Librarianguish

When I heard Ozomatli was playing in Bellingham a while back, I decided that I was going. By myself. Bellingham on a Sunday is much too far for even the most dedicated of music-goers, Amber! Ha ha. Actually, Bellingham is a much better location for me to see music, as it is just over an hour to the north. It takes me two hours to get to Seattle. And it turns out that the Nightlight Lounge gets a lot of excellent bands. I saw Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker there almost two years ago. I really need to start watching their calendar more closely for upcoming shows.

http://www.nightlightlounge.com/Calendar/music_cal_crnt.html

Anyhow...I rousted myself up after a short nap (I was still a little slooooow from the previous evening's activities), and made the drive up to Bellingham.

Once I got into the bar, I decided to just go wild again. I had a $1.00 cup of coffee with sugar AND cream. Whoooooo! Out of hand. I had a little while to wait for the music to start, so I enjoyed my coffee and send out a couple of text messages (okay, I love my new phone toy). The crowd for the show was pretty cool, lots of college students of the hippie-ish variety. Very Bellingham, very comfortable.

Finally the opening band, SambaDa' began playing. They were a very energetic, Latin style band in a similar vein to Ozomatli. A perfect way to get into the mood. The crowd was NOT comatose, and from the first song everyone was dancing like crazy. The lead singer was beautiful, and danced a mean streak herself! A few members of Ozomatli joined in for a couple of songs too.

I didn't mention that when the music began, I just made my way right up to the front and found a good spot. OF COURSE!!! And it turned out to be an excellent location. The crowd was for the most part pretty polite - everybody was just dancing and having a great time. There were a couple of short-lived annoyances, but they passed quickly.

While I was waiting between bands, a rather friendly and quite drunk guy by the name of Kelly struck up a conversation with me. He asked me if I'd seen Ozomatli there before, I told him no. Not five minutes later he turned to me again and asked me if I'd seen them play there before!! Having a little trouble laying down the short-term memory there. Then I was poking around with my phone, and he said, "be sure to get my number before they start." I just said - "Why?" Fortunately at this point a felt a tap on my shoulder - it was the bass player from SambaDa'!! He had noticed I was taking pictures, and wanted me to email them to him. You bet, Mr. Cute Bass Player! He was very nice. But back to Kelly - what a goof! He kept telling me how his friends were "over there" and I should come hang out with them. I just said "I'm perfectly happy right here!" It was pretty comical, really.

And then...Ozomatli came out! What can I say - they were absolutely awesome! Most of my pictures came out blurry, because they were moving so much and so was I! It turned out I was standing right in front of the trombone player, Shef. I never had to duck the slide, but it was right over my head a few times. Ha ha! He was quite a dancer, too.

There were nine guys onstage - I'm really liking this trend of huge bands. So much going on all the time! They were obviously having a great time up there - laughing a lot.

And did I mention they are ALL cute? I don't think I did yet. Heh. Hard to decide which one I like best...

Oh. Sorry - I was daydreaming for a minute there.

Asdru on trumpet ~