GUYS. OUR BEST PALS, ANIMAL COLLECTIVE, ARE PLAYING THE 930 CLUB(!!) THREE NIGHTS IN A ROW (!!) — of which two dates are already sold out (!!). And if you can judge by our epic review of them at Merriweather here, that final date (June 12th) is going to be epic. So ready go on and collect all the drugs in your mother’s medicine cabinet… this is gonna get weird.
Tickets for June 12th are on sale NOW but we’ve got a pair for one of your lucky suckers. All you’ve got to do is tell us about that one time things got a little too… weird. Whether at a party, a concert, alone in your bedroom… most awkward encounters get a chance to redeem themselves right in the middle of the 9:30 Club floor. (Winner will be selected by 10AM Wednesday, April 17th. Use a real email address when you comment)
Although Hopkins continued in theatre (most notably at the National Theatre as Lambert Le Roux in Pravda by David Hare and Howard Brenton and as Antony in Antony and Cleopatra opposite Judi Dench as well as in the Broadway production of Peter Shaffer’s Equus, directed by John Dexter) he gradually moved away from it to become more established as a television and film actor. .
My own internet site
http://www.caramoan.ph/spelunking-in-caramoan/
I, too, will keep it concert-related. Many many moons ago, I went to see The Kinks at Constitution Hall (like I said, this was many moons ago). There was apparently bad blood at the time between Dave Davies and Mick Avory. At some point, Davies started going over to the drum kit and kicking drums, hitting cymbals with the end of the guitar neck, and similarly obnoxious stuff. After that went on for awhile, Mick Avory threw his sticks at Davies and stormed offstage. Davies went over, knocked over the cymbals, started kinking drums over, and then HE stormed offstage too. Ray Davies surveyed the scene, looked at the audience and shrugged his shoulders, and walked offstage. End of show.
My entire life is a series of moments when things get…well, too real but I think one incident that tops them all was actually at an animal collective performance at Bonnaroo in 2009. I was super excited to see them and this was right around the time I was listening to Merriweather Post Pavillion on repeat but the line to get into Centeroo (refer to Bonnaroo wiki of you’re not familiar with the term) was super long so I wasn’t able to get the best of spots. By the time, I make it too the stage and reach the point where I couldn’t squeeze in any closer(this was summer of my sophomore year of college so I had packed on some pounds
) Animal Collective had just started playing. This is where shit gets real and when shit gets real there is about a 50/50 chance that shit will also get weird based on personal experience. Anyways, I think the band was playing ‘My Girls’ and I was grooving when all of a sudden this massive mass of an individual starts making a ruckus behind me. At this point, I’m way too focused on this song and kind of disappointed that its day time and I’m what feels like a block away from the band when this dude taps me on the shoulder. He loudly tells me, “Dude, I hope you don’t mind but I think I’m about to piss in your direction.” This unfortunate news was icing on an already disappointing situation at this point and I tried to negotiate with this hairy mass but failed miserably. Before I knew it, I was covered in this man’s piss with no where to go with people in every direction of me. I’d love a chance to redeem my experience and disconnect the negative association I have with Animal Collective and that experience that’s too real to reminisce about.
Wow, my life has had so many awkward moments… there was that time that I presented my passport in Frankfurt not knowing that there was a pantyliner stuck between the pages. Go me.
I’ll keep it concert related. At a Mountain Goats concert, I met a 26 year old guy there with his mom. He was wearing cargo shorts that he converted into a kilt. Yes, he did inform me of how much he was wearing under it, and no, it wasn’t much.
Seeing phantogram and glitch mob at 9:30 club last summer shit got weird. Phantogram was so good I felt like I was on another planet with how happy I was- this was even before a girl dropped from the ceiling doing some sort of ribbon dance during glitch mob’s. My mind has never been blown like that and shit has never gotten so weird at a show. I loved every second of it.
I had my first girl-on-girl experience in college during senior week. The next day, I was walking to brunch (still a bit tipsy) and ran into my ex-boyfriend. And proceeded to tell him about it. In the middle of my story, the president of our college walks up to us to chat. Weird!
I was at a party a few blocks from my job after work and completely unannounced, a topless woman and a crossdresser showed up, knowing nobody. The woman put glowsticks (that she provided herself) through her nipple piercings and proceeded to make out in front of the band playing for the duration of the party. Someone found a bear head mask and gave it to the main performer, who screamed obscenities into the microphone everytime he put it on.
I like to call this the “candle creeper” story straight from my college days. One night during my college career, I was at a house party, being young, innocent, thinking I was too cool for school, doing some casual keg stands, and having a good time. I ended up chatting most of the evening with this guy who happened to be on crutches due to a recent acl repair. Fast forward to us walking back to his apartment. Then shit got weird. After a complete tour of his apartment complex and then using his bathroom for all of 3 minutes, I proceeded to go to his bedroom. In his bedroom I was meet by probably 50-100 lit candles, R Kelley in the background, and him lying naked on his bed with some sort of stuffed animal. Naturally, a few red flags went up in my mind. I grabbed my purse and said see ya! If that was not enough, he then proceeded to attempt to get me to stay by following me out of his apartment complex…still naked….still on crutches. Thank god for a good roommate and a speedy pick up….
