Went to Brooklyn on Friday night to see Yo La Tengo play as the Condo Fucks in a goodbye to the apparently beloved bar Magnetic Field. It's disconcerting that the bar came and went like that - I first heard of it from some people who lived or moved out there I suppose, and it was always, Hey, come hang out with us at this cool bar. There was a sense that it was new then, or maybe just new to those of us who fell upon it, I suppose. But it seemed like it was in discovery, that it was in the early stages of becoming some kind of institution. I hardly ever went and now it's gone. Yet another measure of my advancing years I guess, or all of ours, really. Or, more disturbingly, a measure of my inattention. While you were out: Worlds were born and then collapsed, perhaps to see the spring again someday.

Yo La Tengo was very good - they played a set to suit the occasion I guess; no slow, beautiful tunes, just loud rock 'n' roll, get it on, get it over with. It was a novelty to see such a "big" band in such a small setting but after a minute or two it wasn't. There they were - just another very good band with very good songs playing in some doomed bar in Brooklyn.