Show Journal 1998-03-27
I should have known something weird was gonna go down when we were told the show was moved to the American Legion. I’ve always had an idea what the inside of an American Legion would be look but never figured I would actually see it. We walk in the door and I swear it was exactly what I had pictured. Lots of gray hair, lots of war memorabilia and lots of drunks. It was like going to a bridge game at grandma’s house except everyone is liquored up and smoking. If we were hanging out it would have been cool, but we thought we were there to play a show for what we had assumed would be a bunch of kids. Looking around there was nothing but an empty stage with lights on it and a bunch of people who obviously had no idea what they were in for. We’re thinking ok, fine, we’ll have every one turn off their hearing aids, say something nice about veterans, play and get the hell out of there. I mean we have had some weird shows before, but to a bunch of world war two veterans? In the words of Dave that would be ‘wack.’ So just as we are starting to try and remember the pledge of allegiance, the owner comes up and says, “oh you must be in one of the punk bands for later tonight.” We say yes and she assures us that lots of kids will be showing up around 8:30. So, basically we are left to stay there and kick it with the 55 and over crowd for about an hour. Dave made some new friends because of his military time, but other than that we just hung out at this big pimp ass velvet card table that was located in the trophy room. (Yes, the trophy room.) So at about 8:30, just like she said, they close off the bar, the veterans leave (probably to go intimidate the Elks who are located across the street) and sure enough the kids start rolling in. It was amazing, by the time we went on there was well over 100 people there. And remember this is in Longview, WA of all places. Longview is basically just a glorified rest stop between Portland and Seattle. It is a tiny little town … but their music scene kicks ass. We played, felt like big time rock stars and had a blast. Lots of people really seemed to like our music and people were really friendly and talkative afterwards. A couple of the vets even hung around! Even in Portland on a good night you rarely … ok … we rarely see that many people, and if you do not that many of them are totally into the music. What can I say … Longview rocks.
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