Concert Review: The 15th Annual 89X Birthday Bash, featuring Yeah Yeah Yeahs, AFI, et. al.

Dear Friend,

For a lot of girls, there is always that one best friend they can count on. The friend who you've had since at least high school, who knows everything about you. The friend you've done really stupid things with; the friend who, even in the midst of a giant storm of annoyances, you automatically called when everything was going wrong; and the one friend (who you aren't fucking) that you can stay up all night with and not get grumpy. So imagine a day right before the absolute beginning of summer that you spend with your best friend, listening to music, interviewing a band, taking photos, dancing, and going on a mini-road trip to Detroit...

The 89X Birthday Bash took place in Detroit in the Fox Theatre Complex. The Fox and the older (though only by three years) State Theatres are the glossy-gold caverns of art and culture which should have disintegrated with the advent of the Great Depression. The glamour which lies within them has a bright, mythical quality, filled with all the ghastly, materialistic thrills of an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel (or, for that matter, a biography). While they are often not associated with modern day perceptions of Detroit, these historical and lovely pieces of real estate are enough to make anyone fall in love with the old, dead Detroit - as well as begin to feel stirrings of compassion for the new Detroit slowly beginning to rebuild itself at the dawn of the 21st century. When I learned that Laura and I would be heading to the theatres, I knew that I would at least slightly enjoy myself.

A word of note, for not-so-frequent readers of the Modern Pea Pod: I am usually not one for modern mainstream music. All of my favorite records are either old, sound old, or veer onto the railway tracks of the bizarre. Every once in a while, there'll be a new album which gets me really excited, but those are few and far between. So when I went to the 89X Birthday bash, I at least consoled myself with the fact that I would get the opportunity to finally see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. But then things started to change after I received the upcoming record by another group of 89X performers, Love Arcade (out August 8th on East West). While not everything was to my taste or sensibilities, I began to fall in love with their track "Can't Stop" as Laura and I listened to it in the car. "Can't Stop" made both of us feel as if we were 14-years old, and the only thing we had to do all summer was look forward to going to a skating rink dance and eating popsicles. We listened to it at least three times on repeat as we drove all over East Lansing and Okemos, thinking of interview questions and ideas. We even mentally outlined a schedule of which shows to cover. Isn't it interesting how whenever anything is planned, it completely falls apart? But that is the nature of both life and Mapquest.

Article Author: Modern Pea Pod

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