Last night, I attended one of the most exciting concerts ever.
When their van rolled up, I was anxious to unload the guitars, amps, and drums from the back doors, but what I was dying to see was the five members themselves.
Who am I speaking of? A pack of rolled up skinny-jeaned, New Yorkers that call themselves,
The Virgins, although from the extremely indie looks of them, I doubt the truth of that.
Actually, when their van rolled up, I had no idea they could possibly be packed inside amoungst all of their instruments. I grabbed two guitars only to hear a "thanks," from the pouty lips of a man I instantly recognized as the lead vocalist, Donald Cumming, as the band got out of the van one-by-one. They walked by checking out their surroundings, hopefully they weren't looking a my facial expressions as I completely checked them out.
Also arriving around the same time was one of the opening acts,
Anya Marina, who rolled down her window making certain she arrived at the right place. So she pulled over, and I took her acoustic in its case along with a personal bag. She was incredibly sweet, wearing a risque tight red and black dress, and some basic black boots. Her voice was sort of a high airy, yet somehow smokey.
The second opener was
Lissy Trullie her red hair in a short bob underneath a black hat, and wearing a short black skirt that could barely be seen under her long, red, flannel shirt, tights that resembled fish nets, and some black boots.
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The lights went down, and my heart rate went up - straight up.
Anya walked up to the stage and played using her iPod as her backup band (drums and everything), something I'd never seen before. Although I had listened to her on MySpace, and loved her catchy, feel-good songs, I was a little leery during her sound check that she might be a joke live, but I found out I was wrong.
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Anya was an absolute charmer. She started by mentioning how lonely it got on the road, and made the audience "come closer" to her. The crowd did exactly what she said, and later on, we became her "backup vocalists" also.
She cracked jokes saying "I think I'm going lesbian for my GPS, and yesterday she actually responded to me - Exit 39B."
She also mentioned how she was finally becoming acclimated to the weather, saying she was actually sweating in the 50 degree weather.
Her performance was great fun, and after she finished performing, I went straight to the merch table to get my poster signed. She recognized me from earlier at the bar and wrote
Thanks for being my roadie, XO Anya.
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Lissy Trullie was next to hit the stage, mentioning that she and her friends were from California. Her friends being Eben the guitarist wearing overalls and a hat on his seemingly bald head, Ian, apparently a new bassist, wearing a striped boating shirt and black-rimmed glasses, and Josh, the sexiest of them all, drummer.
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They joked with us about how much of a quiet, polite audience we were, making us feel like the virgins. I had never heard from Lissy before but I really enjoyed her songs, especially "Forget About It" and "Boy Boy."
Then,
they came down the stairway (to heaven), each one gorgeous in their own way, and I could have died right there.
They started with Private Affair, which stated, "She's always avoiding falling in love, yes, it's due to a life of a private affair." It's sort of sweet, because in the past I could relate to feeling like this.
From then, they rolled through songs, effortlessly and kept on taking my breath away with their movements, instrumentals, and of course Donald's vocals.
The show went so quickly, and so did Donald's clothes, well at least his shirts. A few songs in his sweatshirt came off, and five or so later, another layer, which left us with his sexy self in a grey beater.
The band performed pretty much all of their album "The Virgins". Some of my favorites included
Murder (the wah pedal was crazy fun), and
Fernando Pando. Then the teases left the stage, and it wasn't just me pleading for them to come back. When they did, they played a favorite of mine "Devil Inside" which of course is originally by INXS, and they nailed it!
They ended the night (or should I say morning) with the beautiful
Love is Colder than Death and the lyrics made for a truly perfect closer.
"it's easy when it hurts so say goodbye
we'll fall in love again just give it time."
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After the f-, I'm going to say it, fucking incredible performance, of which I wanted no end, they ran back up the stairs, and the lights came on.
Myself and several others waited at the bottom of the stair for them to come back.
Finally they did, and I went straight for the signature of the man I couldn't take my eyes (or camera lens) off of the entire night. The incredibly sexy guitarist, Wade Oates.
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Yeah, you're totally agreeing with me right now, aren't you? Coincidentally, he was the one whose guitar I carried in first, noticing it was labled with a NY address and phone number (of which I quickly snapped a photo of on my camera phone, before anyone could see).
As he was signing in his pointy green pen, I gazed at his arm noticing a tattoo of a bald eagle, but below it there was another tattoo which I couldn't easily read, so I asked him what his tattoo was. Wade adorably responded with a jaw dropping smile, "it's a flying bald eagle."
I already knew that, sexy, but I'm too afraid to ask you the question again.I then met the drummer, Erik Ratensperger, who wore a tight tee with, the all-popular, rolled up skinny jean, with dress shoes. He mentioned how much he enjoyed playing at the venue.
Then, I met Nick Ackerman, the plaid-shirted bassist, wearing skinnys and big boots, and asked him just how long he'd been playing. "Not very long." Not very long? He was incredible! He said when he'd joined he settled for bass, as was needed for the band, even though he had been playing guitar for years. "I have a Paul McCartney sticker on my bass, because he happily settled for bass." he said.
Nick played closely alongside Paul Vassallo, who I would call the lead guitarist, although he is the newest member of the band.
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Lastly I went over to Donald Cumming, who took my hand and introduced himself, and I did in return. What a beauty he was, as you can clearly see. He manages to look different in every photo.
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I asked him if he chose to play "Devil Inside," and told him how much I loved it. He did choose to play it and was really excited that I liked it so much.
When I left, I couldn't remove the smile from my face, and yet I was so sad to see them go.