NYC DAY 1: No sleep til Brooklyn!

BP's Kele


BP's Russell, the next Johnny Greenwood

Day 1 of our "summer of rock" is over... Joe is living his out in Chi-town, we've come to NYC for 3 solid days of good music and hot weather.

To start our day, we shopped the city in a jet-lagged haze, picking up some awesome England gear on clearance now that World Cup is over. Score! We met Scott back in Brooklyn before heading out on the road to the Garden State, New Jersey, in our little rental car. Shawn successfully drove right through Chinatown and Soho to get us out of Manhattan. Truly amazing. And, honestly, traffic in NYC doesn't seem like much now that we live in Seattle.

Our first gig of the weekend was in Asbury Park. We blasted the Garden State soundtrack along the way, paying homage to our favorite TV doctor and NJ native, Zach Braff. After about 2 hours (mostly traffic), we arrived in Asbury Park. What a surreal place! It seems to be a shell of the seaside resort it once was. There was an amazing old hotel and seaside pavilion just sitting there in tatters, reminding me of Brighton, England, but in ghost-town form. Very odd.

The club was right along the Atlantic Ocean. We were pretty late (or so we thought) so we didn't get a chance to dip our toes. Sigh. The show was outdoors, though, so we enjoyed the sounds of Mew and Bloc Party while a cool, salty breeze kept us cool. That was pretty sweet. Mew was incredible--a delicious mix of Autolux, My Bloody Valentine, Sigur Ros, and Mogwai. All good stuff. BP were on it despite some technical problems. We were right up front again and my pics (see above) are much more rewarding this time. Unfortunately, the show was cut one song short as an electrical storm rolled in just at the start of BP's encore. Oh, well. I was pretty satisfied anyhow... ;)

Up for today: Visiting Shawn's "New York office", Greenwich Village, Soho, and so on.
Tonight: Editors at Irving Plaza. Awesome!