I was at a music + art festival a few months back and watching an artist perform on stage. There was (what appeared to be) a homeless man dancing around in front of the stage having fun. After a while he proceeded to lay down on the floor. We all thought he was sleeping, so we all kept dancing. Pretty soon, the event organizers were called to the scene and they kept trying to wake him up, with no success. The police and paramedics soon arrived, and performance was cut short. (I do hope he was okay, though!)
Known to trip around the city getting weird, bathing the visual world in a warm animal collective bath. Would love to get weird on the lawn, with daisy chains, and BYT.
Well there was that one time I did bath salts with Anthony Hopkins….
I used to play dungeons and dragons, and masturbate…constantly!
I was at a Pictureplane show in New York and it was the first time I’d ever taken mushrooms. This was at one of those kinda illegal “underground” shows where the venue was actually somebody’s loft. I had been at the show for about 45 minutes when I noticed that this man behind me with bleached blonde hair looked really familiar. At first I didn’t recognize him, but after a few minutes of staring, I realized he was John Norris who used to host MTV News. It was a really weird sight, because I used to see him on my TV back in middle school looking fairly normal, and now here he was, with the aforementioned bleached hair and tight, tight pants. My friend didn’t recognize him, but she tried to talk to him anyway, breaking the ice by shouting”hey, aren’t you CHUCK Norris from MTV?!” somewhere in his direction. Either he didn’t hear us or didn’t care to, but it was still a pretty cool experience.
I went to see Deftones and Dillinger Escape Plan in Baltimore, sadly I missed Dillinger due to getting lost in the ghetto trying to find the Sonar club. Next came a series of events that scared and numbed me even caring about the show anymore. Walking down an alleyway we would see homeless folk glaring at my friend and I asking for money or just following us about. Being two white suburban kids in the Baltimore ghetto wasn’t getting us anywhere but eventually we found the club where we enjoyed most of the Deftones but getting lost just began. We were lost on foot in the hood for 3 hours looking for the parking garage my friends car was at. During these three hours we learned how the human spirit could be totally broken having to step over hobos completely covered in plastic wrap or seeing a man throwing food at a Subway and screaming on the ground. Things grew to a breaking point after walking down another alley and seeing nine people in the middle of the next street fighting each other and beating one another, I was starting to think this night would end badly. After passing the same section of Baltimore with some incredibly sketchy clubs we started to recognize things and make our way back to the parking garage just to find out it was locked down for the night. I wasn’t having it anymore so we went around the side to an old sketchy door that I attempted to kick open and succeeded. We left quickly with far too many stories of completely insane homeless people attacking one another and the city they belonged to. As we drove for the nearest place we could grab some food from, I screamed some choice words to the city of Baltimore, a place I still haven’t returned to even to this day.
I saw The Flaming Lips for the first time last year. I had heard some stories about the weirdness at Lips shows but I was prepared. What I was not prepared for was a man in a gorilla suit. Up near the front, this guy (or gal!) in a gorilla suit stood almost completely still for hours. I don’t know why security let him in or why he had his arms crossed and stared straight ahead for the entire concert, but that is what he did. A few people tried to get him to react by talking to him or tapping him on the shoulder but he refused to budge. For the entirety of the Lips’ set, the gorilla stayed in character. He stood still while the whole venue jumped to “She Don’t Use Jelly.” He ignored the sloppily making out couple (who just got back together after a long breakup!) who felt the need to procreate after hearing “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1″ He even ignored the huge buildup and explosion of sound when the band covered “Brain Damage” and “Eclipse” to end their first encore. I always had the gorilla suit man in mind, but at that point, I accepted that we would never be able to cultivate a beautiful friendship. It had gone past the point of awkwardness. It was sad. However, I still maintain that a miracle occurred that day. The Flaming Lips came out for their second encore and I could tell something was brewing inside the gorilla suit man. The opening notes of “Do You Realize??” had most of the crowd dancing, but the gorilla only slowly uncrossed his arms. Once Wayne Coyne began to sing the opening lyrics, everything changed. This gorilla had only one mission in life, and that was to high-five EVERYONE during this song. I was lucky enough to get one of the first ones. I was somewhat lost in the ecstasy of the song, but everytime I glanced backwards, I made sure to look for some furry arms raised high into the air moving among the crowd. I never saw that gorilla again, but I hope he comes to see Animal Collective with me.
I was on a first date and, mid-make out, the guy confessed he’d kept sex slaves while he was studying abroad in Japan. He would later get into a car accident that was so bad he had to have intensive surgery to re-attach his foot. I should have known he was weird when he started growling in my ear like a jungle cat.