Ween.

What do you get when you combine a large venue, body odor, the stinch of pot, and dreaded-hair hippie-types? A Ween show.

I ended up at the Tabernacle last night to witness a sold-out show given by a legend of underground rock called Ween. Keep in mind here that I'm not a fan of Ween, nor do I know any of their material. As I walked into the bottom level of the Tabernacle, I was hit with a cloud of smoke that was not produced by that of a cigarette, if you catch my drift. It was enough for a contact high, I'm sure. As I looked around, I observed an alarming number of dirty hippies noodling to the tunes. I know, "dirty" hippie sounds so cliche, but when I hit a couple points in the night when all I could sniff was the musty stink coming from the group of guys in front of me that looked like they hadn't showered or brushed their hair in about 2 months, I decided that the hippies there were, in fact, dirty. I felt like I was at a Widespread Panic show (yes, I've actually been to one, and that was one too many), except the fans were more mixed than what you'd find at WSP. There was an awful lot of noodling going on in addition to the raised hands and obvious "I've taken many drugs tonight" looks on some of the faces of Ween's die-hard fans.

Aside from the atmosphere, which I decided is what Hell will look like for me when I leave this earth and join the other do-badders, the music and show was pretty energetic for a group of guys who aren't exactly spring chickens. Amazingly enough, I could still understand the lyrics after they had played through about the second hour and were admittedly more effed up than earlier in the performance. I found myself laughing at the raunchy nature of all the songs toward the end. I had no idea it was that pronounced, because, like I said, I've never really listened to it. I just remember a lyric that went something like, "get on your knees you big booty bitch, and start sucking." I'm pretty positive that this is the reason most of the people there last night enjoy this kind of thing, because it's not like they're ones to be easily offended. I'm one of them. While I didn't particularly enjoy the vast majority of what I heard, there were a couple of songs I felt like I wanted in my collection. Unfortunately, I have no idea what they're called. Oh, well.