The Secret Machines
Music Hall of Williamsburg
11.18.08

After putting the finishing touches on their elaborate stage set-up, Secret Machines drummer Josh Garza came to the crowd and began handing out 3D glasses (the same type the us nerds remember getting from the IMAX theater at science museums). The Secret Machines are already awesome enough to send shivers down your spine, so just the idea of their performance having any element of 3D was almost too hard to handle.

Only a month prior to Tuesday night’s performance at Music Hall of Williamsburg, I saw the band put on a phenomenal show at Webster Hall. With this one being at a better, more intimate venue, it promised to be something really great, and the 3D glasses were just an extra bonus. Oddly enough, the crowd was pretty sparse. A band that once had a pretty large following was suffering to hang onto it, despite putting out a brilliant new record and their always epic concerts.

Directly before the band took the stage, an Argentinian cougar and her friend found me and took the spot next to me. From that moment on, her focus would be just as much on me as on the Secret Machines, who opened their set with “The Fire is Waiting.” In turn, my ability to focus on the performance often became challenging, despite the dreamy Pink Floyd-esque tunes and Garza’s pounding drums. Over the course of the set, the cougar kept moving in closer, attempting to make a drunken attack. My sobriety and intense focus on the band, behind the lense of a camera did little to hold her back. She was in for the kill.

More than halfway through the set, after a face-melting rendition of “Lightning Blue Eyes,” she made her attack, using a cup of vodka & cranberry as bait, tempting me with it, until I finally had a sip. Meanwhile she danced closer and closer against me, and managed to cop a feel of my butt at least once in the process. Meanwhile I was havign a surreal, psychedelic experience, with the use of 3D glasses. What on Earth was happening to me? When did I become cougar bait, and how on Earth could I escape the clutches of a somewhat attractive older Argentinian woman, and why did I even want to? I just wanted to enjoy a Secret Machines show, and be totally immersed in their vibrations, and that was being made slightly difficult, though I was somewhat entertained by my interaction with this cougar.

When the band finished and the venue began to clear, I made my escape, before being mauled to pieces.