Last night I went to a music show at the Horse. My friends' band opened, and the headliners were Eyes That Are Not Wearing Clothes (name changed so the bandleader doesn't find this upon self-googling, for reasons that are about to become clear). They had two pretty big hits in the 80s, back before I went to concerts at all, so I was kind of excited to hear some awesome vintage synth-y pop live. Unfortunately only about 12 other people felt the same way, as the place was a ghost town. Even more unfortunately, band leader and sole original band member treated the night like a sold-out arena show, though we were sparsely scattered over the room and nobody was sitting at all within 20 feet of the stage. He gave one of the hit songs a really big build up as he paced the stage, saying, "we've got a dance floor cleared here for you ... and if you can't dance to this, then you just can't dance!" Nobody got up to dance. Then, during the well-known chorus, he held the mic out to the non-existent crowd to sing into. I was glad it was dark in there because I was blushing with embarrassment for him. I'm blushing a little right now, remembering it. Compounding all of this is that the band leader is a very nice guy, and clearly loves playing his music, even if it is 20 years old. So it's not like we could laugh at him like he was a big tool; he was just doing his thing the way he thought it should be done, and was trying to give us the show he thought we wanted to see. We just felt awkward and sad and mostly, really really uncomfortable. I have heard that this band recently toured with a few other 80's hitmakers, and it sounds like that would be a much better fit.

Tonight is triviaoke again. And yes, we came in first again last week, which makes it our fifth time as Super Elite Champions. Tonight our star player might not be able to make it, and we're trying to decide if we should go anyway and just expect to lose. And be pleasantly surprised if we even crack the top three. I think we should.