The Good, The Bad and The Queen 3/14: Hope is Found in a Sound at the 9:30 Club in DC (Guest Blogger)

We had avid DC concert-goer, and friend of this site, Sadie, hit up The Good, The Bad and The Queen show at The District's 9:30 Club this past Wednesday. We could almost see her jumping up and down with joy as she wrote us all about it.


Hurrah! Saw The Good, The Bad and The Queen come alive on stage Wednesday night, top hats and all. What an amazing show! Instead of an opening band, there was a cheeky burlesque show with a naughty monkey and club dancing Grim. It was HILARIOUS. The crowd was a bit younger than we expected, but it didn't matter because the group put on a fucking brilliant show. It was simply gorgeous, storytelling music that gave you goose bumps and made you sweat at the same time.

Against a beautifully designed set, with a cityscape of London in the background, Paul Simonon instantly became the coolest guy I have EVER seen on stage. He was the shit and he knew it. Damon Albarn's signature jazz hands made an appearance more than once during the evening and consequently, Shirmz [her friend] and I ended up squealing A LOT whenever he did anything remotely amusing. Simon Tong was a comic assassin and by the end of the show I was finally able to figure out who he reminds me of - that side-kick guy from Punked. Tony Allen was low key but steady on the drums all night.

The last song before the encore, the title track, was one of my favorite performances of the evening- Damon had to take a swig from the bottle of rum (Mount Gay?) while sitting at his piano, he was jamming so hard. If he meant to get us all hot and bothered, mission accomplished. I was selfishly hoping for 'Guns of Brixton' for the encore, but it was not to be. Le sigh. They played this awesome song called 'Doghouse', which didn't make it on to the album, and then one of their b-sides with this Syrian rapper [Eslam Jarwaad]. OH and it turns out NPR was at the show so you can download the entire show online! Raaad. If you strain your ears enough, you might be able to hear Shirmz shouting things like "Parklife!" "Country House!" and me shouting endearments to both Damon and Paul.