On Wednesday of this week, my good friend, kennedy, told me that she was going to see a concert on Friday: Cold War Kids. I asked if I could crash her party and grab my own ticket. She responded with a feverish head node and excited, "YES!".I get on Cold War Kids website. No tour dates.
I text kennedy: Venue?
She texted back: On Houston Street?
Me: Are you asking me?
Her: No, thats all I know.
I chuckle.
I look up multiple venues, even some NOT on Houston, in case that is really all kennedy knows, I might be in for a goose chase. mercury lounge-miss. national underground- miss. pianos- nope. than I got less creative and chucked the idea.
Me: Listen, I can't find it anywhere. can you find out the venue.
Her: Oh, there is no venue. It's a secret concert.
Me: Right.
So in the end she got me a ticket. Around 9:15pm on friday night, I meet her at the path, immediately joined by kimball and his not-yet-tattooed-arm, and we walked to the "undisclosed location" on Houston.
We had no idea where we were going.
Luckily for us, at the exact moment we got to Houston, near the west side highway, a small little man with an earpiece appeared and asked us if we were going to see the concert. When we responded yes, he replied, "Go straight, make a left, and follow the green lights."
Munchkin? Yellow Brick Road? Creepy sex party with lots of leather and Tom Cruise wanna-bes? ANYONE!?
Sure enough, we round the corner and what should appear? A heaven of Heineken and two trailers of port-a-jons.
In all seriousness, kennedy's office had put up a flyer, "HOSTED BY HEINEKEN" a night of music, in an warehouse space on the west side highway. We waited in line for about 5 minutes, put green plastic wristbands on and were ushered into a astroturf college haven of games, after answering these 4 simple questions:
Your age
You sex
Have you drank a beer in the last 30 days?
What is you ethnicity?
The 5 of us all had difficulty with the final one. It was extremely dark out.
We set foot on the astroturf and you would have thought we were children in Never Never Land. There were adirondack chairs under beach umbrellas next to foosball tables and Wii consoles. Two sets of corn hole were being dominated by lovely dressed Manhattan fresh-bloods. We could hear a dj in the larger warehouse room. Green was the dominating color. and the beer!
There were buckets... everywhere!! Free for the taking? We weren't quite sure. So we walked up to the bar... with no tip jar, or cash register. WHAT WAS GOING ON!?! There were signs on the adjacent walls: BEVERAGES: REUBENS: DIM SUM: FALAFALS :HOT DOGS: SILK SCREENING T-SHIRTS.
What had we stumbled upon!?!? EVERYTHING WAS FREE!!!!
Did you take it in yet? Not only were we going to see Rogue Wave and Cold War Kids rock out on a free ticket, we were going to be able to drink Heineken and eat fair food for the entire night! FoR fREe!!!!
Alright, so after the initial shock of it, the mission of collecting the glass Heineken beer glasses ensued. We drank as we rode the Wave through a Good Morning and Lake Michigan. I found out that Something Is Not Right With Me when I had an Audience with the Kids. Our feet pounding the concrete, we pushed the preppy dressed drunks with our elbows, made friends with Germans who work in the "bank", and had multiple hot dogs.
3am. I'm crawling into bed, with kennedy at my side, giggling about the fact that we just had a New York night, like no other. And I'll be able to wear my green drums on silk screen to prove it.
Thank you Heineken. You have revived the idea of good promoting. And Theo. Thank you Theo.
No comments:
Post a Comment