10:35 On A Lonely Friday Night

Saw a sold-out Rhett Miller solo show Friday night at the Black Cat.

1.    By far, this was the tallest audience I’ve ever seen at a show, barring the Pogues, which just attracts scary troglodytes. Was it the Texas thing? You know, because everything is supposed to be bigger or whatnot?

2.    Rhett rolled out some new material from the upcoming Old 97’s album (to be released in May). Despite my “tin ear,” it sounds promising.

3.    Every time Rhett comes here and plays Victoria, he says it’s about a DC girl he once dated. On behalf of the women of DC, I’d like to apologize.

4.    Love doesn’t make good copy. It makes for some awfully tepid music (witness the New Pornographer’s Challengers, wherein AC Newman fell in love with his pen pal girlfriend, wrote songs about it and produced the band’s most lackluster album.) Rhett played “Question,” a song I love (to mock) about proposing. Many of the ladies in the audience mouth the words to this song and sway. Their boyfriends look vaguely uncomfortable. I’m willing to bet that this song has sparked more fights than it has inspired marriage proposals.

5.    Loneliness makes good copy. The things unreconciled, ill-timed and just out of reach interest me most. The sting of disappointment is where it’s at. We wanted the old songs about feeling jagged. About drinking your lover’s gin, going through their diary, calling all their friends and wishing them the worst. Fortunately, he played “Doreen.” And “Come Around,” a song I love for its simple, desperate refrain: “Am I going to be lonely for the rest of my life?”

6.    A stranger in line with me for the restroom, upon hearing my conversation, chimed in like a Greek chorus, held up her ring finger and asked, “does it get any easier?” Here’s my answer: No. And yes, you are gonna be lonely for the rest of your life.

7.    Rhett announced at the end of the show that he’d be hanging out at the T-shirt booth and would take pictures and sign autographs for anyone who wanted one. For a moment, we contemplated it. A few more drinks might have done the trick. But then the oh-fuck-it-we’re-all-30-odd-something moment set in. We’re too old for that shit. And I don’t want to meet people whose music I respect. We appropriately shuffled out.