As a teenager, I had a minor love affair with Ted Leo. His pop punk anthems soundtracked my learning to drive, I never missed one of his frequent D.C. shows and back when I still bought band tees, I owned too many of his. But somewhere along the line, Ted and I fell out of love. We parted ways amicably but I just couldn’t get into any record he wrote after Shake the Sheets.
Two weeks ago, Ted played a “surprise” set at a Kensington warehouse. I waffled on attending — it was pouring rain, I was tired, what if he didn’t play any of those old songs I wanted to hear? Reluctantly, I went.
I hung back for the first few songs. I’m not a kid from the suburbs anymore and I certainly wasn’t going to join the underage set from the Main Line at the front. But when he launched into the jaunty guitar at the beginning of “Timorous Me,” I couldn’t feign disinterest any longer. I sang along and danced like crazy and locked eyes with strangers, all of whom had the same stupid grin plastered across their faces as I did. For one hour that Thursday night, I was sixteen again. And it was really fucking great.
