During lunch today, enjoying a fabulous falafel sandwich, I was thinking about what the best show on earth would be. I came to the following conclusion. It would feature, in this order:

*mirah
*the gossip
*sonic youth
*david bowie

That would be brilliant. It would be outside, like in my backyard. Mirah would play when the sky was still a little bit light. Phil Elvrum would join her, of course, and Calvin, and it would be sublime. And then the Gossip would play just as it was getting dark and fairy lights would come on and Beth would be cute and amazing and wearing enviable clothing, as is her wont. And then just as it was really, really, really dark, Sonic Youth would play and it would be like seeing them all the times I have seen them rolled into one best time (although seeing them in 2000 at the Shepherd's Bush Empire with Kim Gordon wearing this gorgeous sparkly dress and people screaming and jumping so hard the walls were shaking would be rather.hard.to.top), and they would play for hours, they would play absolutely everything including a 30 minute version of The Diamond Sea and nobody would get bored. And then it would be well into nighttime and then someone else would come onstage and start playing just one song and it would be this big surprise and you wouldn't even know who it was except that the song sounded really familiar and then there would be a huge firework explosion to reveal that it was J Mascis and he would play Start Choppin, but only that one song, and it would be over in a blink like it never really happened. And this is where I have a conundrum because it would be about two hours from dawn which would be the perfect time for Pulp to reunite and play in my backyard, but I really have to pull out all the stops here and have David Bowie play. People would be crying and dancing around and glitter would fall from the sky and we'd all be screaming Suffragette City in my backyard until the morning. And then I would invite everyone into my kitchen for banana pancakes. Even the vegans.