo Rossi, and seperate.
We need to kill time before Camper Van Beethoven. I don't know where K____ and B______ go. They're skinny fuckers, and functional alcoholics. They could be anywhere. Sarah and I our chubby fuckers with poor impulse control, so we go to Small Bar for hummus, beer, and fried cheese curds.
When we get back to the fest, we're already late. Camper Van is playing a waltz. This is the kind of stuff I really like from them. The songs that sounded almost Eastern European in their perfect mix of joyous and mournful. This was the only one I was going to here before they launched into a rockish nostalgia set. I've always liked Camper Van Beethoven, from the goofy pop and country of "Joe Stalin's Cadillac" and "Lassie Went to the Moon" to songs like "Eye of Fatima" which may or may not be as deep and as beautiful as I thought they were when I first heard them, but the last time I saw the band, at the Old Town School's annual Folk and Roots fest a few years back, they were amazing. Their music was experimental and otherworldly, sometimes inhuman and sometimes excessively so. They played just a few recognizable songs and a handful of instruments I'd never seen before. This was at least a year before their reunion album and they didn't play it like it was a reunion, they played it like a band who wanted to blow the hell out of anyone who took the time to see them.
I don't know if the organizers of the Do+Division Street Fest tell their headliners to play the hits or if it's unspoken. Maybe it's just what the band wanted to do. I have my doubts because I don't want it to be what the band watnted, and this is the same festival that the Violent Femmes sucked ass at the last time I saw them. Whoever decided to play the show as a testament to 80s college radio, it made a lot of people happy. Left and right I saw cats singing along and getting all intense. I was bored, but I had come in with different expectations, so I left the band with the people who were going to enjoy them.
I was ready to wash the icky feelings off of me anyway. I saw a vision of a future that I really don't want for me today, and I was an active participant.
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