A Polyphonic Experience

A summary for the "too long; didn't read" crowd: I expected The Polyphonic Spree to completely blow my mind. I expected their show to be the most amazing experience I'd ever had. I, simply, expected sheer and utter bliss beyond what mortal men are meant to experience... And they blew all my expectations out of the water. I think if everyone in the world went to see a Polyphonic Spree show, the world would be a better place, if only a little bit. I drove 135 miles to see the Spree, and it was worth it.

(A note for my website readers, this is censored so I could post it on the Polyphonic Spree forum).

Now, for the long version...

The drive to LA was alright. I went and saw my mom, and she bought me a fan from Home Depot since I haven't got a fan of my own and it's typically about 85 or above in my room in Chula Vista. After showing her the live portions of the DVD that came with Together We're Heavy, I left for the show.

I got to the area the El Rey was in and quickly looked for the supposed parking on "1 block east Wilshire and Dunmuir" that the El Rey states exists on its website. This was another lie told by The El Rey Sadly, it doesn't exist at all, at least in any sort of way they'd describe it. I pulled up out front of the theater and walked up to two guys who were obviously Spree fans, and asked them where parking was. They, unfortunately, treated me like I was retarded and were very cold to me, so I went around the corner to a $7 parking lot and parked there, which turned out to be the El Rey lot which the website said was $5.

I got out and got in line. This large Mexican dude in a blue ADIDAS type jacket started talking to me about something some how, and he said, "You wouldn't happen to be the guy who recorded the KCRW show for the forum who posted his pic would you?" I said, "Yeah, that was me," and we talked about it a bit. He said he was working for the archivist for KCRW and that he was there to videotape and record the show (via the soundboard directly) but he wasn't sure they let him in.

We stood in line for a long time, he tried talking to the manager/owner of the theater and he said something like, "Well 99.8% of the bands that play here don't let people record them," in reply to his print out of the Spree's recording policy on the forum. He tried multiple times and we even considered grabbing one of the band members as they walked by, but we missed two chances and that was it.

Last I saw him was when they finally opened the box office/doors a little before 8:00 PM (Hmmm, the website said they open the box office at 7pm). He said, "Well, I'm going to go put the gear away and try to score myself a ticket so I can get in," and then he was gone. I felt really bad about that... Us fans would have had an excellent audio/visual copy of The El Rey show to download for free from KCRW had he been able to get in. Everyone boo the El Rey at once now.

When I finally got in, I searched for the schwag area immediately. I couldn't find it, so I walked around for a while until I finally spotted it. I brought $150 specifically for the show, pure spending money, just in case the robes were really expensive. Tim was behind the counter when I got there and he started modeling some shirts for this guy with green hair in front of me. I don't know who they were, but right before the show started they put on their "robes" behind me... and they were their graduation robes. Pretty hilarious, I think.

I bought myself a white robe with a bluish-green trim for $30, along with the two button set. I immediately put it on and shoved myself up front toward the stage. Shortly after getting there, this really cute chick, who was probably pretty young as she looked like she was with her dad or someone much older than her, ran up to me and asked me how much my robe cost. I told her and she ran off, only to appear later in her own robe. It looked good on her, I will admit.

Some big fat guy with porkchops walked up to me shortly after and eyeballed me in my robe for a second. Then he came up to me and asked, "Did you just graduate today?" I said, "No." He responded, "Just say yes, dude." "Ok, fine, yes." "Oh well congratulations," and he shook my hand at that.

Another guy bumped past me with a hand full of alcohol, (I will tell you at this point I was never more paranoid of ruining my robe than when the drunk people behind me were eating french fries covered in ketchup... augh), and he said, "Yeah, I approve of your robe, whatever," very rudely as he shoved by. I was sort of dismayed by the general rudeness involved with the people at the show, especially directed toward my robe... most of the people acted like they had no idea what sort of freakshow I was, more like they didn't know that the Spree wore robes at all.

Finally... The Section came out, that string quartet that does covers of rock music. I'm a huge string quartet fan, so this was an unexpected occurrence of pure awesomeness. They opened with a Radiohead song, not sure which, my fandom is waning. Then they played an AWESOME cover of No One Knows (Queens of the Stone Age) that I really enjoyed. They played some hard rock song, not sure which, something along the lines of Pantera or Metallica, not sure which, the audience loved that. I will take this moment to say that one of the violinists was a total babe.

They left and a short while later Jon Brion came out. He played about two songs. Someone shouted out, "WHO ARE YOU???" and he handled it perfectly, "I'm Jon Brion... who are YOU?" He was a good sport. There were two people behind me who absolutely hated him, they sat down and made rude comments to each other. After his first two songs, The Section came back out and they played two or three songs until one of the many highlights of the evening... They did "String Quartet Karaoke" and it was the coolest thing ever, because Jon Brion's vocal rendition of "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" was absolutely unbelievable. The entire audience was into it if I remember correctly, singing along and all. It was just awesome. He's got one helluva voice. He threw the lyrics sheet he had into the crowd and the girl next to me grabbed it and kept it.

