blondie!!!

i can't remember if i mentioned it in here that i was going to see blondie, but i totally did, monday september 9, in washington dc!

yeah. so dc. i saw the damned there before because my friend lives there, remember? so i decided to see blondie there too and we could go together and it would be fun! she lives really close to the 9:30 club, where the show was, so she bought tickets and it was settled. hooray!

unfortunately things aren't always as awesome as you expect them to be and she told me a few days before the show that her grandfather passed away and the service was on monday so she was no longer able to go. she still wanted me to go and use the tickets and have fun, but i was sad for her and sad for myself that i didn't get to hang out with her. have i mentioned how great she is? because she's really great. and i miss her.

so that sucked. but i did find someone else to go with me. my friend said we were still welcome to stay at her house, left me a visitor's parking pass, etc., so we went to her house to chill out for a little bit before heading to the show. it was really nice of her to do that and it was great to have somewhere to unwind after that shitty drive. we decided to wander around and see if we could get food somewhere and check out our surroundings. the club is super close to where she lives. we started off in that direction and were just talking and whatever and i looked up to see that clem burke was walking towards us.

CLEM BURKE ALERT CLEM BURKE ALERT HELLO WHAT

i shouldn't have been that surprised to see him but i totally was. unfortunately he was on his phone; when he was right in front of us i said "hi!" and he said "hi" back but just kept walking. oh well. i wanted to actually talk to him! and see if he remembers me! and ask him why he's not drumming for hugh cornwell on the upcoming tour! and how did he get to be so awesome! so many things! again: oh well. it was still really cool to see him and i freaked out afterwards. then we just killed time until it got close to 7, and went and stood in line to get in.

oh hey, did i mention who the opening band is on the tour? it's x. yep. x. so that was really awesome.

the show was fucking great. the whole thing, start to finish, minus a few little things here and there, was just fucking great. i never got really into x, but after seeing them, i'm a believer. billy zoom is really fun to watch, and we were kind of right in front of him. their drummer is really great too. but it was hard to see exene and john doe from where we were standing; however, from what i could see, she looks fucking awesome, and sounds the same, too. they were a lot of fun. and then blondie. holy shit, blondie. i've been in love with them for many years and this is the first time i got to see them. watching clem drum blondie songs in front of me was really fucking cool. my only real complaint? the set. they played a bunch of songs off of panic of girls, the new album, which was fine, because i really like that album. it's very dancey and fun. but the rest of the set was like the greatest hits album. and i get it, i really do, i mean, that's what people want to hear, right? but what about the rest of us who listen to full blondie albums and like the songs that weren't the big hits? instead of "rapture" (i could go the rest of my life without ever hearing it again and that would be ok by me) why couldn't they have done "11:59" or "picture this" or "fan mail" or "rip her to shreds"? that would have been fucking amazing to hear. i still had fun! i'm not really complaining. i just like it when bands pull out the unexpected songs. i didn't go to hear the best of blondie; i could've stayed home and listened to that album. it would have been a much cheaper night. but yeah; finally got to see clem play along to "dreaming," which was a great moment in time for me.

oh, i kind of forgot about the most important thing: i saw debbie harry in real life. there was that time i was supposed to meet her but hugh cornwell fucked up and didn't tell me she was there and then she left. ugh. anyway, i still hope i can meet her someday because she is so cool. seeing her, on a stage, in front of me, singing blondie songs, it was a really big deal. and she looked so cute.

overall, yeah it was fun. although the fans were really annoying too. just gonna throw that out there. sorry. but it's true. except the guy who let me have his spot after i was violently shoved out of the way by some dude and his dumb girlfriend. during rapture, of course, because i guess some people only came to hear that song. which is fucking stupid. that's really it. we had a good time. i will definitely go see blondie again sometime, maybe when they play the keswick on this tour, which is considerably closer than the 9:30 club.

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ok i wrote this a while ago and i'm only just posting it now. i did not go to the keswick show and i'm trying to not be sad about it.