It all started when we thought it would be cool to see Spoon at First Avenue. But then we remembered our last experience at First Avenue with Neko Case. The headliner doesn't start until 10:30 or later, which makes things tricky if you a) have a job and b) have a dog or, at least, have our dog and our jobs. But then we thought, that's close to our anniversary, why not just make a night of it, drop off the hound at a sitter's and stay downtown.
We try to take short fall trip anyway; why not to Minneapolis? So we found ourselves at the Graves 601 Hotel, where we were frightened by our shower, but otherwise impressed.
We ate at Vincent's, where I can recommend the mushroom risotto.
Vincent's is a sportcoat kind of place. What I didn't factor in is that First Avenue is not a sportcoat kind of place. It's more a Replacements, circa 1984 kind of place.
I wore the ensemble pictured above. I felt very, very out of place until I realized no one actually gave a damn and I got into the show.
A friend of ours who knows his music if not his limitations had seen Spoon on the Kill The Moonlight tour and said that they were disappointing live. But we love their bouncy yet melancholy songs–if Spoon didn't exist Zach Braff would have invented them–and we like to think that people can change. 
They were great. They have learned how to play mid tempo songs live–i.e. make them a little faster and a lot harder. E, who hears things I don't, said they were doing interesting things with time signatures.
It was great to walk back less than a block to our hotel. There is something about vacationing in your own town and something about vacationing in Minneapolis, which both is and isn't our town. E had been there just that morning on business and yet the city felt like a different place–more open to something which is less than epiphany (thank god) but more than leisure.
Okay, a couple of corrections from Ms Doesn't Have Time for Her Own Blog But Seems to Have Plenty of Time to Post Giant, Essay-like Comments on Her Husband's:
1.) When K says he wore "the ensemble pictured above," he does not mean the ensemble pictured immediately above, which is my ensemble. We are not the sorts of people who would celebrate a wedding anniversary by cross-dressing ourselves into First Avenue. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
2.) Spoon was actually doing interesting things with meter, not time signatures. K is not misquoting me. I actually said "time signatures." But I was using the term incorrectly. Meter. It's meter.
Posted by: Ellen | October 11, 2007 at 12:34 PM
I love that you guys did that, and I'm so jealous, too--Spoon is great, and in spite of your non-grunge garb, you are way hip that you even knew they were playing. Happy Aniversary!
Posted by: Carolyn | October 11, 2007 at 06:34 PM
Happy Anniversary.
That shower looks like a torture device.
I'm glad it didn't hurt you.
Posted by: Mandy | October 12, 2007 at 04:38 AM
How I failed to see Kevin--in a suit no less--at the Spoon show I'll never figured out. But then, the place was packed.
Meantime, Spoon is great, but the Pony's put on a better show. Which is interesting, because they're not nearly as good a band as Spoon (who are fantastic).
Now, if I could just find my hearing... I think it's somewhere between the 2nd floor john and the bar on the east wall of the first floor.
Posted by: minnesotaj | October 12, 2007 at 07:38 AM
J--Were we at the same show? We attended Weds night.
K
Posted by: K | October 12, 2007 at 11:32 AM
Happy (belated) Anniversary to you both.
How was the food at Vincent? I haven't been there in two or three years, but I was intimately familiar with it (worked there) for quite a while about six years ago.
Posted by: Wyl | October 12, 2007 at 08:07 PM
The risotto was transcendent. The rest of our meal was good. The whole meal wasn't quite up to the level of a recent meal at Zander and a recent anniversary meal at Restaurant Alma, but it seems like the difference could be the difference between an off-night and an on-night, so we'll be going back. Plus, we loved the feel of the room.
Posted by: K | October 14, 2007 at 11:47 AM
Yes, we were at the same show... but different restaurants: the guys I went with were set on steaks at J.D. Hoyt's & who was I to complain?
I do have to say it felt WRONG to be at Hoyt's and even more wrong not to be headed for Little Tijuana or Village Wok for late-night eats after the show: old habits, they die hard.
Posted by: minnesotaj | October 14, 2007 at 12:05 PM
J--
I think The downtown Keys may be the perfect First Avenue restaurant. When we saw Luscious Jackson sometime in the 90s, they explained that they couldn't pogo because they had had the open faced pork sandwiches and mashed potatoes AND the peach pie before the show.
Posted by: K | October 15, 2007 at 08:11 PM