Wednesday 11/23/05
When I lived in New Jersey, the night before Thanksgiving (TNBT from here on out) was the night where you would run into people you hadn't seen since the last TNBT, drink up the gross national product of the state of Kentucky, and ponder how you were going to deal with all of those assholes the next day at dinner. Its kind of like the homecoming dance for drunks. Armed with this knowledge, I figured TNBT would be a great night to play a show. There was one thing I failed to take into account:
This is Seattle, not New Jersey.
The difference, aside from Seattle's stunning dearth of mullets and quality Italian food, is that people leave Seattle in droves come the holidays. It's like a frigging ghost town, albeit a ghost town where you can still get overpriced coffee by walking 20 yards in any direction. Seattlites think nothing of driving ten hours to the other side of the state (any other time, it would take three hours) just to get some of Mom's giblet gravy, then drive another ten hours back Sunday.
What I'm driving at is that I was a bit disappointed in our draw TNBT. It wasn't bad. We still brought in a hundred some odd people on a pretty shitty night weather wise. Still I was hoping to stuff the Fun House the way I stuffed myself at Dan's the following day. That fucker can COOK!
The All-American Playboys led off with a set that went past a lot of the punks in attendance. They totally rocked, but fell prey to a bad case of opening band-itis. Seattle audiences are notorious for keeping a safe distance from opening bands as if they had leprosy. We've had the same thing happen to us numerous times. All things considered, they went over well enough. But as I've said before this town just doesn't seem to realize how great a band is brewing right in their own back yard.
A retooled Murdock followed. I've never seen a band drink so much and still be able to slay a crowd. I mean these guys were waaaaassssted! From the moment they stumbled onstage they careened from one thrashed out monstrosity to the next, melting faces and bludgeoning eardrums all along the way. This is yet another band that seems to be criminally ignored by the sweatered and horn rimmed masses.
Our set was a little rough, but effective. We've been better - hell we've been way better, but we've been worse. We'd all been going through some strange shit lately, and from my perspective it showed. Still we banged out an hour of mayhem that confirmed in my mind that even on an off night we're still capable of kicking some major ass. Once again I seemed to have a cabal of local musicians singing back to me. In many ways, that's more satisfying than all of the half-naked chicks that usually bounce around the front of the stage at our shows. Then again, ya gotta love the half-naked chicks!
The highlight came near the end of our set, when we brought up Brody from the Playboys to blow sax on "Do You Remember Rock And Roll Radio." Brody's flawless lines reenergized us and the crowd alike. We even ended up getting called for an encore, something that hadn't happened in a while.
The final tally saw us salvaging a fairly melancholy night, yet left us physically and emotionally drained. I was a little bummed, as this was our last show of the year. Yet I took comfort in the fact that I got to spend TNBT with good friends and great bands - and got paid to do it. Like the commercial says, "It doesn't get any better than this."