Burn This Disco Out.

Remember when DJ Tanner went to Disney World right after she broke up with Steve and kept seeing his face everywhere? I think I'm in that situation right now.

Disney World = Europe
D.J. Tanner = moi
Steve = Chicago

I spent the weekend in Amsterdam (totally love saying that casually) and the entire time I could not shake the feeling of my lovely Midwestern city. Chicago is not built on canals and the citizens do not speak Dutch but something about the friendly people and the big streets and cute boutiques brought me back to Bucktown. Or maybe I'm just secretly slipping into homesick phase.

Thursday night didn't help. I bullied my friends into checking out the Plants and Animals concert with me in a somewhat unfamiliar part of town. The night started out a little rough as we tried to track each other down around the nineteen million Metro exits and then walked through some questionable crowds along the canal before actually finding the venue. We were 45 minutes late and slightly concerned since we didn't know the protocol for Parisian concert punctuality.

If I hadn't been holding my Metro map, I would've sworn I had just walked into Empty Bottle in downtown Chicago. It was a tiny, dark place attached to a bigger restaurant where everyone stood in small clumps listening to the band. The fact that both the opening act (who we were not late for) and Plants and Animals sang totally in English didn't help my back-at-home sentiments. I did, however, keep getting those "Oh yeah! I'm in Paris!" reminders whenever the song would end and they'd warm up to the crowd in French. We were thrilled that he spoke like us (we could hear the break between words, and he used 4th semester style sentence structures.)

I won't try to claim musical intellect right now, Plants and Animals are one of my pseudo-familiar iPod bands, but if the lead singer walked by me on the street I'd be oblivious. Still I couldn't be happier that we went to go see them. It breaks my heart a bit that I haven't attended these concerts all along (I dropped the ball on M.Ward, CocoRosie... Q Tip.) I also made a fool out of myself awkwardly interrupting the conversation the lead singer was having after the show to tell him we enjoyed the concert.

"You'll be at Lollapalooza this year right!?"
"Uh, no. Pitchfork. Ugh."

Alright, asshole, throw me a bone here. You would be at Pitchfork, and you would be offended that I said the wrong Chicago summer music festival.

I digress.

It was a feel-good show, and it was refreshing to be surrounded by a different type of Parisian crowd. (I bet you can't guess how many black wayfarer glasses I spotted.) Plants and Animals are lucky because they could've played a real out-of-tune set, and I would not have known the difference since I was so entranced by the Chicago-esque atmosphere.

But no worries, I'm not ready to say au revoir to France quite yet. I still need to fill my upcoming weeks with jardin picnics and Marais thrift stores and South of France excursions.

I'll leave you with this horrifying note: In two days it will be JUNE.