(Cross-posted at Death-Media)

I have been incognito for a while now, but I'm happy to report that The ACTUAL Rich and I were able to attend one of the musical highlights of the season last night. I could dive right into the concert, but the whole night deserves cataloging.

On the corner of Bedford and North 7th in Williamsburg I waited for a full five minutes for Rich to appear; I knew he would be late because I had caught an unprecedented sequence of transfers in journeying from my SpaHa Palacio. Entering the subway the 6 met me and and at 86th street the 4 was waiting--a minute on the platform at 14th street brought the L into my view, and there I was, at Bedford Avenue waiting under scaffolding, shielding myself from the droplets that had previously stained my iPhone's face and rendered texting temporarily impossible.

Gott sei dank, Rich appeared: 'There are several good options, Mexican, Mexican, Burger...' 'Burger.' And so it was.

After dinner we headed a bit north of Williamsburg to a spot preselected by our resident gormand, The Black Rabbit, notable for its variety of absinthe cocktails... Rich and I each had an absinthe/sugar/water cocktail in the true Hemingway style... The bar tender really did right, also, it was an absolutely wonderful drinking experience...

Having downed our magnificent Van Goghian cocktails, we wisely headed south again, back towards North 6th Street and our inevitable collision with destiny!

The show was unbelievable. The crowd was moving and, unlike any Williamsburg crowd in memory, all were instantly gyrating as if to subliminal tones, to triggers--and what was most special is that the band, during moments of pause or hypostasis (ie when a pause called for the lights to Vogue-like freeze-frame) were so beyond game, so full of love for the crowd that they mugged insatiably and gorgeously... There were moments when I thought I could detect the insatiable flare of The Revolution in Thomas Mars's loving mutuality with the crowd, but this is probably another of my base projections... After all, this latter-day Lafayette, in Obamerica, surely has no place...

That aside, the second encore track, single '1901' drove the crowd to a Segovia bull-fight level of madness! When Mars leaped into the crowd the full body of the audience accordingly surged forward, each 'hey hey hey hey" sequence thereby successfully embodied...

Best show of 2009 so far (slightly displacing "Little Winngs" Todd P show...)...

Dig the revolution in this Letterman video: