Show Journal 2007-03-09
I think this was the smallest Bend show I’ve ever been too. It was still fun but it’s been interesting to see how the turnout there has ebbed and flowed over the years. From 50 people with Thrust all the way up to 400 with Dead Even to the huge Misfits show and now down to 50 again. I’m fairly certain the Domino Room’s price gouging has something to do with this. Last I heard it $650 to rent the room for the night. Nice people and a nice club, but it’s no wonder local promoters have to charge an arm and a leg for local bands. Good news is the show was a blast … for what we saw of it. We missed all the openers including Aces Over Kings whom we’ve played with before. We did catch The Roe and they were entertaining to watch. Not often you see an arena sized show in a tiny club. Our set was highlight free but overall pretty fun. I sort of felt like we sucked at the last few Bend shows and this felt like redemption. Of course on the way out I heard two groups of people say this was the worst show they had seen in a long time. Hope they were talking about the show as a whole and not us. (Of course since they stuck it out we couldn’t have been that bad.) Also on the way out some girl wanted to buy a CD and her male friend dragged her away from the merch table explaining that she shouldn’t ever buy CD’s because it’s “the biggest scam there is”. According to him, buying CD’s is “a rip-off”, musicians make “a ton of money” and you should “download your music for free” to fight the system. I don’t necessarily oppose downloading of music, but holy shit, that was the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. I bit my tongue but was about one comment away from explaining that we pack up our van that we bought on our own, drove 4 hours over the mountain with our own money, setup our gear, played our balls off, and are about to unload it and drive 4 more hours back home … for nothing. Nada. Zero. Zip. That $3 compilation you refuse to let your girlfriend buy (that we paid $2 for) is the only money we’ll be making this evening. Jesus, what a douchebag. Next time in that situation I will stop to ask myself “what would Dave do?” The answer of course would be put him in a submission hold and throw him out the door head first. Note to self, play less Guitar Hero and more Fight Night. You know, just in case. Ok, I’m rambling. Thanks so much to everyone to stayed late as well as thanks to Dan and Bleeding Through productions for a very smoothly run show.
Show Journal 2007-02-10
Talk about old school. Man, oh man, this show was a blast from the past and we ran into just about everyone we had ever seen or met in between 1997 and 1999. No they weren’t there to see us, they were all here to see the Bomf! play their first show in about 8 years. For those who haven’t been with us long, Bomf! is quite possibly Dave and my favorite Portland punk rock band on both a personal and musical level. They were one of the first bands we really hung out with. Lyle played in our band for a short while, I filled in for them on guitar for a few months and we’ve played with Brent and Scotty’s other bands since many times. Needless to say we were stoked when we found out they were playing, even more so when they asked us to play. In fact we actually had a Seattle show booked this night and cancelled it to play. Even if we couldn’t play we would have cancelled to attend. So how was it? Awesome. I walked in the door and saw people I literally hadn’t seen in 6 or 7 years. Crazy. The show started off right with Lopez who are also just as entitled to their wayback credibility award as we are, possibly even a little more. The only word I can ever find to describe them is “gnarly”. Super fast, abrasive, in your face hardcore/punk rock. They also get the prize for the funniest in between song commentary. As for us, our set was good. I’m not sure how it went over with the crowd but we enjoyed the hell out of it. One added bonus is that in all of our trips to the Tonic over the years it was the first time we’ve played to more than 30 people. Sadly, I am not exaggerating. Anyway, the reason for the season was Bomf! and although they all look older (and bigger) they can still lay it down live. Hearing the songs again was great and my face is still sort from the perpetual smile throughout the night. Definitely the most fun I’ve had at a show in a long time. Thanks so much for having us and feel free to look us up in another 8 years guys. Also, thanks to everyone from the old school who has kept up with us as well and gave us a warm reception.
Show Journal 2007-02-09
You think you’ve been to a long show? Try enduring a 10 band lineup sometime. It’s brutal. We missed 4 of them and it was quite possibly one of the longest shows I’ve ever sat through. The sheer lack of attendance after the 10:00 mark made it all the more challenging since the show ran until nearly 1:30 AM. We walked in around 8:00 and about 100 people were going nuts for CLR. There was maybe 20 or so watching us and by the time the last band played (thankfully not us) it was down to about 8 utterly exhausted looking people. We joked at one point we need to start carrying tumbleweed in our gear so we can roll it across the floor at such sparsely attended shows. So why would we even take this show? We felt like we owed Local Chaos a favor since they have gotten us a few good shows over the year. The one cool thing about tonight it that every band we saw was really good. Seriously. Really, really good bands all the way around. I think The Rebel Spell impressed me the most and Full Frontal Assault being a close second. The other strange thing about this evening was I think that we played really well. It was fast, tight and pretty angry sounding. I only wish there were more people in the room as it probably would have gone over better. It was long but all in all a pretty good night.
Show Journal 2007-02-01
I actually had a long show review typed up but after fouling up an upgrade to Windows Vista I managed to lose it during the restore process. Anyway, the quick version is that The Bullies were entertaining to watch. Our set was very fun but not earth-shattering by any means. New Mexican Disaster Squad was fast and good. Only Crime was utterly humbling and awesome to watch. Heavier than we all expected but they still had some terribly catchy moments as well. Seeing all those influential musicians in one band was cool. Thanks to the Hawthorne. No thanks to my computer.
Show Journal 2007-01-27
If you asked me to sit down and make a list of all the things I don’t want to do while enduring a migraine, playing a show now tops my list. Every step, shuffle and head movement was uncomfortable at best, downright painful at worst. The 100w amplifier right behind me didn’t help matters. I just kept telling myself “25 minutes, I only gotta make it 25 minutes”. Out of instinct I’d find myself forgetting about my ailment and go for the head band only to see stars each time. It’s definitely easier when you pretend those stars are camera flashes from thousands of adoring fans, rather than jolts of discomfort given to oneself while trying to entertain a few dozen people in various states of intoxication. Thankfully all three other bands were very good (definitely a rare occurrence) and the turnout was better than we expected. Despite the headache, it was a pretty good night. Thanks to everyone who stayed up late to support four local bands.
Show Journal 2007-01-19
Slight bummer on the show tonight. Much The Same (aka – the band from Chicago on Nitro Records that we wanted to open for) got in a bad van accident two night ago and had to cancel this show and several others. They are all ok but we were a little bummed as we were excited to see them play. The show must go on and it did. As usual with trips to Longview we arrived inexcusably late and only caught a song or two of the first two bands. I got to see a little more of the Scurvies set who are also on tour but from Alaska. Talk about a drive. Damn. They were pretty cool guys and fun to watch. As for our set, it was pretty good. Since tonight wound up doubling as Brady’s birthday party we let him write the setlist and he hit us with some old ones. Can’t recall the last time we played ‘Get In The Van’ or ‘Roads Less Traveled’ at a show. Pretty fun to bust out some less frequently played material. Highlights included lots of stage diving, Justin’s incoherent rambling and the mystery gasser who must have been situated near the front of the stage. Seriously, how can anyone smell worse that Reid’s? Anyway, thanks so much to all who attended on short notice, thanks to Reid’s and best of luck to Much The Same.
Show Journal 2007-01-06
Kind of a strange evening as we were the lone punk rock band in a sea of metal and hard rock. Everyone was nice enough and the bands were plenty entertaining, but I’m really not sure we presented enough headbanging opportunities for anyone to really enjoy us. A couple of people moved around and we learned some interesting new dances but definitely not the same reaction we saw in Sandy last time. In retrospect I now realize we never turned down from practice volume which would explain why the middle cleared out and people covered their ears and moved to the side of the stage. Anything else note worthy to write about? Not really. I think Del Taco and my long awaited reunion with the del beef burrito was the highlight of the evening for me but then again I’m easy to impress. All in all a good show though and thanks to Nate for having us. It’s still amazing you can still get a better turnout in Sandy with two weeks notice than you can in Portland with two months warning.
Show Journal 2006-12-15
Now that was an awesome show. So many friends we haven’t seen in a while came out of the woodwork that it was impossible not to have a good time. Every corner we’d see someone and think “holy crap I haven’t seen you in years”. Very cool. The show itself was great. Our homies The Civies kicked it off with fast sing along street punk. We played second to a pretty awake crowd. We played ‘The Gambler’ by Kenny Rogers tonight. The consensus afterwards was that the song was a hit for the folks in the bar but a little odd for the all ages portion who might not be familiar with the song or the chain of fast food chicken stores. Fortunately we chose not to play our alternate version called The Nambler or Dateline NBC would have shut us down. The Briggs were awesome. Solid and catchy punk rock songs. They seemed like super nice dudes too which is always a plus. The main reason of course was The Living End and I gotta say they were amazing. I had seen them last time in 99 at The Warped Tour at wasn’t that impressed. In a small theater it was a whole different story. They were incredibly tight, totally entertaining and they just controlled the crowd. It’s nice to see a band used to playing arenas rock a smaller club with even more intensity. Totally impressed. Didn’t get to talk to them at all, but they had a full tour bus and a line of fans waiting to meet them it’s all good. Thanks to Thrasher Presents and all who took the time to watch us!
Show Journal 2006-12-02
Back to Olympia for our second time this year and in fact our second time ever. We arrived fashionably late as usual and missed the first band (sorry!) and caught the latter half of Aces Over Kings who was actually a pretty damn good band. We loaded in the cold (29 degrees), setup and rocked as hard as we could. We definitely got a better response than our last trip to the Manium. I think the show in Chehalis the prior week as a few people came out to this show too. Plus, if you didn’t move around a little your legs would most likely freeze and shatter in the unheated warehouse. GGTS was up last and sounded great. Definitely a lot more crowd participation which is always fun to watch. The trip home was uninteresting at best with the thickest fog I’ve seen in ages. All in all a pretty good night. Thanks to GGTS and Kevin for the show hookup.
Show Journal 2006-11-25
Just when we thought we had played every small town in the Northwest Chehalis, WA comes along. We had heard really good things about the Matrix from quite a few bands and you know what, they were all right. The place was great. Nice owners, cool kids and a pretty nice community vibe to it. Due to a late arrival we missed The Wobblies. We had actually met and played with them before in Eugene or Corvallis and one can only assume they rocked. Desensitized Youth was second and sounded pretty good. Kind of street punk, and still pretty catchy. Go Get The Scissors was up third and I really like these guys. They sound solid, play well and are very energetic on stage. They always seem a few steps ahead of other bands their age. Very cool and always fun to watch. We had to play last which is always interesting in a place you’ve never played before (especially following “locals”). A few people up front knew all the words so that made it cool right from the get go. I’m not sure if it was the excessive volume or the spectacle of the jumping guitar player but people stuck and sang along where they could. Props to Taylor for the vocals and picking up the tab for dinner. More props to Michelle for the merch help, camera blinding and overall level of sass. Last but not least thanks to the Matrix and GGTS for the show hookup!
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