Picnic obsessed

That describes me. In the last week I have been on two picnics, and plan many more before the summer is over. Last night was an impromptu meal, as Steve and I had a couple of hours to kill before going to Somerset House to see Yo La Tengo and Calexico. A Greek meze, pita breads, mini bottles of screw top wine and scotch eggs (piggyness won out) were purchased at M&S and scoffed in the churchyard near Covent Garden Tesco. I’m sure that Burgundy is not supposed to be sipped through a straw, straight from the bottle, but it worked for us.

YLT were on first, which I think was just plain wrong. They have more years on the clock than Calexico, more albums, and, I’d say, more fans. Calexico may be in vogue (and, ok, really good), but seniority should win out. Whatever, I think it was more a double bill than headliner & support, as they both played for about an hour. Ira thanked us “for coming out on such a shitty night” (blue skies, seagulls, warm flagstones to sit and drink beer on), and Steve and I got a good spot and stayed there. And oh, the joy of schadenfreude. A quartet of people arrived and stood in front of us at about 9.45, half an hour after YLT finished their set. As the many-membered-and-not-easily-mistaken-for-YLT-at-all Calexico took to the stage, one of the foursome said “oh fuck.” A few minutes later, when the projected visual (CALEXICO) and the stage banter (“Hi, we’re Calexico”) made all hope that the band picking up their instruments were YLT difficult to cling to, the same guy turned to his friends. “Guys, we may have fucked up.” Ahahaha. How we laughed. How we loudly reminded each other that this had been the BEST EVER YO LA TENGO GIG EVER and THEY REALLY ROCKED and that we were SURE GLAD WE HADN’T MISSED THEM. Their missing the show made me strangely, wickedly happy. So I drank more, ate a scotch egg, and skipped home.