As a teenager and young adult, I engaged in an impressive string of long-distance relationships. While now I refuse to go out with anyone living more than 2 miles from my house, I have been left with a skewed sense of the value of traveling long distances for things I enjoy. Add in my overly enthusiastic approach to talking to bands at shows ("Hi! You were amazing! Come to Chicago!") and tendency to social media stalk everything I enjoy, and you get some crazy, completely unjustifiable road trips.
Examples of this include seeing The Rural Alberta Advantage in St. Louis (after seeing them in Madison and Milwaukee and Chicago), seeing Generationals in St. Louis (in a severe thunderstorm after seeing them like 3 times already that year), seeing Arms in a barn in Iowa (by myself and I had to navigate by GPS and my car got backed into in a field), ferrying an Australian emo kid to Madison for Into It. Over It. (after seeing him already in Chicago), flying to LA to see The Weakerthans because they haven't played Chicago in forever and I can never get time off to go to Winnipeg (and I want to get time off to go to Winnipeg), and basing a decision to go to CMJ partly on being away stalking another band the weekend Fishboy played Chicago in 2011 (there was also seeing Ravens & Chimes and Arms again).
Yes, yes, I'm creepy.
So I'm about 50% sure I will spend this Saturday traveling to Cleveland to see Bears, The Afternoon Naps, and The Lighthouse and the Whaler. Because holy fucking shit, can you ask for a better lineup of Ohio bands? And I want to see Elephant Gun and The Damn Choir and Architecture at Subterranean pretty goddamn badly, but that quixotic journey across half the Midwest to catch the perfect indie pop show is so romantic that it's just hard to resist.
Leaving Logan Square on Saturday morning. Pickups can be arranged. I'm sorry, local music. I hope you'll understand.
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