no Josh Joplin show for me. :(

I bought tickets to the sold-out Dec. 8 late show at Eddie's Attic to see the incomparable Josh Joplin only to find out that my three fellow concert attendees could not go. Lieeish and her main squeeze have a company holiday party to attend. Jim had a feeling there was something going on that night (Lawd o lawd, won't somebody buy him a cheapy-cheap pocket-sized planner?) and remembered what it was when he got a wedding reception invitation in the mail. So now none of us can go and I am quite sad.

The drive to Decatur isn't particularly thrilling, nor is the wait to get seats at Eddie's, assuming they 're still doing that name-calling thing. (If you buy online as most people do nowadays, you wait as the names get called according to the order in which tickets were purchased. You try to scramble in the rather small but every-so-homey "listening room" to get the best available seats.) In the olden days, the teensy tables were up for grabs, too--now they're more expensive and sell more quickly than the general admission tickets. Alas.

I love Josh Joplin. Only recently have I realized that this admiration has somewhat cheesy connotations to some--a few of my Athens friends tend to think that he's dorky and not so talented. These are folks who've not seen him live, or so I'd like to think. Verily I don't know their history with Josh. I am the one who drove to Borders after Borders to see his free shows the summer that Useful Music came out (for the first time, before it was rereleased by a major label and screwed around with). I sent funny, dorky fan/friend emails with Dallas and later, in the midst of Josh's short-lived radio popularity, sent him an email requesting that he sing a then old song, "Better Days" at his crowded NYC show. He played it for me and gave a little shout out that prompted the newbie fans in the crowd to look around for the girl who had requested the song.

Despite the ticket agency's denial of my request, Eddie's Attic reassured me kindly that they'd be more than happy to refund my ticket purchase. I'm $60 + service fees richer again but sad to be missing out. Guess I'll get drunk at some strangers' wedding and wax nostalgic for times past.