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Thanks to everyone who came out early to the H2O show to support us! In case you were wondering who the rock machine on drums was that was David from the Rhythm of ’84. We are however still looking for a full time drummer – if you think you can play drums for 800 Octane send us an e-mail!
Show Journal 2002-07-30
My god … what a bad ass show! H2O rocked the house tonight but more on that in a second. Our set was good, dare I say very great. This was the first show with David also known as “the borrowed drummer from Rhythm of ’84” and he totally rocked. Dare I say he even “represented”? We had warned him that if he screwed up too badly we were going to destroy his drum set when we were done playing. Luckily we didn’t have to resort to such measures as he played great. Authority Zero was up next and they were definitely entertaining to watch due to their endless energy. Madcap was third and good lord they sounded good too. Catchy songs, a thick sound and they just ripped through each song as if it was their last. Last but not least was H2O and good grief they were good tonight. The crowd was really small tonight (because Bad Brains cancelled) so H2O threw away their set list and took requests all night long. They busted out some old ones that I’ve never seen them play live, they played a ton of covers (including an Ice Cube one) and they even played 3 new songs that have yet to be recorded. There was a ton of people stage diving and the band seemed to be having a blast. During one encore song Toby jumped out in the crowd and led everyone in a massive circle pit. For their last song it got even more bizarre … they had everyone in the crowd get on the stage and the band went out the floor and played up to the crowd. It’s very weird sounding, but somehow it just kind of worked. Very cool set by one of the best live bands around. Big thanks to the following, Rick Emerson and Clyde Lewis from 1080 KOTK, Lara, Sarah (and roommate), PJ and Chrissy, Mike F., Mike T., Wookie and to the other bands who were all very cool to hang with.
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This kinda sucks to write but Jim is no longer in the band. If you want the lowdown check out the FAQ page for our simplified explanation. As for 800 Octane the rock will continue as we have temporarily enlisted David from Rhythm of ’84 to fill in on drums while we look for a full time replacement. We can’t thank him (and his band) enough for letting us borrow him for some shows. This also means we are looking for a full time drummer! If you or someone you know thinks you have what it takes to play drums for 800 Octane send us an e-mail. Live experience is not required but you do have some big shoes to fill so please don’t suck.
Show Journal 2002-07-19
Super fun show this evening. Our van is still dead on the street in front of Dave’s house so we ended up renting a trailer and taking Dave’s car to the show. No big deal but we ended up running way late because of it. In fact we totally missed Point.Blank and only saw the last few songs of Spare Lead. Backwash was up third and it was nice to finally play with them. From what we saw the crowd seemed kind of subdued the whole night but when we played thankfully everyone seemed to wake back up. One odd thing about tonight was that all of our amps were powered by a surge protector that was located at the front of the stage. It was a pretty rowdy crowd so every few minutes the thing would get knocked loose and our amps would turn off. That might sound annoying but the cool thing was that whenever it happened everyone in the crowd would sing along for a few seconds until someone plugged the power back in. Other random show highlights include Dave making an inappropriate joke about “pussy fingers” on stage, Jon commanding everyone to “wang chung tonight” from the merch table, and the realization that someone in the crowd had most likely crapped their pants. Good times. Thanks to Chrissy, PJ, Spare Lead and extra thanks to Jon for coming along for the ride and helping with our merch and power issues!
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Crap!!! The water pump on our van broke this evening and we had to cancel tonight’s Govt. Camp show as well as tomorrow’s Redding show. This is only the second time we’ve ever had to cancel a show due to a van breakdown in our 8 years as a band. Hopefully it will be fixed in time for Bend though!
Show Journal 2002-07-17
Today was Jim’s birthday. We were supposed to play a show in Govt. Camp with the Civies tonight but sadly we were stopped by a broken water pump somewhere in Gresham. Not only did we miss tonight’s show but we were forced to cancel tomorrow’s Redding show as well. I hope my birthday is better than Jim’s.
