It's a Matisyahu Thursday!!

Matisyahu Beat Boxing at Moose's Tooth

This past Thursday on summer solstice (always a good time regardless of what you do) I went to see Matisyahu at Moose's Tooth, a ridiculously delicious pizza joint here in Anchorage that also doubles as the world's largest hippie hangout and occasional concert venue. For those not in the know, Matisyahu is the world's favorite Hasidic Jew rapper/reggae artist. Yes he is bizarre sounding, but given that the only album of his I had was a live one, I knew I was in for at least a good sounding show, if not an exceptionally entertaining one visually. Of course once again, if a white rapper/reggae artist performing for hippies isn't entertaining visually, I don't know what is.

The evening began with me finding out Colver, my fellow concert attendee, would not be able to make the show because of what could be best described as either credit card malfunction or, to quote another friend, user error. There I was, deer in the headlights, entirely unsure as to whether or not I would go by myself because then I would be that guy hanging out at the concert by myself. And nobody wants to be that guy. $35 to get the ticket, I have to go right? So I did. Boy, was that a good decision. Before I went I went to a Mexican restaurant in the area and hung out with my buddy Sean at a radio remote and got my liquid courage on by having myself some chips and salsa and a nice strawberry margarita. Nothing says manly more than a fruity alcoholic beverage out of a big goofy glass. After the margarita, I was fully prepared to face my fate as "that guy."

I get to Moose's Tooth and find parking surprisingly easy to find, regardless of the fact there were 2,000 tickets sold and the openers had already been going for about 30 minutes. I did find the line to be epic-ly long however, which was bad, but good because I also found buddies Nathan and Jimmy waiting in it. Crisis averted! I will not be that guy! Not only was I not that guy, we got in and immediately went over to the beer tents and began the night double fisting IPA's. Delicious, and apparently this was all I needed to grease the wheels into me having an incredibly good night. First off, I'll get the actual concert out of the way. Seeing shows outside on a beautiful night is the only way to do it, and Matisyahu is a fantastic live performer. As I try to show with my video up at the top, he's amazing at beat boxing. The sound is a little wonky but I decided including a video is a must for this. Note how the faster he goes while beat boxing and the faster the lights go, the more my camera shakes from side to side. Was I having a seizure? That's my best guess, I must have blacked out. Anyways, I've never went to a concert where the actual performer was secondary to what was happening at the venue. That happened this time, and it wasn't his fault. Matisyahu, it's not you, it's me.

Matisyahu...it's not you I swear

So at the concert, I ran into a good amount of people I knew and met some really cool new people. Hanging with Jimmy and Nathan, I met such colorful characters as the legion of Norwegians who had just gotten back from summiting McKinley (In 9 days! Impressive!) who were in Anchorage just having a good time before going home, which apparently meant hitting on everything that moved and being effortlessly cool because they are from another country (they translate very well!). Of course, there actions were entirely logical when you realize that this was an outdoor concert for all ages on a gorgeous day, which means that every hot girl in Anchorage who hadn't been seen lately came out of their hiding spots to wear practically nothing and drink a lot. I'm going to go ahead and admit, that was not a negative. I also met an extremely cool girl named Jenn there, who not only bought me beer, but willingly came up to the front of the stage with me. I cannot even say how cool that is, as most people I have to essentially bribe to get them to go up front with me. She was so cool, I was motivated to ask her for her number and see if she wanted to hang out with me later. Yes the word later was used, implying on this day (Thursday) I would be going out to the bars afterwards. For future reference, the next day was hell on earth.

After the show, myself, Nathan, Jimmy, and Amy (who was also at the show) went downtown to meet Matt and Lloyd (of the Michael variety), who were already downtown polishing off beverages at Humpy's. That turned into a particularly crazy time, as much alcohol was consumed and because it was solstice everyone out at the bars is exceptionally crazy. I have to admit, going into the night, going by myself was weird and mildly scary. Great decision, it was an awesome, awesome time. That was the most motley crew I've ever hung out with, as I only hang out with Matt on a regular basis, but it turned out to be ridiculous fun. Plus, it's always nice to be out at the bars at 1 in the morning on a weekday and run into a coworker. It's even better when you run into about 10 of them! Yay us!

So after about an hour at Humpy's, we went down to Platinum Jaxx so I could go meet up with Jenn and do a little dancing. Here is another problem - when I seriously try to dance, I am terrible at it. When I do not try at all and just joke about it, I am amazing, if only for the fact that I don't care and it is just fun. I should always do that regardless of the situation. Given that I was trying to impress this girl, I should definitely not have tried to seriously dance. It turned out...well, let's call it poorly. I was actually so bad I left the dance floor to go hang out with my friends, purely out of shame. The good thing was, Jenn was awesome about it and she just continued on being a ridiculously good dancer (she can belly dance...yeah...that was nice) and having dance offs with the more talented folks out there.

I was entertained in every way imaginable by that, but probably not more entertained than the bachelorette party in the table next to ours was with Nathan. Bachelorette Parties are apparently ten times as crazy in reality as they are in the theoretical sense, as they were essentially taking every food imaginable (particularly whipped cream) and licking it off Nathan. It was amazingly funny, but I have no photographic evidence as given dark places my camera definitely does not shine in performance. A little bit after that, we decided to make our way out. I went to go bid Jenn a good evening, had a nice hug and what not and told her to call me, and made our way out to go back to my place and crash. So here we are, 2:30 in the morning and I have to be up at 6 for work. Oh boy. That sucked real, real bad. But you know what? It was worth every second. This is definitely one of those posts that won't sell the fun of the situation, but sometimes things just aren't done justice by words. This was most definitely one of those times. Of course, I left some of the more entertaining segments of the evening out because this a family blog and we don't want anyones virgin eyes/ears/minds poisoned. Yes Katie, I am watching out for you.

Also, for future reference, if someone says they are not drunk all night, always has empty drinks in front of them, and generally acts very strange all night, that apparently means they are ridiculously hammered. My poor carpet.