Old School

It all started with a Facebook message.
(What doesn’t these days?)

From my my age-old schoolmate and fellow Manitoba transplant Erin:

“You interested?”

Below was the image of an all-too-recognizable album cover from our very favourite dream boat teen idol punk band MxPx.

“March 26th, Seattle”

My instant response was a garbled mix of emphatic pop culture Internet acronyms and exclamation points.

Apparently MxPx is still playing music, I had no idea. I think they might have gotten back together for one night only, but then again maybe they’ve been playing whiny high school-themed punk rock continuously ever since 1997 when I first feasted my grade 9 ears on their Teenage Politics album. Whatever the circumstances, the countdown was on for a rocking girls’ night out in Seattle.

Like, OMG what r u gonna wear?

Our countdown continued through about six tedious work weeks, our first car payment, my dad’s short visit and subsequent departure for his 3-week adventure tour of Vietnam, as well as a major natural disaster in Japan during which Erin’s sister managed to evacuate herself from Tokyo the day before they shut down the airport (!)

Eventually, though, March 26th rolled around and only a 3-hour drive lay between us and some serious good times.

We crossed the border like pros.

“Where are you ladies headed?”
“To Seattle for a concert”
“Which band are you seeing?”
“MxPx”
“Oh, cool. I didn’t know they still played! Have a good time.”

After an obligatory stop at random giant US grocery chain to load up on Chex Mix and cheap wine, we cruised up to our hotel in the mid-afternoon. The Hyatt, that is, thanks to Erin and her savvy Priceline.com dealings.


Ahhhhh.


Why, what a nice chair!


18th floor, baby!

Due to our shared appreciation for nice hotel rooms, we literally just sat around in our new home for more than an hour before dragging ourselves up and across the street to the luxury shopping mall and our dinner destination: The Cheesecake Factory.

“If you want to sit out on the heated patio, we can seat you right away. If you want to sit inside, it will be at least 45 minutes.”
“Ummmmpatio.”

The patio was covered from the rain, at least. I think “heated” was a little too strong a word, though. The top of my head was toasty warm, at least. But even with the rest of my body braced against a brisk Seattle draft, I quite enjoyed my giant cheesy, beefy, avocadoey, honey mustardy Cheesecake Factory burger!

Next step: getting ready.

Back in the hotel, we cracked open the supermarket wine, turned on the music and started with the hair, makeup, etc. This is a bit of a change from 10 years ago, we thought, remembering the days when we were fresh out of high school, working as a retail clerk and a care worker; the days when we would have just thrown on our sleeveless t-shirts and some hair gel, jumped in the Grand Am with skateboarding stickers on it, driven 5 hours to a concert, then 5 hours home again the same night because we couldn’t afford to take a day off work or eat at a restaurant. Oh, memories.

But here we are today, an accountant and a public servant, chilling in the Hyatt Regency, sorting through our brand name clothes and makeup, and using paid vacation time so we could leave at a reasonable afternoon hour in a late model Audi and eat a legitimate dinner before the show.

“Almost ready there, granny?”
“Hang on, I’m having trouble getting into my Spanx”

Hah. Just kidding.


Rock and roll! (Credit Erin’s iPhone skills for this rad picture)

At this time, allow me to provide a little background to the upcoming mini-scandal. Our tickets said the doors open at 7:30, show starts at 8:30. They also indicated that there was going to be 3 bands playing. Since we weren’t all that interested in these random other bands that were playing, we decided to get there around 9:00. Not too early, but not too late. Just in time for maybe the second band, and for sure to see MxPx! Our big plan was to take a taxi so as to avoid parking woes and threats to the Audi during our time in sketchy downtown Seattle bar-land.

The handsome doormen at our hotel were more than happy to whistle up a cab and our cab driver promptly got us to our destination. As we followed some jacket-less, tattooed youngsters through the haze of “cigarette” smoke into the lobby of the club, our ears registered some very distinct beats… a bass line… then lyrics – all of which knew all too well...

The band we came for was already playing!!!

We looked at each other like, WHAT THE #&@%?

As we very quickly comprehended, they were first on the bill. Why on earth this occurred, we still haven’t been able to figure out. As it was, we were able to witness approximately half of their set, the last 4-5 songs or so… from the back of the crowd. If I stood on my tippy-toes I was able to occasionally see one of their dreamy heads bob up and down, then another. It all depended on how the massive lumberjack in front of me decided to shift his weight.


A priceless glimpse of the singer Mike, thanks again to Erin’s iPhone. Yuri the awesome drummer is somewhere behind that hand jutting out from the front row.


Unfortunately for me, the guitarist (and my all-time favourite) Tom was somewhere way over on the left side of the stage. That washed out blur behind Mike’s shoulder is him… I think.

(Notice also the enormous “MXPX” banner on the stage. You’d think they’d be the headliners...)

The songs we did hear were as fun as ever, of course, and we sang along and cheered as we relived every single high school emotion, beat by beat. As soon as they were finished with the show, however, so were we. We tried our best to stay and give a real chance to this… this other “band” that was to play next, but really our minds had been poisoned against them from the moment we walked in. Dear Gatsby’s American Dream, you have made lifelong enemies of two Canadian girls tonight.

