Two memories of this day, and our music has nothing to do with either of them. While we are inside the Living Room, opening for the Sundays on this day in 1990, it is pouring rain outside. When we go to leave, we discover the downpour has washed out access to Winchester Street. Faced with a gaping hole that threatens to prevent our departure, two heavy-duty boards, each barely wider than a tire, are put in place. Georgia, with no margin for error, navigates the van to safety. James McNew, in attendance that night and a witness to this Wages of Fear-worthy maneuver vows then and there to ride in any vehicle Georgia is at the wheel of. Two years later, something perhaps more unlikely occurs in Vancouver. Establishing what remains to this day my personal benchmark for fatigue, Georgia and I somehow fall asleep backstage at the Commodore Ballroom, mere feet from My Bloody Valentine in full “You Made Me Realise” roar.
Meanwhile, Claus and Ariel write from Eugene: “A Worrying Thing” really played an important part in the birth of the relationship of my wife and I. Me being a Dane in Denmark and my wife being an American in America. For some reason Yo La Tengo to me represents dreaming big and whenever I listen to Painful I get this intense feeling that no matter what – if you want something badly enough – you can make it happen. On July 1st 2011 I sent my wife a playlist with the intent of subtly declaring my having fallen in love with her despite the Atlantic being between us. Song no. 3 was “A Worrying Thing” and this song made me fail in my subtlety and my wife figuring out what I was trying to say. We spent our honeymoon at Primavera in Barcelona in June 2012 for two reasons: the Big Star tribute show and the Yo La Tengo concert.
