Manu Chao Live in San Francisco 5/30/07

This was quite possibly the best or one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to. I didn’t even know they were playing until I drove by the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on the way home from work. I pass it every day. While stuck in traffic, I saw the marqui was advertising Manu Chao. I decided to search for tickets. They were, of course, sold out. Then…I found people on craigslist who were selling extra tickets and scored a pair and suprised Ted at work with the idea.

The same day of the concert, we donated T’s old clunker car. It doesn’t run, the emergency brake doesn’t work. I ended up agreeing with the tow truck guy that I would help him get the car from the garage to the other side of the street where he parked the tow truck. (I live on a very busy street and a huge hill in an urban part of San Francisco.) I had never driven my husband’s car before, because it’s a stickshift, it stopped running, and even as far as stickshifts go, it was tempermental and only a few people knew how to start it. Well, it had been sitting for so long in the garage that the battery had died long ago. The tow truck guy and I decided that it would be okay to put the car in neutral and have me steer as he pushed from the front. Well, by the time I realized that I couldn’t quite reach the clutch, we were already rolling backwards down the hill and to make matters worse–the parking break didn’t work. I tried to adjust the seat, but I couldn’t quite do it with my foot still on the brake. So, the tow guy had to come around the side and reach through the window and shift the gear for me as I put both feet on the brake and clutch. I had never driven a stick shift before in my life. My first lesson was with a total stranger in a car that didn’t run, rolling backwards down a hill into oncoming traffic. Typical kind of debacle I would get myself into! I’m scared. I told the tow guy. He reassured me, and talked me through it. And finally we got everything organized, we got the car somehow to stay in place while parked up hill, though the parking brake didn’t work, and it almost hit my own car which was parked across the street. Then he backed up with the tow truck and got the car. Right after this, a bunch of cars came up the street and we both almost got hit, but we came out okay.

I had backed it all the way accross the street. My first driving lesson with a manual transmission completed. After that, it was definitely time let off some steam.

It was my early anniversary present to Ted. Celebrations were in order.

After T got off work, We made ourselves two Cuba Libres before we left, sucked them down as quickly as possible without chugging, and we hopped on the electric bus to downtown.

We rode the bus down to the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium and went to the Manu Chao show. All the fans were cool. People were crammed in to the area. While dancing, I snuck my camera out of my purse, and captured two choice very small moments from the concert.

I know that while filming, it’s not a good idea to dance at the same time, but I couldn’t help myself. It was so much fun. Two of my favorite moments from my favorite songs:

So

I also found some cool manu chao videos on myspace. One is more documentary style and has interviews. (It’s very short). And the other is a music video. I like Manu Chao because they remind me of listening to a friends’ band jam.

I feel like listening to them is like sitting around with a bunch of people late at night and one of your friends starts rocking out on the guitar. There is something very human and unfiltered about their music. Also, it’s unapologetically lo-fi, but at the same time a mixture of crazy electronic sounds, punk, a kind of ska and reggae with a Latin flavor and lyrics that are both fun and have a political message at times if you can understand the Spanish, French and Portuguese.

Manu Chao

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Manu Chao “Desaparecido”

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Here are some pics I snapped from the show. I’m not the greatest photographer and the lighting didn’t make it very easy to shoot photos, but it was fun to document the scene.

And afterwards, we walked out of the theatre to this view. We ran with the crowds to the muni, went to the Castro and ate late night fried greasy diner food and milkshakes. Then we went home and crashed. It was a fun time, and what I feel like is the beginning of a really fun summer. Full of lots of work (which I don’t have the heart to write about yet), but also lots of fun. I hope it continues. Life is so short, we need to have more fun in it.