Them Crooked Vulture

Words written by Dirk Calloway

I saw Them Crooked Vultures play some rock and roll music recently. The ticket cost me over a hundred dollars. I like to spend excess cash on gigs, but that is still such a large amount that I tend to stress a little about the decision afterwards. I was comforted this time around though, because Them Crooked Vultures ticked all the right boxes.  I mean, as far as new rock groups go, they're pretty impressive. Their debut albums came out months ago, but it's still in heavy rotation at my house.

Anyway, the gig was good and all, but not as great as the experience afterwards. An old timer and I waited "out back" of backstage to try and meet the band. If I could thank three people in rock for their lasting impact on my life, it'd definitely be members of Nirvana, Queens of the Stone Age and Led Zeppelin.

So we waited.

And waited.

Nice security guards and smug event organisers played us for hours. The organiser in particular though, he really got my goat. If only because he was dressed so smartly that it looked like he had hired the suit. Or maybe because he seemed to do nothing all night but move cars around, to spite us. In a constant cat and mouse game, he arranged for drivers to go from one gate to another. This was to bait us into thinking Dave Grohl might actually try to leave the venue in our presence.

Of course, 1am rolled around and we still hadn't met anyone from the band. Finally a trustworthy person came
out and said that the group had left. The Old Timer and I weren't too gutted though; we'd had a great yarn together.

Sometime after midnight we began chatting. Firstly about the probability of seeing the group. Then other stories about those we'd seen in similar circumstances. He was pretty impressed I'd met Billy Corgan and said "thank you" to Brian Wilson. I loved his Bob Dylan tale. Hardcore fan stuff.

Eventually the conversation turned to the past, as it does with Old Timers. He made a passing comment, but it was an interesting one. He said he preferred our city 20 years ago, than the way it is today. Old Timers do that, they gloss over things from the time of their youth. I try to respect that though, by wondering why. I suggested it might be because our city has "traded up." He concurred. I elaborated. We used to have a city where people wore $20 clothing and ate lunch at a tea-shop, probably eating a pie and a Danish in the same sitting. Turns out I was dead-on. He got All excited that I remembered those times. I told him I remembered all right; the cultural cringe we suffered, the 25% mortgage rates we paid through the teeth for, or the lack of beer options at your average pub. He was shocked at that, the reality of life in the 80s. Not so rosy tinted after all. Funny how it took a 24 year old to point that out.