Wednesday, June 09, 2004

whatever you want.

today! today! TODAY! something for kate! at substage! in karlsruhe! supporting swedish brit-poppers eskobar! today!

i woke up thinking: "TODAY!", goosebumps all over.
i kid you not.
i wish i was. or not? i don't care. i'm feeling good. fantastic. super-great. teenage.
the last days were a little gloomy, today is not. bright blue sky and sunshine and 30+°C do help, too.

maybe i am tuning into my 13 year old self in a way, 13 year old caro on the day she was allowed to see bono on stage for the first time. that day was june 4th, 1992, the tour was zoo tv, a meagre 12 years ago, and today indeed has similar significance.
no, no, no, i am not overrating paul dempsey, i swear!

i still remember the first time i ever heard a something for kate song.
it was just after christmas 1999, the evan affair was in its first tender weeks, and he had given me a tape. i was preparing lunch at my parents place, in the kitchen that doesn't exist anymore, and put the tape in my mom's stereo.

"picked the wrong time to be looking up at the night..." paul dempsey's voice started floating through the rooms.
"before you jump you better think twice/no angel's gonna appear to offer you advice/whatever you want/whatever appeals to/whatever it is you haven't got/sentimental/knowing/sentimental/knowing when you get on that road i've got no idea where you're going..."
later, the pushing guitars and heavy bass of "hallways" and "electricity" would make the floor shake, just a little, with evan happily jumping through the rooms, playing airguitar.
i fell in love with him, just a little deeper, then.
i fell for "something for kate" then, too.

it wasn't just because it was one of his his favourite bands from melbourne: it was indeed, purely for the music.
it was something about paul dempsey's voice, about the way the songs were crafted, that totally moved me.
"beautiful sharks" would turn into the soundtrack for that winter, the first weeks evan and i were together. after evans return to australia, i'd sit alone at my computer, listening to the album and using the lyrics in my opendiary. "slowdancing/with someone who is a thousand miles away". yeah, i was lonely with this music, too. strange really, considering this was "ours" in a way, "back to you" being "our" song, it's lyrics strong, giving this onlinething a name, for a good long while. a song evan told me he got sad to, during a concert in melbourne, thinking about me.

the relationship i had with evan included lots of music.
many cds i have today were presents from him, bands he told me about, music we listened to together, concerts we went to. cd shopping at jbhifi was almost an everyweekend thing we did when together in melbourne, when he'd be done working at myers. it's always been a strange thing for me to listen to music no one around here listens to, no one else likes. music loving for the music only, in an absence of live performances and videos and marketing. among all the great music i got to know through evan, something for kate always remained my favourites.

evan gave me their third album, echolalia, as a present for my birthday in 2001 (the year that i could not come to australia), signed. hearing those songs for the first time, midday on a hot summer day on my balcony with tina, it was like meeting a long-lost friend and discovering all was still fine: the songs were so shiny and new, less raw, beautifully arranged, yet deeply familiar.
during my extended stays in australia in the southern winter of 2002 and the southern summer of 2002/2003, i each time managed to miss out on concerts by them by a few days or weeks. - evan would see them on all their tours, as he had for years. he and his friend santa, who had been following the band since their darkest days, kept telling me how good they were, live. i kept joking that the day i moved permanently to australia, they'd split up, so i would never get to see them in concert.

however, it was us that split up, evan and i, not the band. afterwards, i could barely listen to any music, because everything was full of connotations and memories.
i got another package of cds from him, directly from whammo, for my birthday after the break up: gelbison, the new powderfinger, and something for kate's "déjà vu" single. - the album wasn't out then.

i didn't get the album until it was finally released round here, a few weeks ago, and it was the same long-missed-friend thing as before, even though i did notice that many of the rough guitars i loved so much have given way to subtler tones.

so tonight, i will finally see something for kate, with 4 1/2 years of anticipating a night like this behind me.

i still can't really believe that it will indeed happen tonight. in about 5 hours, i'll be on a train to karlsruhe.

yeah, my expectations are high, and yeah, the are just supporting, so yeah, they will quite likely just play new songs to promote the album, but what it boils down to is that i will see them perform, which i never expected to happen, since the breakup last year.
i always expected to see them in melbourne, maybe at that cool place in st.kilda, with evan.
that will never happen.

but i will see them tonight, in karlsruhe, alone.
and while it's different than i expected, it will be good. i will be in first row, amazed, knowing all the lyrics. possibly the only person in karlsruhe to have heard about the band before, to own all albums, plus some rare little somethings.
and while being my 13 year old self, i'll attempt to try to hide it, my deep attachment to the music, just a little.
the fandom i openly expressed at 13 -standing on my seat, shouting "bono! bono! bono!- doesn't quite fit my oh-so-cool-self these days.

yeah, i just wrote "attempt to try to hide". he. :)

i'll quite likely fail.
so i'll quite likely be totally uncool.
my camera, cd covers and black waterproof pen are already in the bag i'll take along, anyway.
he.