Journey
The magical day for our trip to New York arrived and I was still struggling with stupid excess acid in my stomach. I packed a bag of Kaishi cereal, fearing that I may not be able to eat anything else on the trip, but thinking I might save a lot of money living off whole wheat cereal. Flew through Toronto to get to NYC and enjoyed seatback tv and video selection on both flights, which I have to mention because it was really nice. The Toronto airport terminal was new and we enjoyed this very cool installation piece.


Arrival
Took a cab to the super budget hotel in the Upper West Side where we were staying. The ride through the Upper East and West Sides, plus Central Park was beautiful. We were immediately impressed by lovely brownstone buildings, with Huxtable-esque steps and quaint streets running off bustling thoroughfares. The hotel was fine, no complaints, especially since it was basically free given the package price we paid. We soon hit the town to go meet G for dinner and drinks before the Faithless concert. It had been over 3 years since we had seen G, who was our "flatmate" in Brighton. Dinner was at a lovely place called Cafe Brahma in the East village. The owners were Polish and they gave me some herbal remedy used by Polish monks for my stomach. The bitter liquid...along with the doctors prescription, Advil and liquid Maalox... seemed to do the trick because I felt ok throughout the evening and woke up feeling much better.
Faithless Concert
G had made friends with Monika who works at Cafe Brahma and she came to the show with us. We went into Webster Hall and discovered that the first room was dedicated to rollerskating. Yes, rollerskating. Some of the oldest patrons in the room seemed to be in their 70's with shorts pulled up high and saggy boobs (they were men). We stood there in awe imagining that every Wednesday for the past 40+ years, Webster Hall had been hosting rollerskating. The lights were flashing and the music was pumping. We tried to get a good photo with a long exposure but found it hard to capture any skaters.
Waiting for the concert to begin I was surprised to find a complete lack of scene-sters, or the usual funk-ed up people that show up at concerts. My experience with shows in Vancouver and Winnipeg is that people wearing the coolest outfits come crawling out of the woodwork and you wonder where these people usually hang out. Here everyone was so normal. Jeans and a t-shirt normal. The opening dj totally hit my fancy and I was pleased to hear artists like Tracey Thorn and Erlend Oye being played in public.
When the show began, the floor was shaking so much from the weight of people jumping up and down, I thought we might fall in. Maxi Jazz is rapping, there are bongo drums and 2 guitars, while Sister Bliss with 6 keyboards to pound out the tunes that Faithless is famous for. The room is not that big and though it was full, it was not even sold out. In Europe they sell out stadiums. Luckily I had seen a video of a live performance so I knew that Maxi Jazz live would be raspier and more sped up compared to the album sound I was used to. We started out very close to the front but by the end I was dead front and centre. I've read some other blogs on the show and everyone seemed to be impressed at the amount of dancing that was going on. Apparently it was unusual for a New York show. See pictures below.



Of course it was over way too fast and we were back out on the street with ringing ears. We went for slice pizza and learned that New York style pizza is thin with a crispy bottom and very little grease. In other words...tasty! G and Monika are enjoying their slices below. Spent a bit of time at a bar called Tribe! (so Grade 8 perfume huh ladies?) before taking a cab to the hotel.
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