Surprise: I like Tilly and The Wall

Sometimes, things just fall into place and turn out fantastically. Later, you look back at the chain of events that led you to where you are and feel amazed that you got from Point A to Here via that particular string of coincidences.

On a small scale, such a thing happened to me last weekend. I was flipping through radio stations on my way back from the Hillsboro shops, and stumbled upon a song called "Let's Pretend We're In Antarctica," playing on the local college radio station (broadcast from the campus of Vanderbilt University). It was poppy-catchy and had me doing that tippy-head dance within five notes. After the song was over, the announcer said the song was by a band named Of Montreal, who happened to be playing at The End (venue) that Tuesday night.

If you listen to much college radio, you will realize that having a DJ tell you the name of a band and mention that they're playing locally is a great rarity. It is more likely that you will hear 30 songs before you'll ever hear the announcer's voice, and if they happen to mention who is playing, it is in an undistinguishable mutter so that you'll never know if they said Yellow, Mellow, or some other word that was perhaps made up by two 20 year old guitarists who were drunk at the time and thought Brello was a really clever name for a band.

So, feeling that the stars were aligned, I went home and wrote "Of Montreal/The End/9 p.m./$8" on my calendar and determined to go.

I did all the anal retentive prep that someone over 30 with a day job does before attending a show: MapQuesting my route to the venue, calling to make sure the band was still playing, eating a dinner that would keep me full but not weigh me down, choosing a t-shirt that is both cool and comfortable (I went with my Unlearn t-shirt with the plugs on it), putting on my most durable footwear (which just so happened to match my shirt), and leaving the house at a time calculated to give me maximum time at the concert, but minimum time standing in line outside or waiting around for the first band to play. If I was really organized, I would have fit in a nap before the concert, but I'm not much of a napper, so I just caffinated and hoped for the best.

The highlight of the evening (outside of the music parts) was the greeting I got from the doorman. When I stepped up with my $8 in hand, he looked at me, smiled, and said, "Wow!" in an awestruck voice. Immediately convinced that Southerners really are the best people in the world, I smiled back confidently, said "Hello!" and handed over my ID. Seconds later he explained that I looked exactly like his friend Rachel, whom he had not seen in 10 years and who he would have never expected to see in Nashville. Nonetheless buoyed by such a reception, mistaken identity or not, I entered The End with a feeling of great delight and anticipation.

The first band was The Bubblegum Complex (represented as TBGC on CBGB lookalike t-shirts). They seemed very casual about their performance, and I got the feeling that they didn't play out often, had full-time jobs, and were over the dream that they might one day "make it big." The lead singer was fond of guitar feedback (I am not at all a fan of guitar feedback) and didn't have a great voice, so I hunkered down and put on my "survival" mindset (since Les and I don't like the same music usually, my survival mindset is well-developed to the point that I can listen to nearly anything for an hour -- try me!). They did get better as they went along and ended up sounding pleasant around song 4 or 5. They only played about 5 or 6 songs, and ended on a high note in my book. Not enough to buy a CD of their stuff, but enough that I won't look back on their performance as one of the low-points of my concert-going experiences.

It was time for band #2, another band I had never heard of called Tilly and The Wall. I thought their name was really goofy and expected the worst, taking a "one more band to get through before I finally get to hear the band I came to see" attitude and moving back further from the stage.

The band came out on stage stomping, clapping, and chanting, and the crowd went wild. I instantly felt out of the "cool loop." Who are these Tilly people, and why does everyone love them? Maybe it was just the peer pressure of being surrounded by 80 college students who thought Tilly and The Wall were awesome, but I liked them, too. The two girls who were singing were beautiful and were having fun on stage, the keyboard player was embodying the "tortured artist" persona, long hair blocking the front of his face and not smiling, and the lead guitarist/singer was a complex character with a lisp and a rockin' attitude. The surprise was the third girl on stage. She didn't have a mic even though she was singing along to all the songs, so why was she there? By the middle of song #2, the whole audience realized it. She was the percussion section. But instead of playing drums, she was tap-dancing the rhythm to every song, complete with the traditional arm movements seen in tap-dance recitals everywhere! A guy behind me voiced the thought in my head, "This is the weirdest thing I've ever seen!" Yet, you had to love them, to think they were the coolest people ever, and really get into the perfomance and music.

When I described Tilly and The Wall to Les after the concert and tried to explain what made them cool, these were my words: Imagine you're in high school in the 80s and there is this group of fun misfit friends who truly cool people realize are really cool even though they're a little strange, and then this group of misfit friends starts a band and the music is kind of dorky and simple but because the people in the band are such good people, you really want to see them succeed and so you actually supress the inner voice who says "tap-dancing percussion is really dumb" or "who sings songs with these kinds of lyrics" and you, in the most innocent and fun version of yourself, throw caution to the wind and dance to these simple songs, singing along "They realized there was a hole in the boat, and with no lifesaver you try your best to float" and "I thought you'd come and go. I never thought you would stay. And I'm sorry if I tried to push you away." And you realize that this is the most fun you've had in a long time.

Of Montreal was pretty good, but Tilly and The Wall stole the show away.