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I did this post and it’s going viral and I’m so proud that the lead image is this photo from my bedroom sophomore year. 

37 Things You’ll Only Understand If You Went To College In The ‘90s

Fairweather Friends

A few years ago, in the fall–I guess it was 2005, because I was living in a shitty apartment next to the projects off the Graham stop, and I walked to the show–I went to see The National play at Warsaw with a friend. Except most of the people there, it turned out, weren’t really there to see The National, who were headlining; they were there to see Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, whose self-produced album had been blowing everyone’s minds that summer because Alec Ounsworth kind of sounded like David Byrne, I guess. So we got some pierogies and some Polish beers and watched CYHSY, and they were pretty good, even though I had just seen them play at the Khyber in Philly when my then-boyfriend’s weird neo-jam-dub band opened for them. (He was the drummer.) And of course my friend and I stayed for The National, because I really liked them at the time (I still do), having gotten into them thanks to this other guy I’d dated who was a music writer who’d put them on an ACTUAL CASSETTE MIXTAPE for me, I think at one point when we’d broken up and were maybe sort of in the midst of getting back together. He now has a baby.

BUT. As was confirmed by Jon Pareles, who reviewed the show for the Times, a lot of people who came to the show totally scrammed after Clap Your Hands played. In fact, he wrote: “Although the National was the headliner for Wednesday’s sold-out concert, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah was the draw; half the audience left after its set.”

So I have to say I find it sort of hilarious that everyone is all creaming their pants about The National now, when you’re probably the same people who left their show back when you thought Alec Ounsworth was going to save music. Just remember that!