Bend rules! Period. We had so much fun playing at the Evil Sister Saloon I can’t even begin to describe it. Thrust just plain old rocks …. on stage and off. They played your basic fast, skate punk music, but you can just tell they are having a fun time doing it. We had so much fun hanging out with those guys it was to bad we had to leave. Nigel did pretty well too – with a cameo on drums by Satan. Thanks Bend!

Another prime time slot at the Satyricon … 1:00 on a Tuesday morning. No pimps spotted this time. Despite the not-so-prime time slot, we did get one unusual fringe benefit from this show …. free slot car races. Some places give the bands food and some give you free beer, but we got free slot car races … go figure.

Another sold out night at the Stage 4. Hardly. Most of the other bands were really nice, and this was a plus because they were about the only people there besides employees of the club. I must give a special mention to Subincision who according to their T-shirt guy played “the worst show of their lives.” In fact at one point a friend of the band came out and began yelling “you suck!” I don’t think he meant it in good fun either. None the less, we enjoyed watching them roll around on the floor and smash the drum set. Another shot out to 5 Cent Refund for making an effort to promote the Portland music scene.

We arrived at Suburbia to find a note on the door that said “no show tonight.” So we were kinda bummed that we drove all that way for nothing. We went out to find a pay phone, came back and we see another van parked with a group of people staring at the sign. If turns out they were the headlining band (called 7-X) and they had driven from the bay area in CA. Now that’s a long drive for a cancelled show. Apparently this was the second cancellation on their tour and it just had started a few days before. Anyway, to make a long story short, we called a bunch of places and eventually we managed to get them a show at another club downtown. They are playing again in Portland in a few days and hopefully we can catch up with them again. They were real nice and I hope the rest of their tour goes well. Also since I forgot, I wanted to thank them for the pizza.

Our show was ok and we met a bunch of really cool people from all over the west coast, but all I’m gonna say is that I’m glad we didn’t get killed.