and it happens too fast to make sense of it

i'm on the mailing list for the metro and the fireside, the two venues that meant the most to me back in the day, not because i'm generally willing or able to hop in a car and drive the ninety miles to chicago, but because it feels in some way like i'm keeping tabs on the past. the fireside stopped being an active venue back in 2004, although it now deigns to host shows by the likes of dave matthews tribute bands, the fact of which makes what there is of my heart weep.

whatever, it combined three of the midwest's finest things: bowling, live music, and really crappy beer, and it was a place that felt as familiar to me as that hole of an apartment that sean and i shared. the first time i saw death cab play was on that stage, the faint, too. it was a great supporter of the local music scene, one of the best places to view the up and comers in chicago's indie scene, home away from home for the trio, and i think pete and patrick and company took a turn or two on that stage before it shut its doors on the kids who were doing too much damage to the property, allegedly.

but to commence with the overt reminiscing, it was july of '95, summer in chicago which is only ever truly beautiful if you have the luxury of enjoying it from some penthouse suite on lakeshore. eighteen, and trying to figure out what i really wanted out of life, looking north and wondering if college was really going to do me any good. turns out it did, although not for the reasons the admissions office would have you believe, but that's neither here nor there.

july of '95, and the $wingin' utter$ were onstage, all the usual suspects in the crowd, messengers and skaters and rejects and everything in between and the air conditioning went out. it must have been 110 in there, easy, and no one stopped to care, just pushed up against one another and the music and the heat and turned it into something else, made it brighter and hotter and somehow all the more real. alive.

i remember, after, backs to the wall outside and dripping wet, the lot of us, passing cigarettes and a couple of bottles of beer we'd smuggled out, grinning at each other and at absolutely nothing in particular and thinking it could never possibly feel any better. sometimes i wonder.