On the eve before the 28th anniversary of my birth (Tho-mas Eve), Bottle Rocket Blue played with the Kansas Bible Co. (Jake Miller's side project) and Chasing Fate (with whom we played the trampoline show - and they actually got us this gig). The venue was the Crossing. From the outside it looks like any unassuming coffeehouse. But their concert room is a veritable xanadu of space - like the size of a church gymnasium. There was an upper level and a rasied platform on the side of the room.
As we were loading in, Mike Bruneau showed up unexpectedly, and good thing too. We enlisted his camerman skillz and he shot the whole set and portions of which are promnently featured in our EPK video.
During Jake's set, which was awesome, he announced one song was very Bottle Rocket Blue-esque. It was, danceable, with some mid high guitar riffs. I was also proud and embarrassed at the same time when he also let everyone in the place (about 150) that it was my birthday. It meant a lot.
There was a green room for the bands under the upper deck thing. Troy and Jake and I had a good talk. While we were changing into show clothes. Joel, from Chasing Fate, commented "You guys dress up for shows, we have to dress up for work, so when we play, we dress down."
Our set was rauccous, I think, at least that's what I got from the video I was able to see. I did this thing during the break down of "Yesses" called 'dealing cards'. I tilted my guitar up and pivoted from side to side like I was throwing a deck of cards into the front row.
One cool thing about this show was the video clips we played over our heads at the end of the set. We used classic movies like - Rebel Without A Cause, The Royal Tennenbaums, and Romeo and Juliet (during our song of the same name.) I tried hard not to look at the screen above us while playing. I could see the people in the crowd watching them.
One older town guy said he like it alot, like Cheap Trick, he said, hard and happy.
As we were driving home, I got my cell phone and made a call and said "I'm feeling too old to drive." Monroe was taken a back, "Really!?" "No, no man I'm fine."