Show Journal 2003-11-08
This was our first trip to McMinnville and gathering from the words of the kids there this was one of the few punk shows recently as well. The turnout was pretty good including a few familiar faces who traveled from Portland, Newburg and even as far as Rainier. Marco Polio started off the evening with loud rock, a large afro and more televisions than I thought humanly possible. The almighty Iknowkungfu was next and honestly it was one of the best sets that I’ve seen them play. Coolest and nicest guys you’ll ever meet … even if they are intolerant to the local press. They joked on stage about being old but I’m pretty sure that if we compared our median ages sadly we are the older band. If you are one of the people who stuck around for our set then you are probably a little confused and hopefully a little surprised. Why you ask? Well, between the small crowd, the intimate vibe in the room and the general feeling of ‘what else is there to do’ we ended up taking requests and then inexplicably deciding to play a large chunk of our new songs for the next album. We played Rise Again and New Song #5 which is pretty much a given at our shows recently but we also played these yet unnamed selections too: the metal song, the jangly song, the quirky song, the hardcore song, the really fast song and the song abut Charles Bronson. At least 4 of those songs had never been attempted live and the other two had only been played once or twice for an audience. Basically it was a huge game of stump Briana and Taylor who thought they knew the words to every song! Anyway, consider yourselves blessed or cursed for being the first ones to hear all those new songs. The drive home was amusing as we discussed popping zits, Dave’s taste for himself and the finer points of the movie ‘Bum Fights’. Huge thanks to Brian from Blue Star Creeper for putting on this show as well as multiple props to Darin and the G Unit, Briana and her endless supply of Pixy Stix, Taylor and the family, the almighty sword of FU and Julie for not tolerating the consumption of “eye boogers”. I almost forgot — highlight of the night — about half way into Iknowkungfu’s set Justin walks right up to the front of the stage and sits down in a chair directly in front of Bill’s microphone and tries in vain to amuse him. Bill was either oblivious to Justin’s antics or more likely just ignoring him. After a few songs and no reaction Justin’s head starts to sway a little and he starts to nod off. I’d like to point out that he was falling asleep with a very loud rock band 5 FEET FROM HIM! Eventually he slides over to another chair directly in front of the PA speaker and proceeds to completely zone out. Mouth open, head back, probably drooling … the whole deal. The drummer for Iknowkungfu sees what’s going on and whips a drum stick (in mid song I might add) and knocks Justin in the leg. Justin stirs momentarily, looks over to see everyone laughing at him, smiles and within 30 seconds was back asleep on the chair mouth open and snoring … all with a live band right in front of him. Amazing. Absolutely amazing.
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