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Let's make things bright and sparkling clear: I am a nerd.

Sunday night I was in nerd heaven.

A little background. For most of my junior high and high school enrollment years, the orchestra teacher was Stephen Lawlor. Good ol' Steve was fond of "concept concerts". You didn't just have to play classical music during these concerts. One such concert opened up with the concert master (me, oddly enough) walking out to the stage to John Williams' "Imperial March" from Star Wars. All lighthearted goodness.

When I was in 7th Grade, Lawlor had some "lab bands" perform. Small groups performing pieces that they wanted to do. The bass players decided to do "Oy, It's So Humid" by 2 Live Jews. Dave wanted to "Istanbul, Not Constantinople", originally by The Four Lads, but made famous by They Might Be Giants.

I heard some other TMBG while hanging out in orchestra, and, from 7th grade on, TMBG has been my favorite band. Of all time.

Yeah, my blog took it's name from "Knowledge" by Operation Ivy. Yeah, one of my favorite songs is "Low Self-Opinion" by Rollins Band. Yeah, I like to think of myself as a punk. Yeah, I think that I rawk. But, the fact is, my favorite band is They Might Be Giants.

They have a song about James K. Polk, 11th President of The United States. They have a song about mammals. They've covered songs about nuclear fission. They've done songs about building a time-machine to keep the love alive in a relationship, about Pavlovian reactions, from the point of view of a nightlight, a song that name-checks a movie starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, a song that was recorded without electricity at the Edison Museum. They were musical ambassadors for the International Space Year. They are gawdamn nerds.

And I finally saw them. After less-than-threeing them for most of my life, I finally saw them. Sunday night at Sokol Auditorium in Omaha, Nebraska. Next to the Kum-N-Go. I saw them.

Early on, I was King Nerd of Dork Mountain. The first opening band was Common Rotation. The lead singer was the cat that played Warren, the leader of the evil nerds in the last 2 seasons of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. The last song that they did was "Hey, Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had A Deal", which was on the TMBG Misc. T album. I, of course, was singing along.

"Hey, Mr. DJ, I thought you said we had a deal.
I thought you said, 'You scratch my back and I'll scratch your record,'
and I thought you said we had a deal!"

"Oh, you know these guys?" said the one cute girl at the concert. (Nerd girls are, in general, not cute. This one actually was. Of course, I blew any chances of getting a name and number with my Joe-Cocker-Having-A-Seziure act during the main attraction)
"Nope. That was a Giant's song. But, the lead singer was on Buffy. He killed Willow's girlfriend," said me.

Jaws dropped.

I've been to shows before. Prince. Rocket From The Crypt. The Reverend Horton Heat. Ben Weaver. Nine Inch Nails. Rancid. The Warped Tour. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. REM. And, never have I had so much fun.

I danced like a gawdamn dork for over two hours. I didn't care. I hate people. I have social anxiety. But, for a few hours, I had no one to impress. No one could judge me. I was the best looking cat in that joint. If I wanted to have a blast radius of 3 feet because of my twitchy-ass arms, so be it. I did not need to do headslides across the floor. I did not need to Lambada. All I had to do was enjoy the music, and sing along with every song, and have a damned good time doing it. The beers helped, though.

Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, constant readers and infrequent readers, people who are looking for crazy pervert shit:

I am a nerd.

posted by RawkStah at 1:09 AM