Alyssa's Cleavage Destroys Society

First of all, a very happy birthday to my lovely girlfriend Amanda! Yaay!

Hopefully this year will be better than last, when i dragged her out to a boxing ring in Janesville for a video shoot for Ed Wood Part 2, which she ended up not even needing to be at.

No, this year, we are heading to Chicago to see one of her favorite bands (hell, one of mine, too): Biffy Clyro.

This is our second time this year driving to Chicago to see them. Hell, they come all the way from Scotland; driving to Chicago is the least that we can do. Last year, we also saw them twice, over one weekend in March: once in Chicago, and once in Minneapolis.

Unfortunately, they didn't headline the shows last year. Had we known they would be doing headlining shows this year, i doubt we'd have made the trips last year at all. We were pretty thoroughly disappointed at their short 25 minute sets (7 songs in Minneapolis, only 6 in Chicago), almost as disappointed as we were with the Mall of America that we'd spent the day at (it sucks, unless you're into clothes for some reason). But we were still happy just to have seen Biffy; at the time, they didn't come to America very often. And for as short as their sets were, they were hella powerful. I'm bringing the word "hella" back.

So as we were hanging around the venue in Minneapolis (The Varsity Theatre; weird ass bathroom in that place), Alyssa started to notice an awful lot of people taking a gander at her boobs. This in itself is not unusual, but she reported to Amanda and i that it seemed like a disproportionately high number of people inspecting the goods. We wondered if Minneapolis had some kind of a tit shortage.

Biffy played, then some other band played, then the headliner came on: Manchester Orchestra. I'd never heard of them before. They seemed alright for a while, i was digging their sound. The crowd (and it was packed) was certainly into them. Even though i was halfway back from the stage, everyone around me was singing along and getting excited when their favorite songs were played and so on. There was a guy not far from me who kept updating a document in his Blackberry with the set list. I was cool with all that; i love cult bands. I love dedicated followings who genuinely enjoy everything a band does. I follow a number of cult bands myself. At the time, i thought i could see myself getting into Manchester Orchestra. At the time.

Midway through their set, the band took a break and frontman played a couple of acoustic songs. The first one, i was really enjoying...it had a great guitar riff driving it. Then he got to the chorus and all the pieces to the puzzle assembled like Voltron on a crucifix.

"Rejoice...in the name...of the Lord...!"

Wait what?

Suddenly i felt a little uncomfortable. If i hadn't been taping we might have just left then, but i'm pretty adamant about finishing a show once i've started. And they were alright otherwise. I enjoyed their music, but as the show wore on i started paying more attention to the lyrics and the...shall we say, strong Christian overtones. I'd looked them up before the show, i'd found no indication of this, nothing to indicate that they were a Christian band.

Let me make something clear here: i'm not knocking Christianity, per se, nor Christian music. There is an amount of Christian music i enjoy. A small amount, but it is there. But i also like rap music, and on the same token, i'm not going to go to a rap show. I would be awkward and uncomfortable mingling with the genre's largest demographic (namely, thugs). Similarly, i'm awkward and uncomfortable stuck in a large group of Christians who are out doing Christian things. It's just not for me.

After the show, Alyssa and Amanda came up to me (we don't typically stand together at shows, since i have to get farther back to record) and voiced their displeasure at how things had turned out.

"When i heard the words 'rejoice in the name of the Lord' i said to myself, 'THAT'S why everyone's staring at my cleavage!'" Alyssa said, slapping her hand over her pentacle necklace.

-Epilogue-
Now that i've had that thought, i'm going to need to go photoshop Voltron onto a crucifix.