February 28th, 2005. Monday
Quick thoughts on two things that are ending today: The Gates up in Central Park, and Luna, the band.
First- The Gates. I went up there, and they were exactly as I suspected they'd be. A curiosity, interesting for a little while, and ultimately underwhelming. My reaction was pretty much "Huh. That's cool," and a shrug of the shoulders. My brothers and respective female companions walked from 59th st. allllll the way to 65th st, and by the time we got to Tavern on the Green, we were pretty much all Gates-out. Random friends and acquaintances have given me varying reviews on them. Some have been of the "eh..." variety, others have been of the "It's an amazing experience" type. For the former, it's been mostly close friends who share a similar temperament. For the latter, I can only assume the "amazing experience" portion involved drugs. And not just any drugs. Definitely something hallucinogenic. My personal feeling about the Gates is that it's some for of meta-art. We're not meant to appreciate the Gates themselves. I mean, they're just giant orange (sorry, saffron) bits of nylon fabric hanging in the wind. Visually interesting, but by no means what I'd call stunning. Rather, I think that the purpose of the Gates is to make us appreciate Central Park more, once these monstrosities are gone. After seeing all the clutter, from the actual Gates themselves as well as the enormous crowds they generated, visitors to the post-Gates Central Park might very well think "Hey, you know, this is a really nice park when there's not a bunch of shit cluttering up the place." There will be renewed interest and excitement in the Gates-free park. People are free to run around, jog, rollerblade, mug, whatever they did before the Gates showed up. So thank you, Christo and Jean-Claude! You almost fooled everyone into thinking the Gates themselves were supposed to be real art. I promise to visit Central Park much more now, now that there's less reason to do so.Second: Luna. I caught what was supposed to be their final show ever last night. I was totally on the ball and bought tickets for what was originally announced as their last show. However, due to overwhelming demand after the two dates at the Bowery Ballroom sold out, they added three more shows, one the day after the previously listed last show ever. Bollocks I say. So Jed, Matt, Geoff, Caryn, and I went to the penultimateLuna show last night at the Bowery. General consensus was that ranged from "OK" to "pretty good." Caryn, the live-music afficionado, feels like Luna's been phoning it in for the last couple of years, and I'd probably have to agree, with the exception of guitarist Sean Eden. He may be the lowest-key crazy person i've ever seen. He does this terrible facial expressions on stage. I think he started doing them at first just to be funny, but now he can't stop. Caryn told me he'd gotten beat up in Ft. Greene a few months back. Maybe this furthered his descent into madness. Anyway, the best part about the final shows of a band is that they play a lot of old songs and songs they'd rarely played before, and not a lot of new stuff. I mean, if the new stuff matched up with the old hits, they probably wouldn't be breaking up in the first place. Thought I will say that the two songs from the new record that they did play were two of the better ones, with "Speedbumps" being the best on the album, in my opinion. Curiously, they played about half the songs from "The Days of Our Nights," which is generally acknowledged as their worst album ever. I think they were just taking advantage of the fact that their cello player lives in New York, and that album is somewhat cello-heavy. Still, at least they picked the good songs from the album.
I'm somewhat disappointed that they're breaking up though. I've seen them more than any other band, in more venues and states. Off the top of my head, I've seen them in Virginia, North Carolina, New York, New Jersey, Washington, DC, and Massachusetts. Even if you take out the four or five New York shows, i'd probably seen them 8 times. They were never my favorite band in the world, but for a long while they were in the top three. I liked them enough to have driven all over to see them. This was back in college when James and I were starving for good music. Actually, now that I go back and try to count them all, I honestly can't believe how many times i've seen this band. Probably close to 15 shows. Of course, a good number of them were free.
Anyway, all this is just another reminder that i'm getting older, or that all good things must end, or that nothing lasts forever, or even, maybe that "nothing gold can stay." I'd always assumed they would be a band forever, releasing a so-so album every few years, and I'd continue to go to their shows and finding fewer and fewer songs that I actually enjoyed. So i guess it's good that they went out when they did. Yet another example of how, left to my own devices, I'll probably let any deteriorating situation go on and on, out of some perverse sense of sentimentality. But don't we all.
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