I think Moby would be a generous lover...

... given his on-stage persona.
Let me back it up a bit: I went to see Moby tonight with Big D. I was astounded to see he was playing the Commodore and I thought when in the hell am I going to see such a great act in such a small venue?
Side note: I've been up for 19 hours straight at this point, so I'll fix all the spelling and grammatical errors tomorrow. Or not.
So Big D and I catch up over dinner and we head over. Yeah. We get in the "special" line because his brother works there and he set aside some tickets for us. Sold out show. Yay.
Kelli Scar opened for him at 9.30 and it was rather low key and down tempo but this girl can sing. I mean, flat out, kd lang powerful with minimal accompaniments singing.
Then Moby comes on. Hey. I've been to like six or seven concerts in my life, the last one being Paolo Nutini.
What can I say about Moby? It was a grade A tight concert. He was all over the place with his genres and he let Kelli Scarr and Joy Malcolm showcase their amazing talents for large segments of the show.
The bass shook the pant legs of my jeans. The lighting, the sound were phenomenal. It was quasi-transcendental. I wormed my way through the throngs of uncoordinated and mostly unmoving Vancouverites to garner a brief glimpse of the small, bald man himself and was somewhat saddened to see that he looked a little bit older than the last time I saw a visage of him, which happens to be from his 2005 Hotel album.
He delivered a succinct, varied, pounding, rocking. bluesy, trippy, 2+ hours of music interspersed with accolades for Canada and a brief plea to allow the "blue" states to join our country. He was irreverent and at ease and had a great dialogue with the audience (thank you thank you thank you) and introduced the upcoming songs with a wry honesty that made me grin. Kelli is going to sing this and Inyang is going to do this and I'm going to just be over here in the corner.
Did he deliver more? Can a pop/funk/techno/blues dj eke more out of an audience than what was extracted tonight? Are Vancouverites just that lame and apathetic? I spent the vast majority of the concert tapping my foot surreptitiously under the table with my arms crossed. Lame on my part? Yes. I should have smoked a little before going in.
It begs the question that I always ponder when I see live acts: how many times do they have to do this in a week, and how do they keep from killing themselves?
I read an article on Paolo Nutini a while ago when I was trying to discern how much of his unintelligible lyrics were the result of imbibing a little too much and how much was due to his Scottish brogue and someone wrote that after singing his much hyped "New Shoes" song he drunkenly mumbled "No. More. Shoes."
Hey. I get it. I processed 116 member claims over the past few days. After this nth glass of wine I will probably mutter "No. More. Claims." But it pays the bills and I try and show up sober and with a (wry) grin on my face day in and day out.
Speaking of wine: I had wine from a can today. Big D just about fell off his chair when this all went down. See, I had had a beer and, well, I just don't really like beer all that much so I thought I would order a glass of wine. Well, fuck me if the waitress doesn't put her tray down and lean in as though she's about to divulge some state secret regarding the vino that this joint serves. It comes in a can, she tells me. I take several seconds to process this. Pop comes in a can. Juice can, sometimes, come in a can. Beer is canned. Wine? No. I just got used to screw caps. Wine does not come in a can. She tells me that it's not bad. It's from Australia. Apparently, so few people order wine at the Commodore, that it's not worth it for them to open a bottle of wine, so they serve it in cans. I look sceptical. She tells me to try it and if I don't like it I can send it back.
It comes to me and it is called Billy Goat Hill. I mean, when dreaming up excellent wine names, nothing screams nose and terroir like barnyard animals. I think Big D has ruptured something by this time. But I'm a trooper. I will try the wine that has been delivered to me in this aluminum vessel. And it is a Merlot. And it is quaffable as the waitress said it would be.
Surprised? Yes. Like when I was heading towards the ladies' washroom and I crashed into this woman and we both held on to each other and apologized profusely for a while but didn't let each other go as the seconds ticked by. What was that about?
But back to Moby and why I think he would be a generous lover. He is incredibly talented. He showcases the immensely talented women that he tours with and puts them on the forefront: he is selfless. His last song went for 18 minutes. He went for over two hours. He is versatile. He is thankful. He asked, at least twice, if everyone was having a good time.
Yes. Yes. I had a very, very good time.
I had such a good time that, when he said he was going across the street to a do DJ show I briefly thought I don't have to work tomorrow, so I should just go because this is awesome.
But I didn't. I came home and wrote this instead.



p.s. Kelli Scarr sang Neil Young's "Helpless" and it was a thing of beauty
p.p.s. thank you to Big D and his brother for setting the whole thing up. It was a phenomenal experience!