REMINISCING WITH STRANGERS: The 10-year reunion of East Lake High School's Class of 1994 ably reinforced those fundamental differences between ingrained TV-and-movie representations of such traditional events, and the real-life events themselves. I didn't run into my unrequited teen-years crush and find out she felt the same way. I didn't try to treat my former varsity-athlete adversary with respect until his unrelenting jibes forced me to treat him to an ass-kicking, complete with years of compounded interest. I didn't even get beaten up myself, only to be led out by my fellow loser best friend who later lets me sleep with her out of pity.
Of course, maybe none of that happened because I graduated in '89, from a high school about 1,000 miles from the Bay area.
Then again, none of that appeared to happen to anybody else, either, so there you go. Instead, the slim percentage of East Lake's nearly 400 '94 grads who made it to the Clearwater Beach Hilton hugged, drank, danced and generally comported themselves with an encouraging lack of awkwardness. (While the crowd of less than 100 seemed thin to me, the reunion horror stories told by non-East Lake dates and spouses seemed to paint the evening as, at least in terms of turnout, a rousing success.) Peaches was a bit discomfited by the dearth of folks from her erstwhile drama club/Smiths-fan crew, but hey, did she really expect 'em to show?
The beef was good. The chicken was not. A guy named Rolf had the time of his life, then burned himself with my Zippo. The slide show was delayed interminably — damn you, digital technology! — but eventually provided a poignant climax to the evening, after which alumni were free to unobtrusively honor their partners' pleas for escape. And in the end, nothing broke down the last vestiges of high-school cliquery as effectively as that greatest of all lame-party social levelers, "The Electric Slide."
SOUTH FOR THE SUMMER: Birdie has its migratory instincts all screwed up. It's a malady that benefited local new-music fans on Saturday, July 24, when the Los Angeles-based indie-pop outfit — fronted by one Jared Flamm, former Gainesville resident and no stranger to Bay area stages — played a low-key road gig at St. Pete hipster haven/dive bar Emerald.
The bar was still startlingly clean in some places (particularly the Men's Room) from a top-to-bottom scrubbing during last month's annual week-long closing. It also boasted an all-time low secondhand-smoke quotient and uncharacteristically subdued atmosphere. The lack of the usual rowdy dull roar worked perfectly for Birdie, whose piano-driven dynamics and four-part harmonies fare better as arresting experience than background noise.
The band's easygoing presence was almost as entertaining as their eclectic, loosely rendered tunes; at one point, a cake was brought down front, and Flamm led the crowd through "Happy Birthday" in honor of bassist and Jacksonville native Joe McElroy. It was cool to see a band so musically ambitious yet so unaffected, in such an intimate environment.
As opposed to, oh, I don't know …
… PUNKAPALOOZA: The traveling cavalcade of punk rock, extreme sports and fringe-lifestyle commerce known as the Vans Warped Tour commandeered St. Pete's picturesque Vinoy Waterfront Park last Friday. This was the Vinoy's second year hosting the tour, which has occupied various Bay area venues at other times over the course of its 10-year run.
Oddly, Warped's 10th-anniversary turn around the country features what some fans might consider a comparatively weak lineup. (Or at least the Pinellas date did — the slate of groups shifts and changes over the course of the tour.) While the old (Bad Religion, NOFX) and new (Story of the Year, From Autumn to Ashes) schools were ably represented, several traditional Warped showcase acts, such as A.F.I., Rancid and Alkaline Trio, were notably absent. However, the dearth of usual suspects didn't deter thousands and thousands of kids from descending upon Old Northeast with the intention of finding out exactly why you're not supposed to dress in black from head to toe and run around outside for eight hours in July.
Over 100 attendees were treated for various degrees of heat exhaustion; more than 20 ended up taking ambulance rides to nearby hospitals. Those with enough cash to keep themselves in three-dollar, 12-ounce bottles of water avoided such a fate, and spent a marathon afternoon pinballing among the show's dozen or so stages and countless kiosks hawking everything from skateboarding shoes to cellular service.
It's impossible to present a comprehensive report on the day in the allotted space, so, in the name of brevity, and hopefully capturing some of the event's highlights, allow me to present the First Annual Scene & Herd Warped Tour Awards:
BEST LOCAL-BAND EXPOSURE: Having scored one of the latest slot-times for the locals-heavy Ernie Ball Stage, modern-rock outfit Soulfound entertained the largest throng to assemble in front of a Bay area act.
BEST LOCATION FOR WITNESSING A POTENTIAL CATFIGHT: The water fountain at the south end of the park. A gaggle of power-drunk high-school girls held up the line interminably, providing more tension and near-fistfights than any of the day's mosh pits.
BEST MYTH: The presence of an ATM. None of the merchants accepted credit cards this year, and while all of them claimed there was a cash machine around, nobody could say exactly where. Maybe it was Warped's subtle take on subverting consumer culture — product, product everywhere, and not a buck to spend.
BEST ILL-ADVISED FASHION STATEMENT: The last-minute Mohawk. Lighters for smokers were unnecessary; one could simply touch the business end of one's cigarette to the broiling scalp of any of a hundred kids who decided to bust out the clippers in the car on the way to the show, but who forgot to bring sunscreen.
SCOTT.HARRELL@WEEKLYPLANET.COM
This article appears in Aug 5-11, 2004.