Next Tuesday the 28th, Prefuse 73 plays at the 400 Bar. Shortly over a year ago, I vowed never to return to that venue—humid, smoky, and insufferably jammed—where I witnessed one of the musicians I admired the most make an ass of himself and a fool of me.
I don’t know whether he was drunk or just otherwise out of it, but it was embarrassing to watch him, and yes, I was concerned, but also pissed with my disillusion. Though his voice was as beautiful as remastered and more, he constantly slipped knotted fingers wrong ways across the strings, stopped in the middle of songs, and apologized from beneath a veil of unclean hair, his hands and voice shaking.
Like parents the audience reassured him and themselves, “It’s okay!” but you know what? it wasn’t okay, it was pathetic and I was disgusted and hurt. It was painful to watch. Elliott Smith. Stabbed himself to death Tuesday night.
Things were not okay.
No Comments