Access

The lady behind us leaned forward and asked if I knew who the opening band was. We were there for the headliner, Florence and the Machine, so it was an innocent enough question, but the answer was not easily determined. This was the moment that I became one of those guys: I was the guy with the Smart Phone. Before I engaged Al Gore's Internet, I checked to see if there were any wi-fi networks available to me, saving those valuable G's for moments when I absolutely needed to know something and was out of range from any and all connections. Like my next trip to the Galapagos. Sitting on the concrete benches of Berkeley's Greek Theater, I was able to establish contact with a University of California server which allowed me to access this little tidbit: opening for Florence on this particular evening was Ghost Of A Saber Tooth Tiger. As I latched on to this name, the sun was setting, and the lights came up on stage, where the "Ghost" was plugging in for their set.
For the first few songs, I ran through my usual appreciations for opening acts. They have to set up their gear in front of the sets and lights of the headliner. They have to play to a crowd that is still milling about, looking for their seats and acquiring their green wrist bands so they can drink for the rest of the evening. In the best case scenario, they are warming the crowd up for the star attraction, or at worst they are building animosity as the barrier through which the fans must go through in order to see the band they paid to see.
I won these tickets. I couldn't complain. So, as GOASTT's set continued, I returned to the World Wide Web to do some more research about the music to which I was being subjected. In my mind, I was trying to find comparisons. I thought of Stillwater, the band of myth created by Cameron Crowe. I thought of all the cool hippie bands that I had seen over the years. And then I landed on the Ghost Of A Saber Tooth Tiger's Wikipedia page. It seems that this "American band formed in 2008" was created so that the couple who created it could spend more time together. The couple: Charlotte Kemp Muhl and Sean Lennon. It was at the moment that I read that last name that the sound coming from the stage suddenly began to coalesce. It was a big wall of psychedelic noise, but through it all came a sweetly nasal voice that was immediately recognizable as Lennon. I was in the presence of rock and roll royalty, and I would have completely missed it if I hadn't been that guy. I would not have known I was in the presence of Beatle-spawn. Yes, it makes me a little more of "them," but in this case, it was worth it.