Brad Walsh

Just FYI: Girls Like Cars, and Money.

Yesterday Josh came by and gave me tickets to his brothers’ band’s show. Maybe you’ve heard of them… Good Charlotte? No? They’re this tiny little indie band that not a lot of people know about. You kinda have to know someone to get a copy of their albums. Very underground. They’re big in the Philippines. But even I’m big in the Philippines. Anyway, I obliged Josh, and I figured Christian and I would throw him a bone and go see his brothers play at this tiny little hole in the wall. Maybe you’ve heard of it… Roseland Ballroom? Yeah, it’s really grunge and kinda old school, like CBGB used to be before it sold out and got all corporate and started selling Varvatos. I was like, “Good Charlotte at Roseland Ballroom? I have never heard of either of those things ever before in my life, ever!”

So, we went to the show. Met up with Josh and Lisa and Alana and Dimitry. I guess you could say we had a good time. I mean, we were onstage for Good Charlotte’s entire performance. And there was this girl that was there dancing, too. She’s a sort of girl-about-town, an indie film actress, she had an album a little while back that nobody really knew existed. Maybe you’ve heard of her… Paris Hilton? No? Well, anyway. She was there and she was all smiles and singing along because I guess she’s dating one of Josh’s brothers? I don’t really know. Maybe if the paparazzi would snap their photo or the tabloids would write something up sometime I would know about this whole Benji/Paris thing, but really, I guess they’re just destined to forever be nobodies. Christian blew her a kiss and got one back, which I thought was a little weird. Like, why was he hitting on some random chick right in front of me?

Yadda yadda, we were onstage, the band was playing, et cetera. They have this song that they sing, I’m not sure anybody who reads this blog will know it. It’s called “Dance Floor Anthem?” Anyway, they played that song and there’s a part where Joel sings “everybody put up your hands” and Alana and I totally put up our hands!!! OMG can you believe we did that? It was really very cool of us to do that.

Seriously though (take my wife, please!), we walked into the venue and a crowd of approximately ONE BILLION SCREAMING GIRLS wanted to take a picture with Christian. I tried to warn him that the Good Charlotte fan demographic is similar to the Christian Siriano fan demographic and that it might be hell… but Josh swooped in to take us backstage and all was fine. We got to see the whole show from the stage, Paris and her parents were there and dancing and singing along, and then Gurj and Chris Black appeared. Life is good. Got me out of my “I hate New York” funk for a bit.