DC is much cooler than most people suspect

Last night I was treated to a really nice performance by Hercules and Love Affair at the 9:30 Club. I was expecting a 1- or 2-person electronica gig featuring a Mac but they showed up with a full - and lively - band complete with a horn section! They played their music in a continuous format with no breaks, which was kinda cool. Photos from a Brooklyn performance can be seen here. Hercules is woofy and when he took off his hoodie I got to see a flash of ginger fur. Good times for $15, and I nearly had the place to myself. For the first time ever I had a spot in the senior citizen's section on the 2nd floor right over the soundboard. Local band The Dance Party opened and they were great too.

DC's music scene is very understated and intimate - we are far cooler than you think! You can catch a good performance almost any day of the week at a variety of cozy venues. Before last night's performance one of the band members was mingling in the crowd. When I caught a late night Prince show many years ago there he was hanging out in the balcony area chatting with people. Performances at the 9:30 Club always feel very personal with a tangible connection between the performance and the crowd. Every time I go there to catch a GWAR show, when they throw up on me I really feel like it is their full intent to throw up on or bleed on me, personally.

The performance of Herc's hit "Blind" didn't feature Antony Hegarty on vocals, but their vocalist did a good job. Blind is an intense song about coming out, which you don't hear much of these days, and there weren't many gays in the audience who were going nuts about it as one might have done for "Smalltown Boy" by Bronski Beat for example. In today's post-gay world, the youngsters are coming out earlier and tend to feel much less isolated than a gay in the 80s and 90s. Songs and stories about coming out don't seem to have the same impact these days when you can claim that "being gay doesn't define me" as the credo goes from the mouths of babes today.

That said, it's no easier coming out today with such galvanized forces of hatred going against them. Back in my day the evangelical haters weren't so organized and vocal, and there seemed to be a more neutral view of homos by American society in general. Back then we were interesting, today we're a threat to heterosexual marriage. Today the haters are funded in the millions of dollars and there are entire workplaces devoted to making sure gays know they're only "tolerated." We are supposed to take comfort in the fact that they are praying for us. I can't imagine coming out today, in some ways it must be harder for the young gays to come out with such loud messages of intolerance going into their hearts and minds. It's got to have a negative impact much like isolation did to the gays in the 80s and 90s. It makes me wonder why the younger gays aren't as angry as I'd expect them to be about all this. Perhaps after one clicks on the 'send' button on an online peititon, they feel like they've done their part and the haters will go away.