"You're a Superstar . . . at the Gay Bar"

It struck me that St. Andrews hadn't changed much since I'd been there last . . . say, fifteen years ago. I don't remember the bar being located along the west wall, but the last time I was at St. Andrews I didn't drink, so it could have been there all along. I wouldn't have noticed.

By the time Electric Six was getting ready to go on stage the crowd was divided into three sections: The under 21 crowd in front (with some frat boys mixed in for good measure), the "older crowd" (my age) up in the balcony, and the die hards in back. I'm pretty sure the die hards were all animatronic robots because they looked exactly the same as they did in 1992 . . . same hair, same clothing. I know the eighties are back "in" but it was surreal. Like they kept them in a closet and brought them out to fill the place.

We ended up in the frat boy section.

Electric Six. Well, they didn't live up to the hype. I kept reading and hearing about this great band . . . and they were good . . . but the lead singer's whole act seems to be to either direct the crowd to make hand gestures (which they all did, like good trained monkeys) or stand on stage with a goofy grin on his face (which the crowd always laughed at). A cute little frat boy warned us, with a very earnest look, that we didn't want to be "down here" because it was "gonna get wild" and for a minute I was worried (the band hadn't started yet) . . . but the most anyone did was pogo-ing. Lame. So funny lyrics just can't carry you if you are six aging white guys. Who knew?

Oh, and there was this wife/girlfriend/groupie section, up in the balcony, who kept throwing things at the band and then would try to talk to the bass player while they were playing. Like, "honey, look . . . I threw that at you . . . yeah, that was me! . . . " So that wasn't distracting. At all.

I guess I'm hard to impress. The coney island food at 2 in the morning was good. And we didn't run into anyone I knew.