Another pretty cool show in Portland. It was an all ages show with 3 other bands. Short Round from Eugene was awesome. It was Phill Wanted’s first show and they rocked hard. One of these days they are going to rule this town. We play again with them in 2 days which should be fun. We unveiled the Volvo song at this show and it went over well. The sound guy said we were the loudest band he’s heard in a while. There were girls in the front covering their ears which left us with an oddly enjoyable feeling. Someone said we were good musicians … that was pretty cool. Wrong, but pretty cool. One crappy thing happened that I’m dying to mention. Two of Dave’s friends showed up to see us and were told that they couldn’t come in because “dressed appropriately to see a show here.” If someone is willing to show up on a Sunday afternoon and pay 5 bucks to see some local bands, should it matter what they are wearing? I guess I didn’t realize there was a fashion show going on.

Hello Portland. This was our first show as a 3 piece and it rocked. The people there really seemed to get into all of the bands, which was nice. A welcome change from days past in a different time zone. Usually with 6 bands for a buck everyone just drinks beer and works the bar, but people actually paid attention. Most of the other bands were pretty good. Some worth a mention were Super Villain, Beer Gut, Ladies Speed Stik and Witch Throttlegush. I think we won the crowd over when Bryan shared his tale of meeting Dio in a record store.

(Added Oct. 2001) – This was the last 800 Octane show in Boone before we all headed off to Portland. I didn’t get to play this one and gladly relinquished the honor to Greg who had been filling in for me at practices and shows throughout the year. Since it was a somewhat special occasion for our band everyone dressed in costumes. Dave dressed up as Elvis, Greg was an Insane Clown, and Bryan in typical Bryan fashion opted to dress up a Bruce Jenner. I can’t recall what Paul dressed up as. Does anyone remember? Looking back this was the end of a lot of things. This was Paul’s last show in the band and well as the end of Greg’s filling in on guitar. We didn’t know it at the time it was the end of our old sound. The following month we moved to Portland as a 3 piece and have never sounded the same since. What’s really funny is that we had about 30-40 good solid songs and I think we currently only play 2 or 3 those any more. Amazing how quickly things can change.

(Added Oct. 2001) – I recall this show being kind of lame. Probably because I had commuted from Chicago to play it. Go figure. The ASU Pub was always good, but never great. I do remember Paul playing his new guitar at this show.

(Added Oct. 2001) – What’s interesting about this show is that The Drapes were from Portland and eventually became the Blue Ribbon Boys who Jim played drums for!  Small world sometimes.