Aaah!!!! I’m in complete bliss! Tonight is probably one of the most musically amazing packed nights that NYC has ever seen on a non-CMJ evening in YEARS. God, it was just fucking incredible. I am so fucking happy to be alive.

I started the night by meeting up with my friends Brad, Geneva, and Nancy at 24 Prince for the restaurant’s two year anniversary. My new friends Nikki and Brad are co-owners of the restaurant and some of you might know Nikki as the pretty contestant on Top Chef this season. I went to 24 Prince a couple weeks ago with Brad Walsh and our friend Dan Suh after eating at FriendHouse. I promised I wouldn’t eat anything as we watched that evening’s Top Chef and managed to eat basically everything in sight. THANKFULLY, tonight they only had little hors d’ovrves like some sort of pizza and shots of cauliflower soup as well as free red and white wine and mai thais. I would’ve stayed there all night eating the yummy bites if I didn’t have to haul ass uptown to 15th and 8th to grab dinner at Vynl with Rob, Joanna and Jet from VampireFreaks.com.

I had some soup and an appetizer and hauled ass back downtown to the Bowery Ballroom to catch Chief. I wasn’t going to see them since going uptown then downtown then uptown and downtown seemed like it was going to wear on me after a while, but my friend Jay Belin from the Bowery Presents said I HAD to see them. That, on top of my friends Nicki and Meridith saying I HAD to see them, and I knew that I would probably regret missing them.

OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD.

Really, I would repeat those three words for about 3 days if I could to describe seeing them. All while watching them, with their exotic looks, was think of the classic line from Anchorman when Brian Fantana says “I think I was in love once. She was Brazilian, or Chinese, or something weird.”

Chief are one of the best new bands I’ve seen all year, if not THE best. With their flawless harmonies and effortless cool, and with Bowery Presents (the company that puts on all the cool shows in NYC) on their side, I have no doubt that Chief will actually break out this year and this blog will be amongst many you hear about them on. With harmonies reminiscent of Kings of Leon and moments that made me feel like I was watching Tom Petty, I was free falling into love with them.

God, they were basically perfect. Oh God, they were amazing.

I was really surprised by the crowd — who happened to stank of the stank. I think i got a contact high from some pretty delicious smelling weed that may have been getting lit up next to me by one of the many Mary-Kate Olsen looking girls I was surrounded by. Yes, these weren’t your average hipsters that wear layer upon layer of American Apparel. No, these were the rich hipsters with parents who own jets or whom own jets themselves (I heard the Olsens were actually on the guest list). How did these hipsters know about Chief before the other hipsters did? Is there some sort of secret social network where they talk about the Strokes and Dead Trees and Chief that I’m not part of? Do they do that while wearing Hermes scarves around their heads and listening to Devandra? If so, sign me up and find me a trust fund, I want to know about the next Chief when they do!

I was heartbroken that I had to leave their set early, but InnerPartySystem was about to hit the stage back uptown where I had just come from and I didn’t want to miss them. As I was running out, my friend Nicky Stein said I had to stay for one more song, the acapela song, that he said I would regret missing, promising it would come up in the next song. He was wrong. The next song, it turned out, was sung by the lead guitarist, the brother of the singer, who typically takes on harmonies. His voice was fucking stunning and, oh my God, so great. I suddenly remembered that I should record a video of his performance, but clicked record too late on my camera because I was standing around in the biggest state of bliss that i didnt want to interrupt. LOOK AT THIS PHOTO OF THEM!

And this video!:

I hopped into a cab with my friend Mark and booked it uptown to Highline Ballroom and managed to catch three InnerPartySystem songs. Phew! I would’ve been so unbelievably upset if I missed them. I can’t stress this enough — If you haven’t seen IPS before, you need to see them. Bring friends and get wasted or stoned or high before heading out to see them because that’s probably the best way to see them. You’ll feel like you’re back in 1997 at the hight of dance music and at the biggest and best club in the world. There was once this drugs special on VH1 that I caught where they had a shot of a rave during the height of Ecstasy and there were all these great lights and people dancing and loud amazing music and I sat there saying to my roommate Gurj, “Man, I would do anything to be there right now, wouldn’t you?” She agreed completely and if she was with me at any IPS show, she would be there with me, or back there with me, or however it’s worded.

This was the biggest stage I’ve seen IPS on, which at first felt somewhat weird, since the band wasn’t bouncing off of each other like they usually do at shows. But once I stepped back from the stage and watched the show from the middle of the audience I became convinced that they were at home on stage. Their lights were spread out and as tripped out at always, and unlike many of their other shows, Patrick the singer, actually had his face lit up so people could see what he looks like! Also, he was able to take the opportunity to stand up on stage as a frontman rather than someone in the middle of chaos.

Here is IPS performing “Don’t Stop”:

By the way, I’m writing this while watching American Idol. Michael John’s was pretty good! Not that it matters, but he’s kinda got hips, right? I can’t decide if he’s cheesy or just Australian. I think he actually likes music, which is really nice to see on this show. I really am bored by Sayesha, but did anyone notice that someone screamed really loud while Randy was talking to her? The audience seemed to laugh, and I can’t figure out what that was about. Really, the only reason I wanted to mention Idol at all is because I FUCKING LOVE JASON CASTRO. Every week I watch hoping that I fall out of his dippy hippy stoner trance, but he manages to drag me deeper and deeper in. His performance tonight of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” on a uke would’ve made any of the Oohlas happy. I’m guessing that Sayesha goes home this week, but that David Cook lands in the bottom three with her. Our Lady Peace is an OK band, but the song choice was terrible. Also, Carly needs to hire me as her stylist and fire her stylist ASAP. She is such a pretty girl and they keep on putting her in the worst outfits. She should not be wearing high wasted pants with that striped top. Her face is flawless, her performance was a little haphazard, so maybe her stylist wont be working next week anyway.

NOW… at the risk of this post going on and on, I will write about Duke Spirit’s INCREDIBLE performance. It was so amazing that it deserves it’s own post. It was flawless and I want to be Leila so badly, it’s not even funny. I was freaking out the whole show and can’t believe that I’m going to hold off on talking about them in a different post, but they deserve it.

Did anyone see the Pierces? I missed them and I fucking love them. Please post in the comments what you thought of their set. Thanks!

Tags: American Idol, Bowery Ballroom, chief, duke spirit, Highline Ballroom, innerpartysystem, nikki, nyc, top chef

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 at 6:37 am and is filed under American Idol, Bowery Ballroom, Highline Ballroom, Live Shows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.