Arcade Fire Rules My World

arcadefire
Originally uploaded by mikewade

This past Saturday, I took a little break from knitting the interminable wooly cake of Pagewood Farms (don't you love how I manage to keep the knitting references) and joined my good friend, Matty, for a rather exceptional performance from Montreal's Arcade Fire. They were recently written up in the New Yorker and I heard an encore presentation of Fresh Air today with them as the main guests. You can even check them out by going here for a concert presented by NPR.

Matty hadn't seen our new place in Berkeley and, much to my shock, he informed me that he hadn't seen Anthony since Robert Allen's birthday in New Orleans (and well before Anthony's aneurysm in 2004). That was about 4 years ago, if memory serves correctly, so it's been way too long. The main reason for the delay has been Matty's adventures overseas in Japan & Italy and on the other coast, but as of late, there haven't been too many wheelchair accessible events for Anthony to join.

Matty and I had a lovely dinner at Venus in downtown Berkeley and then headed over to the UC Berkeley Greek Theatre for some AF loving. The weather wasn't too terribly cold in spite of the fog and we warmed up after dancing around a bit. I'm so impressed with the wall of sound that Arcade Fire create and the even more amazing ENERGY of their live performance. If you don't have their album "Neon Bible" yet, run don't walk to your local independent music purveyor.

Sunday was almost as lovely, but it's hard to compete with Venus and Arcade Fire. Running a close second for a most fabulous time was brunch with Scott, David and Robert. We took advantage of the GORGEOUS sunny weather (anyone who knows SF in the summer should realize this is an extreme rarity) and walked ourselves over to Luna for nibbles. I enjoyed the french toast with a side of crunchy bacon and I even snuck a couple of Robert's garlic fries. I didn't have a mimosa (cafe creme pour moi)... but that reminds me of my new favorite drink (special thanks to Scottsky for this one): champagne with a St. Germain float.

OH. MY. GOODNESS.

St. Germain is a liqueur made from elderflowers and it imparts the most lovely refreshing goodness to what already is the perfect brunch beverage. I had two before leaving Scott's which is why I opted for coffee at Luna.

After the repast, my arm was twisted and we retreated to Robert's secret garden where I had too much to drink (wine, campari cocktails) and not enough nibbles to balance it all out. The highlight of the day was playing in Robert's thriving succulent garden (many pieces were cuttings I have given to him from our old garden). Even though the brisk winds started flinging the lounge chairs around, we were able to enjoy the last bits of summer weather, before heading into the apartment for show and tell from Mr. Allen.

Next up, my lace-y knitting progress.... don't get your hopes too high.