dead can dance are back

Last week, my second-favorite Romanian (if you count Vlad the Impaler as a Romanian, which most Romanians seem to do with varying degrees of enthusiasm--sorry, Corina, but he comes first) and I were having some very nice ramen at Menchanko-tei in midtown when in the course of the conversation she said, "Oh by the way, you like Dead Can Dance, right? Did you know they'll be playing here in October?"

This caused a bunch of different simultaneous reactions, which fortunately cancelled one another out so that I did NOT spew noodles and broth all over the table. I had a small coughing fit though.

First of all, I tend to assume that most of my friends don't exactly share my musical tastes. Okay, I've talked some of them into Rasputina and Collide and Sigur Ros and the Mediaeval Baebes, but mostly I just accept that my favorite bands are a kind of solitary interest at this point in my life. So when someone brings up a band I like, and this band in particular, it's a little disconcerting.

Second of all, Dead Can Dance is my favorite band. Ever. Pretty much all their albums are on my ipod, and I still listen to them regularly. Some of the loveliest music of any type or genre that I've ever heard. Impossible to characterize, their best stuff is complex and simple, ancient and modern. Transcendent and beautiful. And SO serious. There's no better soundtrack for an afternoon at the cemetery than "Aion." Outside of Joss Whedon, there's hardly anyone who would provoke in me as strong a reaction of pure, unadulterated enthusiasm.

Third, I saw DCD live once, at Harborlights in Boston in July 1996, and they were phenomenal. It was one of the two or three best live musical experiences of my life. Actually, I kept a pretty regular diary in 1996, let's see what I had to say about it then:

Saw Dead Can Dance at Harborlights tonight. It was absolutely the finest concert of my entire life. ... I don’t think I’ve ever been this rabidly happy in my life. ...It was like, the Joe ideal concert. Shared experience, beautiful place, perfect music, and I got to be all alone at the same time. Life doesn’t get any better than that.

There's quite a lot more. I gushed.

Finally, they broke up. No band. Not since like 1997. It's hard to tour when you're broken up.

Once I'd worked my way through these disparate, simultaneous thoughts, and stopped coughing, I led with that. "Um, they broke up. Years ago."

And Corina said, "Yes, but now they're doing a concert tour. Tickets go on sale tomorrow."

So, barring catastrophic rises in sea levels or an asteroid strike, I get to see Dead Can Dance in October at Radio City Music Hall. And I'm already insanely excited about it. Nice to have something to look forward to.

But I can't help feeling that as an amazingly aware, bright, internet- skilled individual, I should know about this stuff well in advance. It should almost be innate, like a kind of seventh sense. "Oh, my Gothic sense is tinging! Dead Can Dance have gotten back together! Yay!" Or something. I suppose it's good to have friends to help compensate for the lack of such senses.