37. Yaz at Terminal 5 in NYC

We love The Rutles. So we got Rutles 2. Well we turned that off halfway. Jon was upset because of the use of what he calls Aught Humor. Aught Humor is dumb dirty jokes that aren’t funny told by dumb unfunny people. He was so upset that the people that put out The Rutles could put out The Rutles 2 that he wasn’t even sure he could still like The Rutles at all.

Which brings me to Yaz. Yaz is possibly my favorite band in life. 2 perfect albums. No crappy follow up. No informative videos. No never ending tours. No acoustic version of anything. The music never gets dated for me. It just is.

So when they announced playing live this year after 25 years of not playing together, I was excited, yet worried. My friend Rik (who introduced me to Yaz) said we should get tickets and go.. It was months in advance of the show. The MBV reunion tours were announced as well. Seemed like bands you never thought you could see were coming together this season.. Seemed like you shouldn’t miss out on good things. I had never seen Yaz. And they broke up after their 2nd album was made. I never knew a thing about them and never wanted to.. Should I risk them being all old and playing a crap or boring show? Or would this be a good thing.? Would this be a Rutles 2?

Well I said yes. I didn’t want to miss something important. So now we were going on a trip with another couple. How would that work out? Rik was my best friend from highschool. That was a long time ago..

So we ignored it til the week of. We went. Our car broke on the way out of town so we quickly switched to Rik’s Jeep and drove to NYC. This drive is basically an 8 hour trip if nothing goes wrong and if you don’t get stuck in the Lincoln Tunnel. It was completely fine. We split up and got food with various friends. Our one friend Peter came with us to the show. Although we had bought our tickets, he secretly got us VIP passes. I’ve had bad VIP tickets before and I’ve watched bad bands with Peter before and burst into tears.. But this time. He got us right on the 3rd tier with the best view conceivably possible. To my favorite band of all time. That night it was a possibility that Yaz was the only band I had ever liked.

Alison Moyet was unbelievably cute. And Vince Clarke totally cool. I had no idea they would be like that. Pictures I had seen didn’t really ever give me any sort of impression.. And perfect perfect show. All the right songs. A little foray into remix land but just a little. The sound was big and awesome. The songs were true to themselves. If Alison did any little vocal thing the crowd went mad. But she didn’t do too much of it.. It was long enough. It was short enough. It looked good. She was so happy. I never knew she would be like that.

I bought the poster. The tour book (?). Two tshirts. In my whole life, I have only bought one piece of merch. ever. A ‘Til Tuesday pin at a ‘Til Tuesday show. This show totally worked out. The friends I went with, the traveling, the friends I met up with. The show.

And now I’ve got the box set. Their two albums remastered. Also remixes and 5.1 versions. Ok you can say I am a fan. I don’t like remixes at all and 5.1 of Yaz seems like it would be as useful as 5.1 of Bob Dylan. Plus as always, we only have 2 ears…

But. You will never see me sitting outside the venue trying to meet these people. If my life leads me to a meeting in a natural way I will talk to them but in no way do I feel that they owe me one more thing than that amazing show (all they owed my was a show for the price of a ticket). I am so amazed that a band could even pull such a thing off that I can just walk away happy, happy, happy.

No Rutles 2 here.

8/3/08