pink, fourth from left, with various haunted graffiti
The opening acts were mostly hot, but dull, mature-acting girls in their early twenties. Music that middle-aged lechers would describe as precociously sumptuous. Ariel came out and sang a song with them and I swear the whole band got like a hundred times better.
Pink and his band The Haunted Graffiti came out in cool sunglasses and really good moods. I said if they open with Butt House Blondies I’m ordering shots. Not sure what they opened with, but it wasn’t that, whatever it was, was totally cool though. My friend Matt turned to me and said this sucks and I was like I know man, isn’t it great! They were confident and irresistible and I was at a loss deciphering clear messages from my friends. When I went up to the bathroom I heard Bright Lit Blue Skies and I couldn’t finish what I was doing fast enough, nearly performing an ill-advised jig midstream it was so danceable.
Back downstairs a mosh pit ensued and my buddy Tim was right in the middle of it. Tempers suddenly flared and some meat head with his baseball cap reversed wanted to take on the whole floor. Where was the security? Tim obliviously continued pin-balling people elsewhere. Good energy inside that place. Tim took breaks to lean his head on my shoulder before the music propelled him forward once again. At one point he was supposed to catch this girl crowd surfing or rather he didn’t have any choice it was up to him and him only and he had as much chance of catching her as these five fire marshals did catching a black bear falling out of a tree on this TV show I watched the other day. Lucky for them they had a trampoline to brace the bear’s fall. Tim wasn’t so fortunate and she fell right on her head. We all heard the sound over the band’s swank disco din. We gasped when suddenly she sprang back up boogying!
Less the off-putting rugrat who weaselled through Melbourne in 2006, this Pink acted casually nonchalant with his considerable starpower. He surfed the crowd and I thought of Cobain. Ariel came out for an encore smoking a cigarette that is totally against club policy. It was a night for breaking rules with aplomb. He was also wearing sunglasses which is no is totally not au fait, but we loved him for it just the same.
The 70s eurotrash synthesiser on L’estat (Acc. To The Widow’s Maid) is one example of something that gets me up in the morning and keeps me going at night. The band seemed to nail every tricky change and weirdness challenge that came their way. I couldn’t find the Portland setlist, but this is roughly what he played in Seattle the next night: Menopause Man, Poultry Head, Getting High in the Morning, Strange Fire, Bright Lit Blue Skies, Round and Round, For Kate I Wait, Among Dreams, Flying Circles, Fright Night, in addition to the others I already mentioned. He may have also played Thespian City, Artifact, Hot Pink/Somewhere in Europe! and Hardcore Pops are Fun.
Round and Round was the undisputed highlight – actually raised their performance to an incredible level. “I’m calling, calling back to the boat and we’ll dazzle them at the mall,” I sang, even though the lyrics I were singing were the wrong ones. The lyrics are, in fact: Hold on I’m calling, call me back/ To the ball and we’ll dazzle them all.
