When a location becomes a meme, one of two things happen: The first, is that people slap that “what if we kissed at the…” catchphrase over a picture of the location, and the other, is that they turn it into a punk venue. Like those teens at the Denny’s a couple of years ago, Against Me!’s Laura Jane Grace and Lawrence Arms’ Brendan Kelly (who, in the interest of full disclosure, used to be part of our in-house advertising and marketing team, Onion Labs) are hosting a one-night event at Four Seasons Total Landscaping—the site of one of Rudy Giuliani’s many huge embarrassing failures last year.
“This will be the first and last time Brendan and I play in front of a landscaping company and we promise it will be better than that MAGA shit show,” Laura Jane Grace said.
In case you somehow forgot because it’s been 10 years and one attempted insurrection since the last presidential election, Four Seasons Total Landscaping is where Rudy Giuliani announced that he and his boss would be contesting the election result. Many speculate that Giuliani (or whoever booked the venue) believed they were reserving the luxurious Four Seasons Hotel, where volunteers counted election ballot—not a small business outside Philadelphia serendipitously located between a sex shop and a crematorium. Nevertheless, the site became an iconic meme, both a testament to Giuliani’s garish ineptitude and the Internet’s ability to smell an L from a thousand miles away.
As for the concert, Laura Jane Grace and Brendan Kelly will take the inexplicably historic stage on August 21. If you want to go, though, you probably should’ve read this article before it was written because the show is sold out.
“Ever since I saw my personal hero Rudy Giuliani humiliate himself for the good of the nation at Four Seasons Total Landscaping, I knew I wanted to go there and follow in his footsteps, then shop at the porn store, and eventually move off this mortal coil by being burned at the neighboring crematorium,” Kelly said. “It’s not often you get to touch history, but that’s what Laura and I will be doing in this most hallowed of political and mulching grounds.”
As to how this all happened, well, to Kelly, “This is just another show on my tour.” Kelly tells The A.V. Club that his management and the promoter in Philadelphia threw out the idea, and he can’t “stop laughing about this whole fucking situation.”
“My management came to me with this idea,” he said, “And he was like ‘this promoter in Philly has waiting for the right act and thinks you’re perfect for it. Four Seasons wanted to make sure the first show was a home run. But you know who would make this really awesome: Laura.” Kelly said that she responded with an affirmative, “Oh, God, yes.”
As of now, since this is just a typical show on his tour that happens to in the exact location as one of the most embarrassing press conferences of all time, there are no plans to live stream the event—though, since the concert sold out in a matter of minutes, maybe that will change. Kelly said that he isn’t sure where Four Seasons Total Landscaping the show will be held. He just hopes to perform on the hallowed grounds where Giuliani stood, next to an orange hose and sandwiched between a sex shop and a crematorium.
[via BrooklynVegan]