youtube for brains

umm... 'youtube' sounds like an insult to me right now. Like 'You idiot! You tube!'. Confused? Let me explain. I'm old. Not super old mind you. Just sort of old. I had no idea what coachella was until a couple months ago. I saw the website and the lineup of bands and thought - hey, that's pretty awesome! Why the hell does it have to be so damn far away? So now, in an odd role-reversal here at chez-greenthoughts, where we like to enjoy groovy tunez from time to time, I am the hip one and my spouse, Mrs. Greenthoughts to you, is ready to smack me because I should have told her about this concert - she would have insisted that we go - meaning we would have bought plane tickets and possibly camping gear too. I had her watch Sigur Ros (sorry, that's probably spelled wrong and lacking in a few accent marks) on youtube and I quickly realized that I made a mistake. She starts watching and then she seems far away. She's imagining the music, the crowd, the palm trees against the sunset. That's right - she's quite pissed at me for not telling her. I don't want to be melodramatic (yes I do - it's fun to have something to post about) but this may be MY LAST POST! eh, jut kidding, she's not the vengeful type. But I have a feeling we're not going to go gently into that lame stay-at-home adulthood (he says as he types away on his half-assed blog at home in his cotton 'ritz-carlton' slippers). I have a feeling we may be at the next Coachella - even if I've never flown cross-country just for a concert and even if I have to go with my kid strapped to my chest.*

Anyway, here is a link to a pretty good Bloc Party video from Cochella. 'Pretty good' as it's still a homemade video but you can see the band and the sound is not completely scraggly -

link.

[Oh shit. I actually just got scolded. I shit you not. "In the future, if you ever see something like that - you need to tell me." Awesome. I am an ass. Excuse me while I change the name of this blog to 'My Dog Hates Me And My Wife Is Not A Huge Fan Either'. Just kidding hon'.]

*I don't have a kid (yet).

[Edit - fixed the link]

PS: Coachella has a wiki page and it started in 1999 so when I say there's been a role-reversal and I am the hip one now you understand that this measurement of hipness is a relative one. By all other standards I should feel ashamed of my ignorance, of the life I have been living under a rock. But now that I've come clean (anonymously on my blog) feel free to tip me off to any east coast equivalent to Coachella in the comments if you like. Carry on.

Update 5/3/2006 12:51 AM: Oh great. I've never heard of music festival being compared to a tradeshow - sounds wonderful:

Coachella crowds are leisure mavens used to exercising choice, and they favor small designers, like Junker and NaCo, rather than Nike logos or keepsakes from old rock concerts. But exercising prudent choice is not the same thing as declaring love. Coachella is not a rock festival for communal bliss: it can feel almost like a trade show, filled with informed and fairly dispassionate consumers sampling a band, checking it off a list, moving on.

Often this was a peculiarly tepid response to brilliant shows. Several bands, including the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Duke Spirit, Animal Collective, Cat Power and Deerhoof, gave it everything they had, each staging remarkable, potentially career-changing performances. The sense of informed caution was everywhere but onstage.

Discouraging. Who stole all our hipsters from Williamsburg and shipped them to LA?