From the beginning, I have to admit that I really wasn’t in the best of mind to be responding to any showy stimulation with objectivity.  Recent news regarding the death of a friend by septicemia (a blood infection relatively common among IV drug users and generally caused by unclean injection practices) has assaulted my consciousness with an ubiquitous street-level reality I’ve never been able to quite edge from my experience of the world since I was a teenager.

That being said, when an acquaintance of mine offered a ticket to see Die Antwoord at the gilded Paramount Theater in Seattle, I figured it would be a good opportunity to attempt to get out of my head in relative sobriety.  Right?  I mean, this is Die Antwoord.  Since the advent of American hood music and the brutality of our ‘godfather’ lyricists hit the African coast (a serious but intriguing delay in time and space), the continent and in particular South Africa- has yielded an incredible fusion which has reinvigorated the genre, lending it its’ own ineffable, bullet-ridden pages to the musical history of the world.  And in Die Antwoord it is its crass, post-rave, trailer park, AIDS-chic, Afrikaans-laced, throbbing and irreverent miasma which leaves most american fans clinging desperately to the words “mutha fucka” and classic EDM formulas for some semblance of understanding or familiarity.  Whatever it is, Die Antwoord is bizarre and not unlike watching some poor beast twitching its last on the roadside with apparent relish.  This is the stuff of which epileptic dreams and nightmares are simultaneously made flesh.

Arriving at the pre-show throng at the entrance of the theater, I was immediately overwhelmed and inundated with a cast of familiar Seattle characters.  Many of which I’ve known for nearly a decade, I’ve seen these hustlers come up from their own stark backgrounds with varying degrees of legal or illegal success.  They’re all here, congratulating each other by their mere presence on the sidewalk for being able to finally spend 40-plus dollars on a Paramount show.  This new-found boost in general strata makes me uncomfortable.  It is immediately apparent to me that the Die Antwoord spectacle is where the citizens of the land of hot-tips-before-they-were-hot-tips must gather to be seen.  There will be no pre-show admiration of the incredible interior architecture of the Paramount theater, no intelligible display of joy at being able to digest an EDM show at a veritable opera house.  The real opener to the main act is the “we knew them when” scene spilling off into the intersection of Pine and 9th.

Ten minutes to eight and I’m early.  Fuck.  I know these people.  Fuck.  I’m suddenly grateful for my snap-back, which allows its wearer immediate loss of eye-contact with a simple downward glance.  Not rude.  I just don’t SEE you.  Josh Black (AKA Ronald McFondle) is far too clever for this back-of-the-classroom maneuver.  I’m relieved.  Black has had a long history of deftly making making an ordinarily overwhelming atmosphere bearable.  Black is a veteran.  Now a local booking agent and increasingly lauded Seattle celebrity in his own right, he gathers me up with the sagacious calm I’ve come to expect of him.  “I’ve seen them ( Antwoord) three times.  They’re fucking incredible.”  At least the prognosis is good.  “Let me introduce you to…” –and so it goes.  Black must make his his own way from here, his public needs him.

So I default to the comforts of the naturally humble.  Wherever I am in the world, these people are familiar to me.  Waifs, beggars and urchins: the ease of their down-and-out daily grind is a source of instant grounding- and smiles are easily exchanged.  An elderly gentleman is standing on the corner of the street with a little pile of roses at his feet.  He is not heckling people or soliciting in any aggressive manner whatsoever.  He is meek, congenial and tame.  This man has seen years of the abusive, high-ideology of the ambitious rabble around him.  He seems unphased by their avoidance and the toxic side-glances in his general direction.  I start to make my way towards him when a woman among the Antwoord-going crowd demands a cigarette from me.  Stunned a bit by the abhorrent and tactless nature of this request, I hand it over quickly, as if I’m being mugged.  “Take it, you sullen hussy!  I’ve no use for it.”  (<< I didn’t actually say that, but I should have.) She snatches the thing hungrily with her carrion bird claws and turns back to the flock.  With the ferocity of the asking, I can imagine she may have just eaten the damn thing.

I’m groping around for my inhaler, a recent clandestine acquisition that does really nothing for my Pertussis, but feels great, especially when I feel compelled to slap a drunken mother for her pedestrian lack of ceremony.  As I do, I realize our elderly rose-man is commenting on my smile.  This man is charming.  He offers me a rose and some delightfully sober conversation.  We’re talking about Bessie Smith by now, when I decide I need to give this man some cash.  He’s giving these fucking roses away.  Lord knows how long he’s been on his feet and summer is quickly losing ground.  But I need change.  When I return from Dragonfish with fivers at the ready, I realize my rose-man is being harassed by two police officers.  Apparently, some asshole is uncomfortable with the transparent nature of his plight and has asked the guns to remove him from their illustrious, red carpet sidewalk.  If I wasn’t so distracted by death and an uncharacteristic yearning for peace, this would be the real headliner for me.  I’d use this opportunity to hound, criticize and question.  Instead I take the opportunity to praise him before the law and give him my fiver in gratitude for his existence.  He takes the brutes directive like a pro.  He is kind to everyone involved in shaming him from the premises and my heart breaks again.  A little or a lot.  I don’t know.  Everything is sad and broken here.  He is gone.  The man has left his roses and they are now being blindly trampled underfoot by modestly enthused ticket-holders.