After they left the stage, it was time for the super long wait for the Spree. Roadies setting up and everything...

I'm not sure how to handle the Spree review part. I guess I'll just do highlights and moments....

The initial blast of A Long Day Continues was amazing. On the album version, you don't hear the horns separate at all from the blast, but when you're right in front and the horns are right in your face... oh man. You can feel the horns blasting you right in the face. It was awesome.

It's The Sun was one of the songs I really wanted to hear, and I jumped around like crazy to it. I knew I was going to go ape when the chorus kicked in, and oh boy, did I ever. After the first run through the chorus, I thought I was going to pass out. My legs went weak and I thought I couldn't breathe. Not exercising and smoking cigarettes almost caused me to collapse during the first song at the show, but I wouldn't let myself give in that easy. I didn't want to ruin the show for myself so I sucked it up.

2,000 Places was incredible if only because the entire audience had the lyric timing down so well that we started singing it right from the beginning, and Tim stopped singing and just listened to us... He said, "Thank you!" It was golden.

The visual portion of One Man Show was amazing. The little black figure climbing stairs for the entire song until Tim goes quiet and stares up at the screen for the big finale. I snapped a picture of him looking up at the screen, so hopefully the screen comes out seeable in the shot.

When they finally left the stage, we were all screaming and going crazy. A group of morons in the back started to chant "You suck, you suck," but I just yelled louder and we pretty much drowned them out until they were unintelligible.

The video of the boy with the red balloon, that I remember from when I was really young, was perfect to accompany Together We're Heavy (I think that's what it accompanied, I'm not sure at this point now).

I'd been watching the girl who asked me how much my robe cost a lot of the night but I lost track of her around that point. I knew she wasn't really dancing around or anything, and when she reappeared next to me for Solider Girl, another song I couldn't possibly wait to rock out to, I knew I had to do something about it. In the first batch of rocking out, I gave her a chance, and she didn't even move! I leaned over to her in a split second gap and I said, "You HAVE to jump!" she said, "OK!" and we jumped around together in our robes to Soldier Girl. I have to say that was one of the coolest moments of the evening, getting her to rock out and scream and the whole nine yards. Very, very cool. I wish I knew who she was... *melodramatic sigh*

A major spoiler for the evening that thankfully happened pretty late, and before Solider Girl I think, was this big drunk Mexican guy shoved himself through the crowd to stand in front of me. He smelled so strongly like beer you could gag on it. He started trying to talk to and flirt with this girl who was in front of me for most of the show (not the robe girl from above) and she totally blew him off. During this one quiet part, I think it was toward the end of Together We're Heavy, he shouted out "I DON'T GET IT!" and then waited to shout "PLEASE HELP ME UNDERSTAND!"

I couldn't take it. I cleaned over to him and I said, "Can you do me a favor?" He said "Yeah, sure." I said, "Can you shut the f*** up?" (bad form on my part but I was PO'd) he replied to that with, "Yeah sure I can do that, just because you get everything and all." "I don't get everything." "Don't you f***ing lie to me!" and he got sort of in my face and I was a little worried he swing at me, but a big guy next to me leaned over and told him to cool it, I think, and I kept quiet and enjoyed the rest of the show despite his non-stop talking. He said something about the Beatles and how I looked like John Lennon, etc. He had a big talk with me after the show and was trying to make me realize that the Spree is a bunch of BS and that I should be ashamed of myself for wearing a robe.

That was quickly cut short when a shorter asian girl ran over to me and asked me if I would pose in a picture with her in her robe. I agreed, and then thought to run over and get the guy who was still around in a red robe. Then monet2u from the forum came over and joined the four of us. It was pretty cool since it was colored-white-colored-white between the four of us. I think about four different people came over to us and took pictures of us all grouped together in our robes.

I ventured over to the BBQ shop and asked for a bottle of water. The guy handed me a bottle of water and told me to keep it as I was fumbling for my wallet. One of the women there said, "It looks like you earned it!" since I was sweating PROFUSELY the whole show. I mean, I had sweat pouring down my face. I was wearing two shirts and a big pair of baggy pants BEFORE I put on my robe at the show, so I was wearing a lot of clothing during the show, added to fact that the place was packed and the AC seemed to completely disappear right before the show started. To say I was soaked in sweat would be an understatement.

I went back to the Merch window and bought myself a brown shirt with the blue logo, which might be one of the most comfortable shirts I've ever owned. The fabric is brilliant. I also got a copy of TBSO since I had yet to order it. Over all I spent only $62 at the show, when I brought $150 just in case. I guess I should have bought more schwag.

When I left, I called up my exgirlfriend and just raved incoherently about it. I was almost crying at one point because I was so absolutely overwhelmed by the sheer power of the Spree.

I went and grabbed myself some In&Out in Whittier and then took the drive back home. I got home about 2:30 in the morning absolutely exhausted. Aside from that, it was worth every penny spent and every hour consumed by driving. I'd highly recommend seeing them if you haven't seen them yet. Just watch out for ignorant drunk a**holes.