First and foremost:
apple_scruffer, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! I love you, bb. Sorry I haven't been around much this weekend.
Aaand here's why. Saturday was incredibly, unspeakably frustrating. Not only did I leave the house much later than I intended, AND managed to leave my Decemberists ticket at home, but when I got to the UPenn library to work some more paper, I was told that the library is closed to the public on weekends. And though they allowed students with IDs from accepted affiliate colleges in, Oberlin was not one of those colleges. Can I just point out that that was an hour and a half's worth of public transit and tramping around Philly in summer heat for NOTHING? My dad picked me up, thank God, and gave me my forgotten ticket, and took me to the Free Library. I got an hour's work done before they closed, which was something, but it all felt very futile.
Whatever. The Decemberists made up for everything, and it was so awesome to see
erinpuff again! I was distinctly underwhelmed by the opening act, but man, when the Decemberists themselves played? It made up for everything bad in my life ever AND THEN SOME. Awesomest concert I've ever been to, hands-down. Everyone's performances were wonderful, and the lighting was mesmerizingly beautiful.
I'll be honest -- when I first heard "The Hazards of Love," I was pretty unimpressed. (I was also in the hospital, so I was pretty unimpressed by everything.) For those of you who don't know, "The Hazards of Love" is their comprehensive concept album, with a storyline and characters and everything. But Ms. Charlton was like "Listen to it again, it grows on you." And it really has over the past week or so. I learned to accept that it is very different from their early stuff. And it's not perfect. But I'd really started to love it recently, and seeing it live just made me love it beyond all reason. God. Just. Why are they so amazing. "The Hazards of Love 4 (The Drowned)" is so beautifully tragic.
After they performed the album, they came back and did some other stuff -- "July, July!", "Sleepless," "The Crane Wife 3," "Summersong" (omgomgomg <3), "Shiny," "O Valencia!" and "The Chimbley Sweep." And for an encore, "The Bandit Queen" and "Sons and Daughters."
SERIOUSLY JUST AMAZING OK. JT and Kelsey picked me up afterwards, and I proceeded to be a total Party Failboat. I had like, a daiquiri and a half, threw up, and fell asleep. I think I need to stay away from daiquiris and screwdrivers for a while. I felt pretty boring and bad, but maybe it's better than what happened last time. JT was showing me some of the pictures he took that time, and uh, wow. I do not remember being that...clothes-less. Heh.
Today we drove up into the mountains to Jim Thorpe, which is actually a town. A little touristy town in the Poconos. It was adorable and lovely. This post is getting too long, so let's move onto the pictures. FOR THE RECORD: I took an OBNOXIOUS amount of pictures at the concert, and they all suck. Fair warning.
( And there she came upon a white and wounded fawn. )