Any display of legitimate excitement at a concert in Seattle is a huge faux-pas among the “know” crowd.  They’ve become masters of containment.  I should have gotten drunk before I arrived.  As has long been the case for my attendance at these concert thingies- I manage to get wrapped up inadvertently by the artists’ staff.  Are these people equipped with boredom-sensors?  I take silent note that I’ve been terribly spoiled by my history.  This large man, appropriately outfitted in the accoutrements of concert-handling prestige, has seen my interaction with the rose-man and eagerly feigns intrigue at my philosophies regarding the homeless.  He asks a lot of probing questions.  I dive in.  Why not?  It’s fifteen minutes or more past eight and my ticket has not yet been delivered.  With uncanny timing, as soon as this man tries to compel me with his tour-bus janitorial status, my ticket arrives.  He awkwardly accepts the rose as a parting gesture before we file dutifully into the theater.  Quietly I hope he finds a less jaded, band-aid-type girl to lure into the tour bus.  He seems as bored and desperate for a somewhat authentic interaction as I feel.

Body pat-downs and purse rummaging commence and I get to earn a little ire for my little-known company.  My recently departed friend had given me a switchblade in gratitude for having dissuaded him from committing suicide the year prior to his death.  Since then, its always been as a limb to me.  It has seen me into federal buildings and has been cunningly recovered from the bowels of potted plants outside Key Arena.  It has fended off a great-many Pioneer Square crackheads and rapey-suburban teens but as of recently, it has lingered precariously in my bed while I’ve slept– like some cross between talisman and amulet- hoping for haunted dreams and the possibility of seeing my friend again in the land of Nod.  I need to tell him a few things.

Unsure about Paramount security protocol, I had made the idiotic decision of leaving my hashish and medical greenery in the car.  My knife was staying though.  Previously unfamiliar with the dynamics of a Die Antwoord concert — (this being my virgin flight), I felt it warranted to adjust my clothing in such a way as to allow its passage into the venue.  My (possibly slightly retarded) ticket-holding acquaintance however, seemed incapable of the foresight of salvaging his IKEA wrench.

“You could hurt somebody with that, Sir.”

I very swiftly felt a little bit of my initial respect for my host gasp its’ last and die.  Unperturbed, he shook it off, knowing nothing of his impending fall from my good graces (as he would later ask for cash for his ‘kind gesture’ of attending this concert with him.) I miss the rose-man.  As we made our way up to the nose-bleeds (my company complaining unabashedly about how for the expense of the tickets he was shocked, SHOCKED!!  that we weren’t on the main floor).  I felt myself unplug.  The prima materia of this show had already been spent on something else.  Some younger girls in front of us predictably wittle away the entire experience through their smartphones and an endless snap of selfies and self-esteem-buffering technology.  How many of us will miss the intrigues of the coming apocalypse, as we busily rub-noses with ourselves upon our carefully mirrored devices?

Far, far away Yolandi Visser squeals her characteristically pitchy chants to a reverberating theater meant for operas.  Flanked by two smothered african dancers impressively holding the entire show together with this marauding vision of symmetry and cat-suited, poorly-ventilated skill; flooded blue and neon by the careful black-lighting of the whole affair and a few carefully practiced jumps in unison onto the stage platform- this is about all there is here.  This isn’t some startlingly ingenious production, as are my memories of Amon Tobin premiering the ISAM project a few years prior at the same location- but it isn’t a fail either.  The show isn’t too ambitious or too bizarre.  It is almost alarmingly expected.  A bit of a far-cry from the wonderfully repellent music videos and snarky shortfilm skits Die Antwoord seems to have had a talent for creating and to much independent acclaim.  I suppose everyone has to make a buck or a shitload.  I imagine this tour has at least accomplished that for them.

Just as I am feeling extremely grateful for not having to pay for my Die Antwoord experience, my hopped-up host asks if I have any cash.  Gone bleakly the way of the cigarette vulture at the beginning of this misadventure and in the depressingly demolished ambiance of the Pine Box (the former Chapel; where I believe every puckered asshole in Capitol Hill must surely live in the now-hidden corpse trays of the once impressive mortuary/drinking establishment), I clicked my tongue watching him stuff my cash unceremoniously into his pocket.  At last resolved to ditch this place and my embarrassing company quickly and willfully in the direction of the last light I could find at the end of this scene.  A Cocina!  Ahh the delicious promises of tacos!  I needed a moment to gather myself.  I’d be surprised to not find tacos in Hell.  I’m beginning to believe they somehow go hand-in-hand.

My optimism has ransomed my faith in human beings on several occasions this evening.  I was dismayed by the disappearance of the cheap Vietnamese joint that has apparently been replaced by this place, but I’m terminally hopeful of anything that uses the word ‘Oaxaca’ to describe itself.  Yet, with cinematic continuity the bartender at this place turns out to be the patron saint of dickeaters.  It’s been awhile since I’ve been on the Hill.  Put simply, I should have headed directly for the water.  I realize that Capitol Hill has gone the way of golden turds.  I understand this deeply as I neglect the worst tacos al pastor I’ve ever eaten.

All told, I am of the opinion that Die Antwoord is best tasted up close, in a marathon of excellent videos, snuggled together in tasteless onesies, weapons in proper, unwary display, in the comfort of someones private living room.  (Preferably with a proper Mexican taco truck nearby.) In other words, save your money and go invest in good tacos.  The best of Die Antwoord is already freely available for your consumption.  The only discernible perk of attending this show is being able to haughtily relay that you were there.