Night on the town with Joe Jackson
April 2003
by Michael Walls

2 Walls Webzine held it's first offsite meeting this weekend (Saturday, April 12, 2003) in NYC. Not sure if we actually accomplished anything resembling editorial content, but anytime you come away from a meeting with plenty of laughs, a belly full of food, a few less brain cells, and your ears ringing from the evening's entertainment – it can be called a success.

My wife and I met up with Stephan Finch and his wife near Union square, then hooked up with Mike Webb, Alexander Washburn and Chris Orcutt and his girlfriend in front of the Strand Bookstore. The Strand is a Manhattan landmark, boasting the world's largest collection of books in one spot. Anytime you need to fill up a library with books to impress your friends, come on down to the Strand and grab a couple hundred books off the "$1 and under" rack.

The Strand seemed like a good spot to meet, since it was situated near the subway, plus it held some sentimental value due to Chris donating several years of his life working there. We didn't hang out long, as Chris didn't want to run into anybody he knew.

From there, we jumped the L train across the river to Williamsburg, Brooklyn and wandered around a bit. Someone mentioned the fact that at around 5 million people, if Brooklyn was it's own city, it would be the third largest in the country.

Webb led us to a very swanky Thai restaurant called Sea, and for a moment I wasn't sure we were hip enough to get in. But after some intense negotiations on Webb's part (speaking fluent Thai) we were led to our table. The food was amazing. They had the most delicious mussels I've ever had. For dinner, I ordered some sort of noodle dish with shrimp and veggies, and asked the waiter if they were spicy. When he said "no" I asked him to make them spicy. He gave me a snotty smirk, and 12 hours later I knew why.

Dinner conversation consisted of baseball, music, Joe Jackson, and beer. This was the first time I'd met Alexander, even though we calculated we had "known" each other via website writing for nearly 3 years. Turns out, he's exactly the way I imagined he'd be. But apparently he was expecting a bit more out of me, and thought I had a goatee for some reason.

We piled out of Sea just as the swanky crowd was arriving and walked several blocks in search of the Warsaw, which was our ultimate destination. We finally found it in a less swanky, but more "old world charm" neighborhood. The Warsaw is situated in a very Polish section of Brooklyn, thus the name of the old theatre. We were actual a bit early, so decided to seek out a local watering hole to quell the thirst we developed in our half hour walk.

We came across the Driftwood Tavern, a real local's place complete with Polish beer on tap, heavy set Poles watching the Nets game, and an old Polish barmaid. Webb tried to convince us to ditch the concert and stay at the Driftwood all night because of the $2 drafts, while Greg tried to get the old barmaid to change the TV to the Mets game. We eventually had to pry ourselves away from the TV and cheap beer and head over to the Warsaw.

As we lined up at the door, the girls were happy to get "carded". I was happy too, since it apparently looked like I was dating an underage girl. Once inside, we realize why they got carded. The average age of the crowd was probably late 40s. Stephan later reminded me that, by the time we started listening to Joe Jackson in college, around 1988, Look Sharp was already nearly 10 years old. This crowd were the original Joe Jackson fans, and we were just part of the late-comers.

Nevertheless, it was still a crowd. A packed house, in fact. It was a general admission venue and standing room only, and we were faced with the prospect of standing in the back. But someone took the lead and started weaving us through the crowd. Low and behold we managed to find a pocket of space and we muscled our way in and found ourselves spitting distance from the stage. Even more fortunate for us, we seemed to have positioned ourselves directly behind a rather large collection of short people. I swear, no one was over 5'-7" between us and the stage.

Joe went on around 10:30pm, and he appeared to be in a good mood, which was good, because he's been known to yell at the crowd or his bandmates when he wasn't in a good mood. The tall, lanky, 50-something Joe lumbered out onto the stage, smiled and said hello to the crowd. The rest of the band followed and they immediately burst into "One more time". The crowd was pleased and everyone danced and sang along. No mosh pit here – or rowdy dancers. Just an aging, sophisticated crowd looking to grab some of their youth and have a good time.

Joe played a few tunes off his new album, Volume 4, and the crowd responded well, even though it was obvious everyone wanted to hear the oldies. But the band mixed it up well, playing 5-6 new tunes amongst classics like "Look Sharp", "Don't Wanna Be Like That", "Is She Really Going Out With Him", "Sunday Papers" and acoustic versions of "Steppin' Out", "Be My Number Two", and "It's Different For Girls". For aging alt rockers, they could still rip it up with "Got the Time" and "I'm the Man".

By the end of the hour and a half show, including an encore to the chants of "Joe-Joe-Joe", the band looked fresh and looked legitimately like they had a good time.

We left the Warsaw, feet aching from standing and dancing in place for over two hours, and marched back to Manhattan's Union Square – where we said our goodbyes and promised to get together for more shows over the summer.

Thanks for the good time, guys and gals. Joe was good, but the company was better.

(Michael Walls is a volunteer staff writer for 2 Walls Webzine.)