we were the opening band on a five band bill at a place called the RDS gym in Crown Point, Indiana. To date this was our third gig in Crown Point. In the words of Barry, "We've driven farther and gotten home later and been paid less." To which I later added, "and played for fewer people."
all in all, our first show for the 2006 year was a good experience. there were about 110 hardcore scene kids on hand to hear "the audition." i've never heard of them, but apparently they've been on TRL or something. we had a few friends come. my cousin phillip and his friend eric were among the congregation. a mutual friend of monroe and troy, mara came and treated us to starbucks. (i am not sure if i've ever had ANYthing by starbucks. no, i haven't. this was my first.) during our second song, four guys from the MTV series shoot that Troy, Monroe, and Barry are working as production assistants came in. i was glad to see them. one of the guys actually is a production manager employed directly for MTV. the fun thing for me was thinking, here are all these suburban kids who probably watch a good deal of MTV and none of them know that there are people in the room who make the shows they watch.
the series being made is a documentary about kids who live in or near gary and are in juvenille detention. so when troy asked me to say something to the crowd at the beginning of the show i said "we are bottle rocket blue, it's great to be here, these three guys just got out of prison, but more on that later." in the middle of the set he asked me to introduce happiness so i said "the next song is called happiness. happiness is a yuppie word. are there any yuppies in here tonight?" i raised my hand and no one raised theirs. i think we played aggressive during the set becuase there wasn't much visible resonse from the crowd. they stood there stonefaced. a few kids bobbed their heads. but there was good applause and after the show i talked to a lot of people who said they enjoyed it. we all were enthusiastic about this one band called "skies be built." we may play with them again in the spring, i hope.
right before anyone got there, we met the man who owns the building. he asked us what kind of music we played. we said "rock 'n' roll." he asked "actual rock 'n' roll?" that made me laugh. we assued him we tried to be. i said it a lot during the night.
i haven't proofread this. after unpacking the van, i drove 15 miles per hour home and listened to metric.
when i got home i watched "Green Card" with elizabeth and ate some oriental rice i cooked up. i also restrung the four string banjo i just recieved as a gift from my grandparents.
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