Show Journal 2008-05-10
So when we got asked to play the Zombie Prom many months ago we were imagining a small 50-100 person crowd with maybe half the people dressed up. What we got was so much more than we could have ever possibly expected. The Mt Tabor actually sold out and from what we heard had over 400 people in there and I would about 98% were in costume. Most of the costumes were actually good costumes which was amazing. I heard the phrase “brains” uttered so many times it jus became background noise after a while. As for the prom theme they really did everything right. Balloons and ribbons lined the hallways and main room, and off in the side bar they had a full “prom photo” booth setup with gravestones and trees. It really was pretty spectacular. Written In Ashes was the first band and for their set they played all covers. I must confess their selection of covers was damn near perfect. Simple Minds, The Eurythmics and even some Billy Idol for good measure. We were all impressed with their effort to learn so many covers. After their set there was more DJ’s which climaxed with my personal highlight of the evening, the playing of Thriller. The song has been a bit overplayed in recent months with everything from that Korean prison video (look it up on youtube if you haven’t seen it) to the appearance of the song in a Geico commercial. I will go on record to say seeing a room full of bloody zombies scream and cheer at the opening notes to the song actually made me cry a little bit. Perfect timing! After that song it was time for the costume contest which we used as our chance to get a fresh coat of blood. This was important because we had been skirting the fine between bum and undead all night. Blood = zombie. No blood = derelict. We got our introduction and tore through our set as fast as we could. Although it was fun to see so a wild looking crowd we had all sorts of problems on stage. The worst offender was Justin’s guitar amp which squealed the entire show. Every pause, every break in the music and even while playing there was a constant squeal that was obnoxious even on stage. About half way through my amp started to go out and the volume dropped down from the normal deafening roar down to a half assed nearly jangly guitar tone. Not having any other option I played through and hoped the sound guy would adjust. It eventually came back but two half powered amps is not good. The Justin aerial show was also grounded tonight due to a sprained ankle he suffered yesterday. I suppose it was the one show where slow moving is acceptable, but we all missed his energy. Speaking of energy, Dustin was suffering as he had already played a set that night with another band in Longview, drove to Portland and played this one. He started off strong but by the end was barely hanging on. I know we could have done better, but all in all it still was ok and given the fact it was a zombie prom, no complaints here. We’d definitely like to thank Michelle for hanging out and to the organizers and all on the prom committee for having us!
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