Mexico City: Sonic Youth plays… with handicrafts?
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On our first day in Mexico City, we decided to wander around the downtown historic center. We planned on heading off to the west of the subway station first, but I was promptly lured away to the north by a row of street stands, and after a few minutes we found ourselves at the Centro de Artesenias La Ciudadela, a huge handicrafts market. The market was surprisingly devoid of tourists, but walking down the first aisle, we saw a tall awkward gringo with floppy blond hair in front of us. After a couple glances, Renate joked that he looked like Thurston Moore, lead singer of Sonic Youth. I laughed along.
Another hip young American was walking ahead as well, and as we passed him, I noticed a sticker on his shirt. It said “band”. I then remembered that a couple weeks ago I searched online for Mexico City concerts, and read that Sonic Youth was indeed playing in Mexico City at some point.
Could it be? Thurston Moore wandering through a handicrafts market in Mexico City with yours truly? We made multiple furtive glances at the Thurston fellow, and it indeed seemed to be him. Giddy with excitement, we followed the rockstars around and thought of incredibly clever ways to engage them in conversation. For example, saying “Hi.” Or maybe “Hello.” And so on.
Passing down the next aisle, Renate caught a glimpse of another gringo, this one looking suspiciously like Lee Ranaldo, guitarist for Sonic Youth. A couple minutes later, I saw Steve Shelley, drummer, and Jim O’Rourke, the newest band member. After combing the rest of market, we finally found Kim Gordon, the last member. How cute – Sonic Youth was on a band outing to the handicrafts market!
We trailed them for twenty minutes, with all the subtlety and suaveness of Inspector Gadget. I was too nervous to approach them, but Renate finally went for it. She approached Lee Ranaldo and asked if they were playing a show here. Lee told us that they were in fact playing with some random Mexican band that night. I tried to drag out the conversation by asking about their time in Mexico City, and Lee chatted with us for a bit about their tourist excursions. Granted, I would have preferred for him to talk with us about free backstage passes, but oh well. High from our rockstar encounter, Renate and I finally bid farewell and puttered off to see the rest of the city, or something…
Reflection
Wow. We just chatted with Sonic Youth at a random handicrafts market in Mexico City.
Question
Wasn’t that cool?
On our first day in Mexico City, we decided to wander around the downtown historic center. We planned on heading off to the west of the subway station first, but I was promptly lured away to the north by a row of street stands, and after a few minutes we found ourselves at the Centro de Artesenias La Ciudadela, a huge handicrafts market. The market was surprisingly devoid of tourists, but walking down the first aisle, we saw a tall awkward gringo with floppy blond hair in front of us. After a couple glances, Renate joked that he looked like Thurston Moore, lead singer of Sonic Youth. I laughed along.
Another hip young American was walking ahead as well, and as we passed him, I noticed a sticker on his shirt. It said “band”. I then remembered that a couple weeks ago I searched online for Mexico City concerts, and read that Sonic Youth was indeed playing in Mexico City at some point.
Could it be? Thurston Moore wandering through a handicrafts market in Mexico City with yours truly? We made multiple furtive glances at the Thurston fellow, and it indeed seemed to be him. Giddy with excitement, we followed the rockstars around and thought of incredibly clever ways to engage them in conversation. For example, saying “Hi.” Or maybe “Hello.” And so on.
Passing down the next aisle, Renate caught a glimpse of another gringo, this one looking suspiciously like Lee Ranaldo, guitarist for Sonic Youth. A couple minutes later, I saw Steve Shelley, drummer, and Jim O’Rourke, the newest band member. After combing the rest of market, we finally found Kim Gordon, the last member. How cute – Sonic Youth was on a band outing to the handicrafts market!
We trailed them for twenty minutes, with all the subtlety and suaveness of Inspector Gadget. I was too nervous to approach them, but Renate finally went for it. She approached Lee Ranaldo and asked if they were playing a show here. Lee told us that they were in fact playing with some random Mexican band that night. I tried to drag out the conversation by asking about their time in Mexico City, and Lee chatted with us for a bit about their tourist excursions. Granted, I would have preferred for him to talk with us about free backstage passes, but oh well. High from our rockstar encounter, Renate and I finally bid farewell and puttered off to see the rest of the city, or something…
Reflection
Wow. We just chatted with Sonic Youth at a random handicrafts market in Mexico City.
Question
Wasn’t that cool?
6 Comments:
At 8:49 AM, platypotamus said…
Yep. Very very cool. And how random.
Yesterday, I saw Kathleen Turner walking on Broughton Street in Savannah. But then, a film festival is going on, so it's not that out-of-the-ordinary. She's one of the main guests. But it was still pretty neat. We were going through town, trying to pick out the "LA People" (they stand out here) and we saw a group walking down the street. We said, "Oh, LA, definitely", but I was first looking at the woman next to KT. Then Alex said, "Wait, isn't that Kathleen Turner?" Why, by jove, it is. She had brunette hair instead of the movie blond she usually has.
At 7:52 AM, Anonymous said…
haha - thats so cool! isn't if funny how you can get all giddy and nervous/excited when you see a star that you want to approach? trying to think of what u can say to them? its a weird contradiction, cause most of me doesnt care to much for the lives of celebrities, but then i have found myself wanting to approach someone famous, and feeling really giddy and shy about it.
-brooke
At 8:02 AM, lernerm said…
I once sat in a restaurant next to Frank Robinson (famous baseball player from my generation if you don't know him). The question arose, should we say high. My wife wanted to, but I felt he deserved his privacy, so we never spoke with him. Question: how much privacy are celebrities/public people entitled to? If you were out shopping and you were famous (as you might be someday), would you want someone to pester you with questions? Or by being a celebrity, does one give up rights to privacy? Beats me. I do know that although I'm not famous, I do get approached by patients when I'm out of the office and asked various medical questions while waiting in line to see a movie or whatever. I take it in stride, but I wonder how the sonic youth band members felt about it.
At 9:44 PM, Anonymous said…
I just downloaded a ton of Sonic Youth, I was never into them before but figured it was worth trying? So did you go to the show? Wouldn't that be like how most Americans end up eating Macdonalds in France , I mean, nothing is more NYC than Sonic Youth. Then again, you would get to see the random local band which would be a hoot and maybe they did the songs in Spanish.
-John (www.ironman1.com)
At 6:58 PM, Anonymous said…
that's a pretty tough question. if it was in some city in the US or cananda, then it wouldn't be quite so cool (even if in kensington market). therefore, based on the fact that you randomly bumped into them in a market in mexico, then i would have to deduce that yes, it was cool.
the one time i saw thurstoon moore was in london, ontario. after the noise festival there, he was walking around the hall after he signed autographs for a line of people.. this was after the hall was closed and only the organizers & friends were left behind. especially at that time, i was ga-ga over SY.. but i couldn't work up the courage to go up and talk to him. ah well.
the food section makes me drool, btw.
-helen ruckus.
At 6:59 PM, Anonymous said…
p.s. this has been my favourite question of the site so far.
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