A quick respite from politics. Just for a second.
Something pretty fun and unusual happened this weekend, even by Brooklyn (or, I guess it's technically Queens) standards: A disparate collection of great bands played a gig...in a Chinese super-buffet...near an elevated train line.
The tuneful and mellow Real Estate rubbed shoulders with the harsh, noisy dissonance of Black Dice and the garagey stomp of the Babies. All three are New York bands, but Black Dice started in the '90s in Providence, Rhode Island. Real Estate and the Babies have roots in New Jersey and Brooklyn.
A lot of people came. Several of those people ate at the buffet before it closed up shop for the night and the booze came out. The place felt like a pleasant mix between a VFW hall, a tiki bar and a bowling alley lounge.
It seems that the whole point of something like this -- in a city teeming with both legal and perhaps not-so-legal music venues -- was to be creative and offer a little respite from the typical show-in-a-rock-club experience.
And we're all thankful for it. The show was an enjoyable mess that started way later than planned but was long on oddity and charm.
This person didn't like it, but that's going to happen.
Here's some video of Real Estate playing the tune "It's Real" at the K&K Super Buffet in Ridgewood, Queens.