My favorite band

My plan for Saturday was simple on its face. Red Hook had boldly decided to bill their Hardscrabble Day as a music festival. Music had been present before, but the centerpiece was apple-related products and the contents of other people's garages for sale on card tables on the side of Route 9. They had attempted a few bands, even if their popularity was hazy through the mist of decades. Years ago, I attended a Patty Smyth (not Patti Smith) show in the parking lot where Amber charges her electric car, which I thought was fun once I remembered who Patty Smyth is.

I skim through the band list for this year. Red Hook has segregated them by the stage of life in which the Red Hookers (which must be our demonym) should enjoy them. The kiddy bands are right out. I can give an appreciative nod to the teen bands, but that is all I am giving them. I will not be some creepy childless adult leering from the edge of the tent at people for whom my greatest use is teaching them the subjunctive mood.

That left the adult bands: Irish step dancing, blues, and an all-women Tom Petty cover band irresistibly called The Tom Prettys. Then there is Candy Ambulance, billed as "grungy rock." Having the good fortune of being a teenager in the nineties, this would be perfect. When I see that their lead singer is a woman, doubly so. L7, Veruca Salt, Letters to Cleo, and early Hole made up a fair slice of my musical diet then.

As it would be more fun, I spend my grading hours Friday listening to their music on YouTube, so I can pretend to be their biggest fan. (My slight inspiration was an Improv Everywhere project where they became rabid fans of a band, Ghosts of Pasha, and cheered at their show. This does not end well.)

I listen to "Love Away" first. It's excellent and will clearly be an exception to their local-band inadequacy. I skim the list for the song most likely to be trash. Ah, "Titty Farts." Absolutely no way that is-- Oh. This might be my new favorite song in the world. I play through their albums -- they are not long -- and then replay them, not finding a song I wouldn't want to listen to on repeat (proven by the fact that I do). The lead singer can manage the range from Kay Hanley to Courtney Love, from cutesy to seductive to crude, from breathy to acidic. The structures of the songs are equally daring or simple but are not verse-chorus-verse. In short, they know what they are doing, and their lyrics lodge in my brain enough that I recite them to myself like a mantra.

You broke your collarbone when you were 12 years old
You never could have known that one day you would hold me
With a shaky foundation, and I hate to disappoint you
But all my relations keep pulling at my heels

Is this the musical equivalent of that movie trope where the guy goes on a date with the awkward girl as a prank and then falls hopelessly in love? I do not think I have ever so instantly adored a band that my taste for other music mutes.

The worst I can say about them is that they are about thirty years too late to be in heavy rotation on MTV and radio, as they deserve.

On my drive home, my phone exclusively plays my new favorite band.

I explain to Amber our schedule on Saturday. We have several chores, but I am explicit that it must culminate with Candy Ambulance. I cannot force her to listen to everything they have recorded -- even the cell phone bootlegs of concerts -- but I do make an attempt.

We arrive at the parking lot/concert venue half an hour before Candy Ambulance is supposed to go on (and an hour before they do because the previous band did not feel ready to leave the stage). The food truck where Amber wanted dinner has just closed, so we get a couple of wraps at Taste Budd's. Hers is too spicy, already putting her in a sour mood. She shoves the other half of her burrito wrap into my hands as my burden for suggesting it when she wanted a BLT.

As Candy Ambulance tunes up, Amber starts weeping. It is not because the music has so moved her as that she is feeling poorly, and her autism cannot deal with the sound and her lack of a camp chair. She points at the lights of the beer tent, which flicker with every bass chord -- and these will not be in short supply.

I say that I will forego seeing the best band in the entire world so we can get to a sensory safe distance, but she tells me that she will stay far away at a picnic table and I can do what I want. I hesitate a moment -- I am less of a fan of seeing my wife distraught -- then run off to stand at the corner of the tent.

They play "Titty Farts," for which I am grateful because I had no way of shouting my request. They play "Love Away." By the end, they'd played almost all my favorites.

I try to remain a dignified adult for one song, soon succumbing to dancing around. I may not be the only person dancing -- though I am not in much company there, as most people do have camp chairs -- but I am the most emphatic/least elegant about it. My heart races in delight. I have not been to a concert in so long, mainly because they overlap with Amber's bedtime, and this is precisely the sort of music that compels me to excitement.

I run back to check in on Amber between songs. She waves me away, saying she is fine, doesn't need me, and is playing on her phone. I take her at her word.

After the show, the lead singer, Caitlin Barker, says she will sit behind the merch table if anyone wants to talk to her. I wait in line, then gush over her band, assuring her that they are my favorite band as of twenty-four hours ago, which she takes well. I do not know how often she is told this, but I doubt it is often enough.

I buy a CD -- even though my only CD player is in my car. I would have bought a t-shirt, but I have too many. When I arrive home, I purchase all their digital music (and download the bootlegs from YouTube), so I never have to listen to anything else and can obsess thoroughly.

last watched: Unsolved Mysteries
reading: What If? 2