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After Powell's, it was almost time for doors to open to the club, so Mike and I first moved the car a little closer to the venue, and then walked on over to the Crystal Ballroom, an incredibly beautiful old ballroom theater that first opened its doors in 1914! It is absolutely gorgeous and very impressive!
We got there a little early and were waiting outside for a few minutes when who should walk past but James! YAY! We chatted for a while before he had to leave and get ready for the show and by then the doors had opened and we wanted to hurry inside anyway!
When we walked in, we were just taken by the beauty of this old theater! It's just so gorgeous and amazing, as you can see in these pics. Robert of The Clean was setting up the merchandise table when we walked in, so we stopped and talked with him for a bit. Even he was impressed by the lovely old theater!
For this show only, opening up was Richard Meltzer. He has a column in our local entertainment weekly called "Rhymes With Seltzer", well, it's actually syndicated across the country, so perhaps you've heard of him, too? In any case, he comes out, and he's this totally grizzled old man. He sat down on a stool, and on another stool next to him, he opened a file folder containing scraps of paper with his writing on them. Now, I'm not a faithful reader of his column at all, but I was still prepared to like him...after all, Ira introduced him and said they were big fans of his...if the Yo Las liked him, surely he must be good, right?
Oooh, ouch...WRONG! I didn't enjoy his writings at all. I just stared at the carpet on the stage the entire time instead, avoiding eye contact with this man. Eek.
And then The Clean came on, and rocked the ballroom. They're so straightforward when they play! No chit-chat, just song after song of total pop joy!
And then yay, the Yo La's! It was a little awkward, 'cause elsewhere in the club, there was disco music playing and the driving dance beat kept infiltrating the room. And when they first started out, Georgia stopped playing mid-song, 'cause something was wrong with her drums. And then at one point, she walked over to the keyboards and something wouldn't work. (James was able to fix it though.) But despite all the quirks, it was still a great show!
I also noticed something weird about Portland audiences: there were all these people standing up front with us, but they would just stand there quietly, watching. No head bobbing, or rocking out, or any sorta outward expression. It was weird! So, the award for most enthusiastic and fun audience would definitely go to Seattle! :) Seattle audiences are the nicest.
Richard Meltzer was brought out towards the end for lead vocals on a cover of some song I can't remember. But of all the shows we saw on this mini-vacation, this show was the most rockin'...maybe because they were trying to drown out the disco noise.