It is rare that a Friday night sees me doing something other than hanging out with cats, roommate, and a movie, so I was rather surprised to find myself double-booked this past Friday. Rather than pick one event or the other, I went to both, and I’m glad I did.
The first was my work holiday party, held at a fancy hotel in Dupont Circle. Prior to the party, some work friends and I had a Formal Chipotle Dinner, which was amusing, and once we got to the hotel it was great to meet people’s S.O.s. To say that I am not really a party person would be a vast understatement, but I was actually sorry that I had to leave after a little more than an hour, walking a mile and a half across town in my fancy holiday party clothes (and, more importantly, my fancy holiday party shoes) to the 9:30 Club, where I had a date with my sister to see Scythian. Others had expressed interest (and even bought tickets!) but they all bailed on us at the last minute, so it was just the two of us. We stood up on the U-shaped balcony level, against the railing, directly across from the stage but towards the back of the room. We had an excellent, unobstructed view of just about everything. It was the first time I’d stood up there in a long time, possibly the first time ever (I usually try to be way up front at the rail, but we were too far back in line for that). It turned out to be a great call, because after the first act (the Second String Band, good, fun old-time-y music) there was a second act while they changed around the stage set-up. The second act was a marching band. It started out at one end of the balcony level, marched over to the stairs, where they stood and played for a while before marching downstairs, still playing, and circling the ground-floor level. It was certainly the most interesting set transition I’ve seen.
Then Scythian came out, and they were as great as they were the first time we saw them. They’re a fantastic live band, full of boundless energy, effortlessly interacting with the crowd. It certainly helped that they’re from DC and that the audience was full of die-hard fans, but they could win over even an unimpressed crowd and, within a few songs, have them waving their arms in the air and doing what passes for a polka. It was a really fun show, full of liveliness and ugly Christmas sweaters. When we left the club at 1.30 in the morning, my sister dashed ahead of me and then back again, still so buzzed from the show that she seemed almost puppyish in her enthusiasm. Which was just as well, since Metro was its usual unreliable late-night self. I got home at 2.30, she even later. She said that on her drive back up to Baltimore the next morning she kept herself awake by reliving the show, reawakening the invigoration of the night before.
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