Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Nadja At The Middle East Upstairs (aka I'm Famous)

Nadja playing SXSW '08 shot by fuzuoko.


In case you don't remember, I was a little excited about seeing Nadja on Friday, to say the least. It turns out, my excitement made me famous.

So I head to the merch table when I get inside and Leah Buckareff (one half of Nadja) is manning (womaning?) the station. I talk to her a little bit, tell her I'm excited to see them play, that sorta thing, and I buy some stuff. I see that Aidan Baker (the other half) is sitting off to the side in a chair, fixing his guitar. I go up to him, say hello, and he says, "Anti-Gravity Bunny, right?" I'm completely floored. How the hell does Aidan fucking Baker know who I am? I stutter a bit, and say, "Umm...yeah. How..." And he said, "I read that post you wrote." I said, "What post?" "The one about the show tonight." (he was referring to this one) I laughed and said, "Oh yeah, that one." He told me a friend of his found it and forwarded it to him. He thought it was funny. Aidan Baker thinks I'm funny.

If the light in the club had been any brighter, he would have seen that my face was bright red. I have never felt so cool in my life, or so simultaneously uncool. Clearly, he read the post where I geeked out about seeing him. And I could barely contain myself while talking to him. BUT, he, Aidan Baker, knew who I was. That makes me like, half-rockstar or something. Right?

He was selling a book he wrote, called Fingerspelling, which is fantastic, and I had him sign it at the end of the night. Another bit of uncool. Whatevs. The only thing I could refrain from doing was taking pictures, either of them or with them. Eventually, he and Leah went on stage, played together, and blew my mind. It was easily one of the best shows ever. They were utterly fantastic. And I don't think I've ever been so giddy in my entire life.

Oh yeah, Pontiak was cool and I left before Grails came on. I didn't want anything to ruin the beauty that I had just experienced. That, and I had to get up really early for work that morning. And Aidan, if you're reading this, I'm really not this big of a nerd. Usually. So if you ever wanna like, hang out or something, meet my bunnies (they're pretty big fans, too), whatever, just let me know. I'll try to play it cool next time.

1 comment:

Christine said...

That IS pretty awesome. By having him sign the book, you were able to get his autograph without being too nerdy. That's cool. Did you mention Wallingford to him and how they would end up playing in some dive there?