Aimee Mann Again

E was kind enough to invite me to see Aimee Mann as part of the Wall Street Rising free concert series this weekend.

E was even more kind and got there super early, thus securing us awesome seats.



This was the best Aimee show I've ever seen. She was very much on, very in tune with the audience, the performance was fabulous, the selection of songs perfect.



Now.

You may be noticing a couple of weird things about the first photo I posted in this entry.

Weird thing #1: Aimee Mann is looking a bit Whitney Houston-esque. You would be correct in thinking this. Aimee - not looking so hot. She's either got a drug problem (I don't think so - she seemed fine at the show), an illness, or issues with the consumption of food. I am worried. Whatever the cause, it didn't affect the awesomeness of the show.

Aimee Mann: Skeleton Style (she actually appeared much thinner than this in real life)


Weird thing #2: Johnny Damon plays lead guitar for Aimee Mann!!!!





Dear god he looked Just. Like. Him.

The whole evening was like a movie. Three hours prior to my leaving, I got the news about The Sandwich.

It was, of course, The Sandwich who got me into Aimee Mann in the first place. I'd listened to her intermittently, here and there, but hadn't really fell in love until The Sandwich put "Save Me" on one of the first mix CD's he made for me.

I was broken at the time, for different reasons than I am now, and that is how and why The Sandwich was able to have such an effect.

The lyrics:

You look like... a perfect fit,
For a girl in need... of a tourniquet.
But can you save me?
Come on and save me...
If you could save me,
From the ranks of the freaks,
Who suspect they could never love anyone.

'Cause I can tell... you know what it's like.
A long farewell... of the hunger strike.
But can you save me?
Come on and save me...
If you could save me,
From the ranks of the freaks,
Who suspect they could never love anyone.

You struck me dumb, Like radium
Like Peter Pan, or Superman,
You have come... to save me.
Come on and save me...
If you could save me,
From the ranks of the freaks,
Who suspect they could never love anyone,
Except the freaks,
Who suspect they could never love anyone,
But the freaks,
Who suspect they could never love anyone.

I've seen Aimee a number of times, and never had I heard her play "Save Me." I've heard her do "Voices Carry," but never "Save Me." I figured there was no chance of her doing it, but I was wrong.

In my own personal episode of 90210, during which my friend E and I attend an Aimee Aimee show at the Peach Pit and are struck by her thinness (maybe its the Very Special Anorexia Episode?), I would cry to myself while singing along with "Save Me." There would be a montage of episodes past, highlighting moments such as when The Sandwich and I met, the first time we talked all night and I told him why I was broken and how I cried because I hadn't told anyone else before, the time when The Sandwich said "Don't ever let me break you... physically or otherwise..." one night before anything had ever happened between us as he accidentally tumbled on me (I swear it was an accident) in my bed after listening to music until 4 am on a school night, his hands in my ass pockets under the blanket as the sun rose, The First Kiss, The First BreakUp, The 9/11 Mistake, his flying home early to see me and my meeting him at the airport, the pool on the roof in Miami, my hand making contact with his face and his saying "You should really do that more often... I deserve so much worse," scenes of the hardest laughter and heaviest tears imagineable, his showing up at my apartment at 6:00 am before I left for St. Louis and my seeing him for the last time when neither of us knew it was the last time, some more sweet scenes to make it easier on the audience but which to pick? There were as many sweet moments as there were scathing ones. For every time I said "This isn't fucking fair! FIGURE YOUR SHIT OUT AND DO SOMETHING!" I said "I can't imagine life without you. It's all worth it, I know it is." For every time he cried there were a million times when he said something funny, funniest, for me and only for me. There would be scenes of this world we created that consisted only of the two of us and had nothing to do with the rest of the world. The real world. If we'd let the real world in, we wouldn't have lasted more than one night.

Two escapists = disaster. We always talked about running away. He talked about it more than I did, but he was more of a wimp than I was.

I guess I really did run away. After all was said and done, I ran away from it all.

Crazy.

I should have done it sooner.

Although, in his own way, he was running away by being with me in the first place.

So yeah. Aimee Mann. Devastating but cathartic.

And with that, have yourselves Happy Thanksgivings.