sucking face wilco style

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Wednesday, March 11th, 2009

sucking face wilco style

i subscribe to only 2 magazines: relevant & paste. i love them both and i would recommend you check them out. one of the aspects i love in each is the great writing—writing that strikes a balance between a casual tone, humor, sincerity and just good writing.
in the march/april issue of paste, matt price—a writer out of l.a.—wrote a hilarious piece about standing behind a couple who made out through an entire wilco concert. i think many of us can identify with this kind of story (for me, it was an al green concert and, generally speaking, any random drunken douchebag i’ve ever sat next to at a razorback football game), so i thought i would share it here.
(for those who have delicate eyes and ears: this has some not-so-sugar-coated language, so consider yourself warned.)

An Open Letter to the Couple Making Out at the Wilco Concert
By Matt Price | Illustration by Meg Hunt

Dear couple making out directly in front of me at the Wilco concert,

First things first—not cool. While I appreciate that your love of Wilco propels you into a two-and-a-half-hour make-out session, I did not appreciate that this happened three feet in front of me, beginning the moment my favorite band launched into its first song of the evening (“You Are My Face”). You took the title of that song very literally, trying to get inside each other’s faces for 150 minutes straight.

Let me clarify that I’m not some pervert who enjoys watching strangers make out.

In fact, the only time I’ve uncomfortably stared at random people making out for any length of time was at a very tepid game of Truth or Dare at Camp Echo in seventh grade. But even that awkward introduction to sexuality was much less brutal than my imprisonment in seat 218, row M of the middle orchestra section of The Greek Theatre in Griffith Park. Let me also say that I am not writing this because I once took a date to an Arcade Fire show and she spent most of the night making out behind the bathrooms with her ex-boyfriend who “just happened to be at the show without her knowing it.” I did not believe my date’s story, nor did I believe her when he told me at the Coffee Bean a few weeks later that she never called me again because she thought I’d move out of the country.

But you, Wilco make-out couple, all but re-enacted an X-rated film not one yard away from me. (Sidenote: X-rated versions of Wilco album titles I thought of during the show included A Ghost is Porn and Yank My Hotel Fox Cock. Summerteeth also works, unchanged. But you probably don’t appreciate these hilarious Wilco-album-names-turned-porn-titles because if you did, it would mean that you’re a fan of the band, which you’re not, otherwise you wouldn’t have been making out from the minute Wilco walked on stage to the time they played their second encore, you selfish jerks.)

But I digress. We’ve all heard the complaints about cell-phone abusers. We know those people suck ass. I’m talking about you people who suck face. Do you thin Jeff Tweedy would be happy knowing about the suffering of the good people in Row M (and probably tows N-W, judging by the heckling that came from behind, including my favorite: “Let her come up for air, jerkwad!”) “What do I care what Jim Tweedy thinks?” you say. 1) His name is Jeff Tweedy, and 2) you should care, because he’s the lead singer of the band you paid money to see.

Look, I understand we spend so much time isolated in our Bluetooth-wearing, Facebook-status-updating, Twittering bubble that we forget that—when we’re out in public, actually breathing the same air as other human beings—there are proper ways to behave. But there are. So if you read this letter, and you still feel the need to make out all night at a Wilco concert, just consider doing it by the bathroom (like my Arcade Fire date did after I paid $35 for her ticket, not including dinner and the four glasses of Shiraz she ordered beforehand at her favorite Italian restaurant).

And if you insist on staying in the seats you paid for, and you still want o make out with your shoulder-tattooed girlfriend, remember that you’re surrounded by thousands of people, the vast majority of whom have shitty jobs which they endure all year long in order to pay for a ticket to go see their favorite band’s annual appearance tin their hometown. And this admission fee does not include watching you—or anyone else with a fauxhawk and hoodie—make out for two hours. And if you still have to be punks and brazenly make out at concerts with absolutely no regard for the laws of public decency, then at least stop sticking your hands in each other’s back pockets. That’s just irritating. And so John Hughes.

Best regards,
Matt