I cannot describe Feeder, except that I want one for my living room. All the time. To sing me to sleep and to sing me to wake and rock out when I'm happy and break my heart when I'm sad. Hopefully there will be more rocking out, because that's what Feeders do best. I was standing just underneath Grant, and all around the stage girls communed in great number just to stare up his nose and scream and mosh and grapple for his leg. I stayed for the pedals. They were lovely... I found out later Grant not only has a Vox but a bright-green Tremlo/Pan pedal. I will now die happy.
Due to my completely detached mood of the evening and getting bombarded by crazy moshing teenagers, please don't expect me to recall the set list. I do believe they started off with Crash and swung into a nice, heavy set complete with lovely guitar wah-wahs and lots of incredibly noisy drum sounds on Jon's part. Every few seconds I revert my attention to him, trying to catch his eye, and think it worked. If so, then he looked a lot when I was mouthing the lyrics along with Grant or screaming something like "Go Grant go!!" and wishing he could hear me. All 5 feet 8 inches of him was quite frightening when he would loom right over me, I think he got to believing I was afraid he was going to fall on me until I finally just wrapped my arm around his shin with about 50 other girls doing the same thing. They surely would have torn him to tiny pieces and eaten him as a snack.
All this nonsense about British people not being friendly is utter nonsense - Feeder, who happen to be from a certain island thousands of miles across the Atlantic, is extremely charming and sweet and oh yes, they are quite becoming blokes as well. After the regular set, Grant and Jon stooped over the edge of the stage and shook people's hands. How wonderful they truly are! Grant's hand just sort of brushed mine, being that I was being buried in libidinous girls wanting to touch him for even just a nonosecond. However, Jon came down and grabbed my hand with one of his, then reached out with his other and gave my shoegazey hair a good tousling. This feels great regardless of who does it (though this does not happen very often) but it was Jon Lee dagnabbit! I had Jon Lee hand bacteria on my head!! Is this really something to be proud of?
Post-encore when they swept by again, I actually screamed Jon's name loud enough. He stooped down by me and I asked him why he'd put an X after his last name on the card he'd signed at the Everclear gig. I've never, ever seen him do it for anyone else, and it sure fooled me for awhile afterward into thinking his name was Jon Leex. He seemed a bit perplexed at the moment, then answered in that impeccably beautiful accent "Oh, an X? That's supposed to be a kiss!" and proceeded to throw a variety of air kisses at me.
The rest of the night, the rest of my life, all that is totally inconsequential. My brian, intellect, coherency, and any sort of thought patterns, have been eated by the Jon Lee Phenomenon. Other bands? You mean other bands exist? Wow....
For the sake of making this story even longer, I shall report the rest of the night in a completely dazed and somewhat apathetic state. Jon Lee kissed at me! What do I care about the rest of my life afterward? I got what I was put on this earth for, except perhaps my free toaster oven.
Outside was about as hot as the indoors, and twice as humid. Horrible. I ended up talking to a really cool girl named Pamm who needed a Sharpie, which I happened to be carrying with me. Whoever thought a black pen could begin a conversation? The boys showed up a few minutes later, upon which they were swarmed so Pamm and I decided to hang back and wait so we could get in a few words with boys, other than "You guys rule. Bye!" I babbled at Jon incredibly. Something about Kensal Green being made of people. I could have shared my philosophy of life for all I know. A tiny part of my brain actually began to function and I remembered the van parked just around the corner with my mum's super-nifty camera inside. Despite the heat and moisture and everything else, I managed to sprint to the van and back in record time to take some rather nasty photos. The pictures of me and Jon came out being apricot-coloured Jon-and-Lindsay-shaped blobs and black Dub War logo from Jon's shirt near the bottom. *sob!*
After Jon made a much-unwelcomed departure, I decided to hit it up with Grant for awhile and he attempted to barter my mum's camera for his black Sharpie. Tough call. We engaged in a lovely conversation about drapery patterns... no, only kidding. Guitars and pedals turned into one-hit-wonders and the music biz, which spurred him on a tirade that was completely undecipherable on my part. I was far too involved in his accent to try and understand anything but was actually able to figure out what he was saying in the end and give a halfway intelligent reply. Go me.
Help me. Brain eaten by Jon Lee and I need a shower and 13 more hours of sleep and maybe that free toaster oven if you can arrange it. I think I need to become Jon's traveling maid and just follow him everywhere, waiting on his every need and dying his hair for him every month. Sigh...