Sean Redmond

"You guys aren’t from around here, are you?"

My friend and I exchange uneasy glances as the officer beckons us to his car. It’s only 10pm, and while we are carrying small bottles of potentially conspicuous liquids, it seems hardly enough to warrant the attention of the Chi-town PD. We walk up to his window, anxiously awaiting what would come next. The policeman gestures toward the back seat.

"Why don’t you guys get in the car."

A few minutes later, we find ourselves dropped off in front of an old warehouse building, our destination on Wolcott street near Union Park, greeted by a small coterie of puzzled onlookers. "Did you guys get a ride from the cops?" one guy asks incredulously. With uneasy laughs we explain the situation. Apparently, the conscientious officer had given us a ride merely out of concern for our safety. And while he couldn’t quite believe we were really looking for a concert, the sight of the building must have jogged his memory, for we could hear him muttering to himself as we got out of the car: "Must be having another one of those rave things again."

And so we arrive at the elusive Lazer Crystal’s house, neither mugged nor lost and, thankfully, not arrested. According to the wonderful treasure trove of information that is the internet, the show was supposed to start at 8pm. We knew we were arriving late to the scene, but hey, with a four-band bill, we could live without a couple openers.

The place, however, is surprisingly quiet. As we follow our fellow attendees through the gate, a strange dearth of guitars, drums and synthesizers hangs in the air. Maybe we’d arrived between acts? Could we possibly have missed it all already?

But no—the show has yet to begin. In fact, you can count the building’s inhabitants on two hands. Everything is dark; speakers blare from a corner of the room, valiantly attempting to make up for the absence of their live-action counterparts. Someone solicits me for a five, and in the process, I catch a glimpse of the night’s acts. Apparently the start time wasn’t the only thing my computer lied to me about, because of the four acts I came in expecting to see, three of them have been replaced. Pressing for more information on the schedule switch-up, all I can gather is that "they don’t know what happened to them."

Feeling none-too-reassured, my friend and I wander into the kitchen to wait for who-knows-who at Lord-knows-when. We strike up a few conversations with tenants and a guy from the Videohippos, one of the night’s headlining acts. It feels as if we’ve invaded somebody’s home, and the young woman eating dinner at the other end of the table doesn’t help the awkwardness any. My liter of not-quite-ginger ale, however, does, and I strike up a conversation with a cute girl sitting a few feet away. I whip out the tried and true, fail-proof opener:

"So, do you live here?"

"Me?" she replies. "No, I’m performing. I’m Lizz King."

"Oh, you’re in Lizz King?" I ask with surprise. They’d been on the original bill, one of the acts that had supposedly gone M.I.A.

She laughs. "No, no, I am Lizz King."

"Ah." I laugh off my faux-pas as she informs me of her humble West Virginia origins and her recent discovery of pitchforkmedia.com. People who are neither performing nor living there finally begin to filter in, and by 11:30pm the first act takes the proverbial—and in this case non-existent—stage. Sprawled out on the floor, relaxing against the base of an old couch and taking in the gloriously lo-fi tunes, I realize just how nice it is to get away from the traditional security guarded, ID-checking city venues.

Just don’t show up ‘til three and a half hours past starting time.

(2007-08-10)

Also by Sean Redmond

Tip of the Week
The Field Museum expands its already impressive Native American collection with a special showcase on the Crow people, a group that originated in the Ohio Valley before joining with the Hidatsa tribe along the Missouri River
(2007-08-07)

The Trouble with Transhumanists
This is TransVision 2007, where transhumanists the world over gather to discuss issues such as immortality, space colonization and the emergence of the post-human
(2007-07-31)

Tip of the Wee
Immediately upon entering the Field Museum’s "Darwin" exhibit, a number of all-too-important and all-too-easy-to-forget truths are brought to the visitor’s attention
(2007-07-31)

Filibusting
"This is what we call a rapid response action," explains MoveOn.org volunteer Sylvia Wilkerson as a handful of middle- to older-aged women mill about the tiny memorial situated at the intersection of Belmont, Ashland and Lincoln. The protest is about to start, and the group expects a good fifty to sixty participants to show up for the "counter-filibuster," organized in response to a filibuster Republican senators held to prevent a vote on the Levin-Reed amendment
(2007-07-24)

Tip of the Week
(2007-07-02)

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