When we decided we couldn’t take any more pretentious hipster alt-rock, we headed back out into the Seattle night. Thankful that we took a taxi to get there (otherwise we would have missed MxPx altogether!), we were determined NOT to spend our hard-exchanged dollars on a taxi back to the hotel, especially since we were so disappointed with the show and it was still early enough that public transit was still running.

Who are the oldies now, huh MxPx? … finishing your set at 9:30pm… pfft.

Thus began our quest for the Bus Tunnel.

Back that afternoon, the front desk girl at our hotel (“Oh, MxPx? I didn’t know they still played!”) had told us about a certain bus. That this bus stopped at a certain location near the club. This bus, however, for all we could tell from all the bus stops in a 3 block radius of the club, did not exist. We decided to scoot into a random Marriott hotel and ask their front desk person where this bus stopped. He said it probably went through the central transit station aka “Bus Tunnel” with all the rest of the city buses. He tried to tell us how to get there, he sounded oh so confident and we were exceedingly reassured. We proceeded to follow his directions to the letter, walked the blocks and blocks and turned and walked blocks and blocks more, only to find ourselves at a generic intersection with no transit station in sight. Thanks, pretentious hipster Marriott boy. Hey, there’s a band playing you might like…

So there we were at a random street corner at 11pm, trying to discreetly look at our Seattle pocket map, when a stout, crooked silhouette starts making its way toward us from up the street. Oh great, we thought, a homeless person; the last thing we need right now!

In my limited experience, though, no homeless people are as disgusting as Vancouver homeless people, so we weren’t too worried about this little bag lady coming up to us. Still, we weren't exactly thrilled.

“Do you ladies need any directions?”
“Uhh, actually yes. Do you know where the Bus Tunnel is?”

“Oh sure!” she says, as she points two blocks away to a collection of artistic neon light strips that are so ugly they could only have been decided upon my some civil government committee. “Just cross the street here and head towards those lights. You’re going back to the Hyatt? You’ll come to a few escalators that go down into the station. Make sure you take the one on the left and find the stop for bus 550”

“Wow, thanks!”

Then, of course “If you don’t mind I’m homeless, and I’ve been trying to scrape together…” blah blah blah usual homeless spiel.
We were so thankful, we actually went against both of our internal Vancouver personal safety rulebooks and gave her a couple bucks worth of change. We also figured the Marriott would probably be better off with her at the front desk. Or our Hyatt for that matter.


A Seattle bus tunnel all to ourselves, how fabulous :/


Or should we say… DÉRELICTE!!!


Lets reflect on the evening, shall we?

The whole bus tunnel experience itself was rather amusing, actually. We were literally the only ones there and had all night to sit and wait and fool around. It was crawling with bored but friendly security personnel, too, so we felt safe. Not like in Vancouver where you would probably find 5 or 6 random, smelly piles of dirty sleeping bags and empty coffee cups with people sleeping under them. (Vancouver, I still love you – but for many other reasons!)

Our bus eventually came right on time, and we proceeded to cruise through some underground train tunnel thing. As the clock inched past midnight, our surprisingly perky bus driver made an unscheduled stop just for us a few blocks from our hotel. As we laughingly strolled past a Vietnamese restaurant called “What the Phở?” We decided that despite the band fail and the transit woes, we were just not ready for our girls’ night to be over! Not wanting to deal with any other transportation, however, we comfortably installed ourselves in the Joey’s at our hotel, finally coming to terms with the trendy, young professionals that we are. Long Island iced teas were the special of the night and… let’s just say that after a hectic night, 2 ½ shots of liquor at once will really loosen you up!

Warning: Long Island iced teas may lead to uncontrollable laughing fits, flirting with the waiter, making fun of certain bands, scarfing cheesecake leftovers, missing stairs, falling over and watching The Hangover in your hotel room until 2:30 am.

The next morning wasn’t as bad as you may be thinking, however. We had until noon to check out and we slept really well in our giant, individual beds. Taking further advantage of our hotel experience, I actually went for a really nice swim in the lap pool before breakfast. Breakfast being a coffee and croissant, which I gratuitously ate in my giant bed, getting pastry flakes absolutely everywhere.


That's the look of someone who didn't have to make her bed.


Hotel lobby chic.


The source of my reckless croissant. Tully’s Coffee goes jungle.

The afternoon included one more trip to the mall, as well as World Market (Loves.) Lunch came in the form of pan-asian noodles. American-sized servings, of course, with way more meat.


Srs ramn.

Eventually, we reminded ourselves that tomorrow was Monday and we actually had professional responsibilities, so we forced ourselves to head back north across the border.

“Where were you ladies this weekend?”
“In Seattle at an MxPx concert”
“Oh, I didn’t know they were still together…”

* * *

Is this the end of an era?

Perhaps our era was already over in 2001 when we spread our wings and departed from the ol’ hometown, choosing various exciting paths that didn’t necessarily entail moshing and crowd surfing. Or perhaps we’ll continue to hold a little piece of MxPx in our hearts, and every 10 years or so find that somewhere, somehow they’ve reunited to play “one more show”, each time at an earlier hour than the last, and perhaps Erin and I will continue to go to these shows in increasingly nicer cars and stay at increasingly nicer hotels, until one day we’ll arrive in our Bentley just in time for Happy Hour in the crystal atrium of some Four Seasons somewhere, and finally experience their entire concert, beginning to end.

Looking forward to it!