Belly in San Francisco

Saturday was what Ted called our ‘culture day’. We started our day going to the talk for Percival Everett, where he spoke of his novel, James. After that we went to lunch, then home for a few hours, then to San Francisco for the evening. Our lunch had been a little on the late side, but we were a bit hungry, so we had a light dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant on Fillmore Street. Then on to the main event, a concert at the Great American Music Hall to see 90s indie group, Belly. Belly’s album, King, is 30 years old, and they are touring in celebration. The show was 2 sets. In the first, they played every song from the album. In the second, they played other hits and fun songs.

Though Ted’s tickets said that the concert started at 9pm, when we got there at 8:35ish, the concert had already started and they were about 2 songs in. Strange, but OK. The venue was packed, and as all tickets were general admission, it was standing room only. For a person of my stature (5’4”) most concerts are a frustrating experience. I don’t really want to stand in a crowded room looking at the back of someone else’s head. Even in a large venue with stadium type seating, I often cannot see anything other than heads. This was worse than usual. Plus it was warm. Plus my plantar fasciitis has been giving me grief for the last few months, so I was worried that my feet would start hurting. But! The music was great, and it’s fun to be in a crowd with a bunch of people who are into the same band that you are into, and we really loved this album back in the day.

When they took a short break and people dispersed a bit to use the bathroom or get drinks, we decided to try to move forward and see if we could get out from behind so many tall people (why can’t they make people stand by height, like a group photo? Meet up with your friends after, it’s not like you can hear each other anyway), and we ended up finding a perfect place on the side of the main floor. There were some tables there, but no chairs. I could lean against the table and give my foot a break, and more importantly, we had a great view of the stage and the band. Yay! Concert experience saved! At one point I noticed that some other women were sitting on top of the little tables, which was a genius idea, so I hopped up on mine too. I think I got to sit this way for at least 20 minutes before a security guy came and told us we couldn’t sit on them (they were a little wobbly, to be fair). He had no problem with us leaning on them though. Belly played all of the big hits, including the one that some of you may have heard, Feed the Tree, above.

It was great fun, I enjoyed every bit of the second half of the concert. The first half, not so much. Better to end on a good note, though, right? San Francisco specific note: The Great American Music Hall is in a terrible neighborhood, the Tenderloin, and is full of drug dealers, prostitutes, homeless people, and is not somewhere you want to be walking around late at night (or during the day for that matter.) We had to walk about 2 blocks to get to our car, which was gross but I never felt in any danger. I felt like if someone tried to mess with us, they were far too wasted and we could just push them over and run. But no one messed with us. It was a great day overall.