Never Give a Burner an Even Break

We went to the Fillmore the other night. We'd seen Beats Antique a few times before, most notably at a concert in New Orleans that began at 3am. They are not a radio band. They're mostly a percussionist and a general instrumentalist and a belly dancer of the American Tribal style and will never get airplay. But they do go on long successful tours across the country and overseas, which isn't too bad for a gang of misfits who got their exposure boost a few years ago at Burning Man. The opening act was also a Burning Man collection: Three guys with different kinds of drums whaling away -- bongoes, maybe a Taiko set, and standard rock traps, something like that -- with one of them singing, yelling, and/or vocalizing without lyrics. Sounds awfully hip or at least awful but 'struth they weren't bad at all, especially with a fourth drummer, Beats' main dancer and choreographer Zoe Jakes, joining in (link is an old bio; enjoy the vid). I was told the vocalist was the owner of the magic carpet art car, any Burner would know what I mean, this thing:

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This place and the Boom Boom Room across the street were full of young people obviously familiar with the Burning Man thing. Indeed you can't go anywhere in the City anymore and not run into people for whom Burning Man is as mainstream a part of their lives as weekends at Carmel. It's just another place to create and recreate, consume and be consumed, another version or iteration of church camp or Disneyland. It's an odd twist of cultural development that this Burnerization of San Francisco seems to be diminishing the City's diversity even more, as the native tough but tolerant blue-collar element flees before an onslaught of callow tech professionals for whom names like Alioto and O'Doul and even Herb Caen mean nothing.

The Boom Boom had a good band pumping, Polyrhythmics, an AWB-looking crew of strong instrumentalists whose funk was fairly beyond reproach. The audience was pretty much the same as at the other place but the music was completely different and of an arguably higher quality and this set me to thinking: I can see Beats getting the Fillmore on a Saturday night because they have a national following now but that other group? The opening act? How the hell--

Duh. They're in San Francisco, i.e. the audience is largely made up of Burner types. They all identify as being part of some subculture and are all rolling and candy-flipping and whatnot anyway so what the hell, I can hear Bill Graham's voice saying, hey, book 'em, those overpaid neo-hippies will come in droves and they will buy expensive drinks too. And we did. Eight and a half for a G&T? Nine for a beer? Yes indeed. You can't fight the logic.