in which i accept that i am too old to go out and see live music

This is the band I saw last night: Vagabond Opera. It sounded SOOOOOO promising. Ukrainian folk songs? Old Worlde Yiddish theatre music? Klezmer? Neo-classical opera? Cabaret? That guy with the accordian??? How could they go wrong?

Turned out, they had all the right ingredients, but the combo lacked pizazz. The opener, Pepe and the Bottleblondes, by far beat out the Opera in energy and enthusiasm. They played a latin jazz set, headed by Pepe who looked almost cross-eyed behind his thick, hipguy glasses. He had a great voice and was a real showman. It was fun.

Maybe I used up all my energy on Pepe, because, by the time Vagabond Opera finally took the stage, I was wilting. I was literally falling asleep in my chair, despite the music blasting and the crowd dancing in front of me. So, it could be the haze through which I was seeing their performance that made them all look wooden and mildly uninterested in the wild show they were acting out.

The talent was certainly there: the accordian player is a trained opera singer and I think the chick is too -- she also plays a mean alto sax when she's not busy belting out the operatic vocals. They were ALL really good, but still... something was missing. I liked it less than I would have liked the sum of all it's parts, if that makes any sense. And I left early because I was so, so sleepy. Oh well. Why don't shows start at 8 instead of 10??? I'll never understand.