You Can't Twerk to the Violin- A Quiet Rumble

With our bellies full we were ready to head across the street to Union Transfer to see The Head and the Heart.  The Head and Heart is categorized at an indie folk rock band. 

 

Here is a little something so that you can get an idea of what the band is like. It may help you appreciate the story to come.

 

 

 Soul Mama (whose blog I love reading) loves the band and she raises sheep and then spins her own wool into yarn for homemade knitting projects so I think overall I was expecting the crowd to be mostly made up of crunchy types with some hipsters sprinkled in for good measure, but I believe my husband said it best,

“I feel like these people are at a completely different concert than the one we’re at.”

 

We found a nice little spot to hunker down in. A spot that we thought was fairly out of the way of craziness, after all you are not allow to drink alcoholic beverages on the floor of Union Transfer, so that should cut out at least some of the nonsense, right?

 

 

Things seemed fine when the first opening band began.  They were called Quite Life and they were good.  All of the members had great beards and hats.

 

 

The second opener was Thao and the Get down, Stay down. 

 She was kind of like if a member of Mumford and Sons had a daughter with Bjork and then that daughter started a band with Jesus as the drummer. She was very talented, but we weren't 100% on board with her set.  She did have one very catchy song that involved the banjo that I must admit I've been humming to myself all week.  When I checked out the album on iTunes it was pretty good, better than the live performance, so I may get it sometime in the future.

 

It was about the time that Thao was ending that Cassie and her crew showed up.  They were a rather friendly group of girls who decided to take up residence in front of us in our peaceful little spot.  Cassie taught her friends that when you go to the bar and order non-alcoholic beverages, your cup is marked with an X so that the security guards know that your drink has no alcohol.  Cassie brings her own Sharpie to Union Transfer, orders alcoholic beverages and then marks them herself with an X so the security believes them to be non-alcoholic.  One of the girls in the group brought her own flask, while others had tiny bottles of liquor that they added to their cups of soda.  That probably should have been the sign that we were in trouble.

 

Finally the time had come for The Head and the Heart to play. 

We were all very excited.  The girls were very very excited to see the band.  They loved indie folk rock music so much that they decided to have a full on dance party. 
Now usually at these types of concerts there are certain moves.  I'm a big fan of the sway bounce.  I usually sway bounce quite a bit a concerts.  There is also the sway bounce that includes some shoulder shakes and head shakes or there is your basic up and down pogo sometimes accompanied with a raised hand and finger point as though you are saying, "I love you band, you are awesome!"  Those are the usual moves found at these types of shows.  This was not the type of show, especially  a sold out crowed show, to show off your full out on the night club dance floor moves, but clearly Cassie and her friends were not aware of this information. They were very touchy feely and affectionate with one another, which made us wonder if there was more than just vodka in their systems. They did not seem to care that their dance moves resulted in them crashing into those around them.  I had to dodge an elbow to the face more than once.  A couple of times, one of the girls did some twerking moves.  One, it doesn't have quite the same impact when you are twerking in jeans and a flannel shirt and two, you can't twerk to the violin!  Indie folk rock is not twerking music. 

At the same time, we became aware that there was a guy behind us who did not have proper concert etiquette either.  He seemed to think he was in a mosh pit.  He was a big guy and was yelling and getting super rowdy, so much so that the guards came and talked to him several times.  At one point between songs he yelled out,

 

"Let's get ready to rumble!!!!"

Charity one of the band members replied, "It's a quiet rumble." 
Well rumble guy eventually stepped over the line when a guard asked once again that he calm down so he wouldn't hurt the people around him and rumble guy responded by saying that the guards should just kill him.   He got thrown out.
Between rumble guy and Cassie's group my cousin said,

"I feel like we are in crazyland."  Again, just to remind you this is an indie folk rock band.  Very mellow with contemplative lyrics, not crazy moshing music at all.

 

We were happy when the band started breaking out their slow songs.  Surely the girls couldn't dance to these songs, we thought.  We were right, they did not dance but instead formed a glob of bodies.  Now I have seen girls stand in a line with their arms around each other and sway, but this wasn't a line, it was a mass of arms, legs and heads.  They swayed violently, crashing into us over and over again and would sometimes do this move where they would all lean back, causing us to be in danger of receiving a head-butt. 
A few times my husband said to me and my cousin,
"You better watch out or you will get sucked into their love fest."  He also said,
"I think they are going for a record for longest group hug."
At the point when we had had just about enough of being smashed into by a group of swaying girls my cousin said,
"I am about to break out my karate moves." I said I would break my karate moves out too.

Thankfully towards the end of the concert the girls migrated to the left and further up so we were able to enjoy the last few songs unmolested.  Overall we had a good time at the concert, but we would have enjoyed the show more if it were not for the crazy people.  At least we have a good story from the experience.  I can see us in ten years still breaking out,
"Do you remember that concert with those crazy girls and the rumble guy? That was a fun time."


Here's the song I've been singing all week.  Sadly the drummer in the video does not look like Jesus.