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You might have noticed a few shows have disappeared from our calendar
Show Journal 2002-07-16
Oh … my … god … Strike Anywhere was incredible tonight. Easily the best band performance I’ve seen in ages. Absolutely amazing. As Ice-T would say I am completely and totally on their jock. Seriously if you like hardcore/punk/emo or anything in between go look at their website and see if they are playing near you. I promise you will not be disappointed. Speaking of amazing bands … Rhythm of ’84 … I don’t even know where to start with these guys. They are so spectacular live it’s almost discouraging to watch them play. So talented and so good. Thirty 3 sounded great tonight as well. The pink sailor outfits were a little unorthodox but we’ve come to expect the bizarre when it comes to Thirty 3. We played third and since we are the greatest band on Earth every one was humbled by our presence. Hardly. Truth be told I’m not sure if our set was good or not because I was so traumatized by facing the public with my disgusting leper-like sunburn I couldn’t make eye contact with anyone in the crowd. All in all a great show. Thanks go out to Crys, Mocephus, Lee, Ashley, Michelle and her cookies, the anonymous Huffy riders, all the assorted members of local bands who came out and especially to everyone who was respectful of the Eagles Lodge.
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Just got back from Warped Tour and I gotta say it was pretty cool. The $3 Mountain Dews were a bit excessive but the sheer number of good bands more than made up for it. In local show news we are playing with H2O at the B Complex on July 30th!!!
Show Journal 2002-07-14
We finally got to play the Warped Tour and you know what … it was actually pretty cool. We left on Saturday afternoon and drove straight to S.F. through the night. We did see a pretty large wildfire which was kind of cool. We arrived to the venue around 5:00 AM but they weren’t allowing extra vehicles in the lot so we were instructed to park outside the gate along the street. After about 2 hours of sleep we woke up to meet our Ernie Ball contact person and load in our stuff. Since we were playing on the Ernie Ball stage we were given special “Ernie Ball VIP passes” which kind of equates into being a second class citizen at the show. You can’t go backstage, you can’t park in the band lot and you have to use the main gate to go in and out. Kind of a pain the ass for an all day event but I kept reminding myself it was free. The venue was totally cool … it was on a pier on the water beside the Bay Bridge and you had a perfect view of the city. The first few hours of the show were cool, Justin and I wandered around and watched tons of bands. I think the highlight was seeing Hot Water Music … after seeing them live I have a new found appreciation for that band. Awesome place to hang out! Around 2:00 we went to set up and play. Oddly enough we ran into a group of people from Portland there! They were following the Warped Tour for a few days and were just as surprised to see us as we were to see them. Quite a few people stopped to watch us which was very encouraging. Some people even moved which was very nice to see. We sold quite a few CD’s despite not having a merch booth and felt good about our set. We watched a few more bands (most notably The Line) and after an hour or two we were all pretty burnt out on seeing bands so we decided to pack it up and head back. (Speaking of ‘burnt out’ I have never been so sunburnt in my entire life. As I type this I have a bright red face with swollen blisters. I am not happy.) All in all the day was good but the drive home totally sucked ass. About 30 minutes outside of S.F. we decided to stop at In And Out Burger. We couldn’t find it and ended up driving on a road parallel to the interstate for a few miles to a Burger King. We got some food, started driving and after about 30 minutes realized we could see the Sacramento skyline. In a cruel twist of fate it turns out the turn towards I-5 was at the exit where the In And Out Burger was. There is nothing as discouraging as starting a 11 hour drive and realizing you just added an extra hour to it. The rest of the drive was grueling … we kept having to stop to take naps because we couldn’t stay awake. Thanks to my sunburn I was driving with swollen eyes. Well, despite the miserable drive the whole experience was great. Thanks to everyone who traveled to see us including Stephanie from Redding, Angela from Portland and extra huge thanks to Kevin, Sam, Al and Chris for traveling from Seattle!
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