18

MONDAY

I’ve seen Barcelona’s name around town, but I’ve never seen the band perform. It’s the damn DIRECTV: In the winter and spring, it’s hockey season, the summer and fall have baseball, and I’m in too many Internet fantasy leagues to miss a single game of either. Of course, I could have listened to one of the band’s excellent New Wavy discs— Simon Basic, Zero-One-Infinity, Robot Trouble, Transhuman Revolution—but, well, NHL 2Night was on, and then Baseball Tonight, and….Thing is, I think the folks in Barcelona would understand my geeky dilemmas. This ’80s-culture-devoted, soccer-loving, Commodore 64-worshiping quartet understands what it means to be distracted by your hobbies. Maybe that’s why they’re breaking up—no time to synth-rock. I’ll probably check what’s on ESPN first, but you can see Barcelona play its last show with Allen Clapp, the Saturday People, and Kleenex Girl Wonder at 8:30 p.m. at the Metro Cafe, 1522 14th St. NW. $7. (202) 588-9118. (Christopher Porter)