Screaming With Accompaniment

Idk when it was...sometime in late April. I marked it on my calendar, but it's a new month now, so the exact date is lost to me. I'd look it up, but...Hah, I'm far too lackadaisical. Besides, you don't care as much, if not, more than I don't. As I said, late April. I was in Nashville, Tenn. There was the big looming AT&T building, looking like someone tried to make a Skyscraper into a Batman sculpture. What a ****ing skyline. Anyway, I digress. It was early days for The Concert. So I was here to shop...to sight-see and to eat. I ran around the Opry Mills for a few miles. Flipped off a chubby mall cop on the other side of the food court and dashed back into the crowd.

Bought a ****ing Gigi's Cupcake. Cola-Chocolate flavored. Damn Good. Icing-to-Cake ratio was skewed all to hell. I sat there enjoying the very authentic taste of Cola-meets-Chocolate-meets-Powdered-Sugar when this les enfant terribles, who looked about six years old, decided he must have a goddamn cupcake now. He pounded on the glass display case of frosted cakes like he was a pissed-off Bruce Banner. The door wobbled. The Mom, horrified reached out to stop him, but not before the door cracked. I felt embarrassed for the mom. What a monster of a child. Then I remembered the Mom must be a horrible mother. Terrible Mother. I thought this as I saw the fat Mall cop wading through the crowd towards me.

It was then that I remembered I wanted to go to the Frist.(Excuse me, that's the "Frist Center for the Visual Arts") I got the **** out of there before Paul Blart could swim upstream to me(The Redneck Bass Pro Shop crowd eliminated any chance he had of revenge, bless them). I parked in Employee parking at the Frist and did not get away with it. So I paid a fiver for the privileged of parking. Outside the Frist("Center for the Visual" ****ing "Arts"), was a white tower made to look like it was made of car parts and spare tires and garbage. It did have real working car Headlights and blinkers. The tower, due to the Artists divine inspiration, belted out a loud, repeating Whale song. ****ing Passive-Agressive Hippies. Say what you want about the feckless douches behind Whale Wars...at least they inspired a South Park episode.

Anyway. I'm getting off-track. I went in. Paid my ticket price. Saw the Dutch Masters, including, Rembrandt Van Rijn. The Rembrandts, I'm sorry to say, were mostly boring portraits. Though it is nice to say you've studied one up-close, I was really there for Ruisdael. They had THE actual "Jewish Cemetery". His work is gorgeous sprawling landscapes...with watermills and castles and forgotten dilapidated Cathedrals. They all looked like locations you could find on your jobs in Final Fantasy Tactics. Though I'm told he collaborated when it came to the actual people in some of his paintings.

Anyway. I'm getting back on track. It was time for The Concert. Mercy Lounge. Oh yeah, and it had to be down through the inner-city "We don't give a ****, we're poverty-level people, we'll walk right out in the middle of a goddamn highway" road. Past THAT, in and around Broadway, was Mercy Lounge. Mercy Lounge was once a famous Nashville Cannery(Providence-Only-Knows what they actually canned there). Now it was a venue. Or I should say...The Venue. For it was tonight that The Concert with THE PROTOMEN ...began.

I got there at six. They didn't let us in til eight. There were going on five-hundred people waiting in line, most to be disappointed to discover that the Mercy Lounge oversold their capacity(of only a couple hundred). As I waited: A lesbian couple made-out and fondled themselves in front of me in line(it wasn't that hot). Jokes were told behind me. Rumors of the Protomen were whispered all around me(About how they kidnapped their first reporter who dared to interview them. About how no one actually knows their real names. About their love of "Ernest" movies. Or about how their tour bus had been attacked by a Graboid from the movie Tremors).

At about Seven...zombies started showing up. Promoclypse. It was being held on another floor of Mercy Lounge. At around Seven-Thirty a woman in a Bridal Gown, holding a Dos Equus XXX, showed up with a bunch of people in formal wear(they were seemingly ambivalent about the zombies). There was a reception on yet another floor of the Lounge. I never did hear how they turned out, but after the concert, I didn't hear much for a couple of days, anyway.

At eight we were let in, carded and given a PROTOMEN birthday hat, which came in either red or blue. Mine was red and I have it now beside me as I write this.

Inside were red and black balloons. A veritable giftshop of PROTOMEN gear. A saloon-style bar(which served a special Megaman-themed drink called the "Due Vendetta Bomb"). And a stage full of equipment. I stayed up front near the stage till showtime.

Hanzelle opened. They were a cute "Blondie-sounding" act with an attractive talented singer. Their equipment took some setup so she gave us a couple of cheeky jokes, sipped her big can of PBR and chatted with the fans. They loved it. They started, dropped a few wubs and even more bass. It was a great opening act. But... Makeup and Vanity were next.

Before they came out, Murphy from the Protomen showed up on stage with Raul Panther and Commander. They strung up a Pinata likeness of one of their former bandmembers and invited a few drunken crowd members up to take a swing. The winner was a nice Drunk Self-Proclaimed "Mexican" from Minnesota(Who, earlier,having observed the singer of Hanzelle drinking from a PBR can, told me where he was from and that even people from Minnesota didn't "drink that shit") He busted it open, to great applause, and scattered out a fake spine, crap candy, a few toy soldiers, clown noses and an apparently open condom.

Makeup and Vanity arrived. Applause. They had a drummer which was new. But the two engineers had balaclavas on. Old 80s computer animated sequences were shown on a screen in the back as they performed. It was very Tron...very Daft Punk.

Then...The PROTOMEN came on... Here's the Protomen doing Wily's villain song:


Goodnight Darklings,

-Sin