Oh, use the coat check! It’ll be just like old times.

I said this to my friend David last night at the 9:30 club. We went to see Yo La Tengo. I had been excited for the show since I first found out about it a few weeks ago. This was going to be one of my few recreational engagements during this time of bar preparation.

When I walked to work yesterday morning, I was visualizing the evening ahead. I thought about what I would wear. I thought maybe I would dress it up a bit, but I knew that if I didn’t feel like it when the time came, I certainly wouldn’t be out of place in a sweatshirt, jeans, and tennis shoes. I thought about outerwear and decided to wear a thin but warm enough jacket that I could easily stuff into my bag during the show rather than having to hold a bulkier coat. I wondered what time the show would actually get started. Doors were at 8, so of course we wouldn’t go until 10.

I started thinking about the 1950s and early 1960s, or at least the version of that time that I have in my head, which is largely informed by Mad Men and Back to the Future, Part 1. If we were going an evening performance in the 50s, we would be dressed to the nines, we would check our fine coats, we would be seated during the show, and it would start and end at a reasonable time. There would definitely be toilet paper in the bathroom stalls. And all of it would cost us less.

Do I sound like a curmudgeon? Or maybe like a tea partier, mourning the passage of days gone by without acknowledging that those days weren’t so great for large chunks of the population?

If the show had actually been good, I might be content to have been born in these times. (Those are some high stakes for a show, eh? If they had only known, I’m sure they would have tried harder.) The show started out great. They had great stage presence and were very engaging and entertaining. For this tour, they start every show by having an audience member spin a wheel which determines what they play for the first set. As David said, “This is some good schtick.” Problem was the wheel landed on The Sounds of Science, “78 minutes of instrumental music...contain[ing] the entire score written and performed by the band to accompany eight legendary but rarely-seen undersea documentary shorts by influential French avant-garde filmmaker Jean Painleve.” The audience groaned. This was not what any of us came here for, with the exception of the tall guy in the rugby shirt in front of me. His mind was blown.

They need to take The Sounds of Science off their wheel. It was torture. The whole audience was chatting. I was wishing I would have brought my flashcards so I could have at least studied. I considered buying a pack of cigarettes just so I could go outside. I went to the bathroom and looked at my zits. When I came back, I asked my friends if they would like to get a drink and come back for the second set. Their eyes lit up. It’s never a good sign if the bar in the basement is full during the headliner. But it wasn’t too crowded and we could talk and sit. The music by Queen that they were playing in the basement was better than what was going on upstairs.

The show made me feel old. Would a younger version of me have been interested in the first set? Or at least feigned interest? Or at least tolerated it?

When we went back up to check out the second set, they played “Periodically Double or Triple” and “Sugarcube” and instantly redeemed themselves and the night was briefly salvaged and for a moment I was ok with existing in 2011, but then they ended with a really long jam session which revived the bad taste in my mouth and the yearning for an era that probably never existed.

During the show I wondered whether I would be able to listen to Yo La Tengo again. This morning, I concluded that I can indeed still enjoy their music and I decided to think of this band like a friend. Sure, some of my friends do some weird shit that has no appeal to me, but since they are so fun to hang out with most of the time, I won’t write them off. Also, I’ve always liked the female vocalist, but I had no idea that while she’s singing she is also playing the drums. Just like Karen Carpenter without the eating disorder!