Turning the Entry

It seems that I'm surrounded by dancing lately, whether I'm voluntarily doing it myself or others are inflicting it on me. Andy and I went to see Chris Koza, Romantica and the Alarmists at the 7th Street Entry last weekend. Another venue, another nutter. The show started out innocently enough. Perhaps we can credit Koza's infectious melodies and riveting lyrics with keeping the insanity temporarily in check; the only odd character was a balding man leaning on the side of the stage. His eyelids drooped and he nodded his head absently as though he were about to fall into a deep sleep at any moment. The cause of this could probably be explained by his protruding beer belly.

When Romantica took the stage, though, all crazy broke loose. It came once again in the form of a particularly avid crowd dancer. Other people around us were moving along with the music as well, so she did not seem to be remarkable at first. In fact, she was very polite and apologised for each of the numerous times her fervor caused her to collide with an innocent bystander. But suddenly she decided she was not content to keep her momentum to herself and took to spinning those standing near her in the crowd. This, of course, included me and Andy. And about 10 other people. To her credit, she did not physically grab and twist us. Rather, she insistently offered her hand and commanded, "Spin!" until her target complied.

After she'd acted the dervish in our section of the audience, she started working her way through the more remote portions of the venue. She disappeared for a noticeable period of time--at least one song. When she returned, Andy and I started speaking with her. She enlightened us as to the logic behind her mission to spin. "I just want to have a good time," she said. "Good music, good beer...it should be fun. I'm trying to get people to have a good time." Indeed, many of our fellow crowd members looked as though they could use her assistance in lively-ing up themselves. Despite being at a concert and having easy access to an abundance of beer, a good portion of the audience seemed unaffected and wore stony, gloomy expressions on their faces.

The girl continued to recruit spinning partners throughout the rest of Romantica's set, through the break and into the Alarmists' set. And, far from being as hopelessly crazy as I first suspected, Andy and I became a bit fond of her. She did make the atmosphere a little more fun. And we definitely couldn't argue with her philosophy.