After that I followed Carrie's and the record store guy's directions and they led me right to the club. I am so used to big city, urban clubs that I was surprised to find that the Cat's Cradle was in a strip mall with an actual parking lot in front. I got in line about two hours before the doors opened, and like the second record release show in Seattle, I was first in line. I saw everyone walking around, all of Sleater-Kinney, all of the Gossip, and Sarah Dougher, too. At one point I turned around and saw someone I believed to be Mikey. I asked him if he was Mikey and he said yes. I went over, introduced myself, and apologized for snubbing him in Philadelphia. Everything they say about Mikey is true. He is one of the coolest, friendliest people I have ever met. I told him I have a video of him dancing on stage at an S-K show two years ago in Philadelphia and he asked for a copy of it. I agreed, and then one of his friends, Emily, asked me if I had other videos and would like to trade. I eagerly agreed, and was triply excited when I found out she had the DC show from the previous evening, which I thought was the best S-K show I'd ever seen. It was already a great evening for me, and the doors hadn't even opened yet.
Right before the doors opened, Kaia from the Butchies showed up and went inside. As I was right in front of the door, I joked with her, asking "Couldn't stay way, could you?" The Butchies had been on the tour with S-K for about two weeks up through the previous evening. So Kaia was spending her first free evening coming to yet another S-K show, which struck me as amusing. Apparently she didn't find it so amusing, as she seemed mildly annoyed at my joke. Oh, well.
This time when the doors opened, I was able to grab a front row center spot. Before the Gossip I spent more time getting to know Mikey and his friends, who were right next to me. We also met these two cool girls from UNC. One of them was really excited to be seeing Sleater-Kinney. When she found out how many times some of us had seen them, and when we all insisted they were even better live than on the records, she really got excited. It was fun to see. During The Gossip's set they invited people up on stage to dance. Kaia and the bass player from the Butchies came out there, as did Mikey, the girls from UNC, and a couple of other people. By this third time I saw The Gossip, I had become a fan. I'm not sure I'll want to buy their records, but they're a lot of fun live. I'd go see them again, even without Sleater-Kinney.
People were mostly really nice about moving back and letting the on stage dancers reclaim their spots once the Gossip's set was over. Though there was one young woman who'd arrived late who had sort of pushed me over to where Mikey and Emily had been. And she didn't leave when they all came back. It made it where all of us who'd been in the very front against the stage since the doors opened could no longer fit there. I voluntarily moved back, as I'm at least a head taller than Mikey and all of his "entourage". But I resented that any of us had to, just because some late-arriving girl had pushed her way to the front. I said something to her about it, and she responded that "I drove all the way from Charlotte." I guess that means she was entitled to displace one of us who got there first, at least in her mind. Oh, well, the perils of seeing bands in clubs, I guess! (In truth I had a great time anyway and I could see fine, as I'm somewhere between 6-1 and 6-2. But it seemed like a big deal at the time.)
I've got the two Cadallaca CDs, but other than that, I know very little about Sarah Dougher. So I was curious what her solo stuff would sound like. It was a lot less poppy than Cadallaca, and more sort of folksy. A couple of her songs sort of reminded me of Liz Phair. I liked her, and will probably pick up her CDs if I find them for a good price. But I like the songs she sings for Cadallaca better. I was sort of hoping Corin might come out and join her for one Cadallaca song (preferably Two Beers Later!) but it was not to be.
Sleater-Kinney were awesome once again. Mikey threatened (jokingly) everyone who didn't dance, so I did my best, though I'm not much of a dancer. I had a great view of all of Carrie's guitar god dance moves. Awesome! Before S-K had started playing, Mikey told Carrie it was the third anniversary of his first Sleater-Kinney show right there at the Cat's Cradle. During the show, they mentioned this and dedicated a song to him, and then he got up on stage and danced with them. He was so happy, and we were all thrilled for him. During The Professional, we were all shouting out "The Professional" at the appropriate place and Carrie smiled a lot every time we did it. During one song, I forget which one, some unruly moshing got started over to my right, in front of Corin. So after the song we got an old-fashioned S-K lecture from her on not hurting anyone, etc. They didn't do it any more, and I was glad. I'm a really big guy (210 lbs.), but I have a long history of back problems. So I still worry about getting hurt when that nonsense starts up. One shove to the right part of my back and I might not be able to walk for three days!
During the encores, they invited Sarah, The Gossip, and The Butchies on stage for Fortunate Son. (I bummed I didn't get to see White Rabbit again after Seattle.) People from the audience started going up, too, including everyone I'd been hanging out with all night. I stayed behind, though, because as I said, I'm not much of a dancer, and I'm shy. But it still was a blast for me seeing my new friends up there and seeing how much they were enjoying it. At one point, Carrie stood up on the monitor amp, right in the front of the stage. As I had moved back up front when all the people I'd let in front of me went on stage, I was directly in front of her when she did this. Literally just a few more inches closer, and she'd have kneed me in the face when she got up there. I spent the time focusing on her very up close fingers as she played her guitar, and I was in heaven.
After Fortunate Son, they did one more song, Dig Me Out, and Corin turned her mic over to some guys from the audience for most of the song. They didn't play many encores, which didn't surprise me, as both Carrie and Corin had been complaining about how hot it was. Carrie, especially, had looked like the heat was getting to her.
Mikey offered to introduce me to the band after the show, but I politely declined. I sort of felt guilty for bugging Carrie in the record store, and didn't want to bother any of them any more. Plus I was really tired, my back was sore from dancing, and I needed to get up in the morning to drive back to DC. So I said goodbye to all the cool people I'd met and took off.
I can't say this was the best Sleater-Kinney show I'd ever seen, because, well, it just wasn't. But it was definitely the most fun show! There was something about sharing the experience of seeing the band while surrounded by so many other hard core Sleater-Kinney fans which multiplied the energy generated many times over. I was exhausted after it was over, but a very happy kind of exhausted.
