Show Journal 2001-08-17
Finally our first stadium show. Well kind of. Tonight’s show was at a baseball field in Roseburg, OR. The show was a benefit to help cover with the medical costs of a local Roseburg kid who we were told is in a coma. That’s what we heard and it’s a good enough reason for us to play the show. Back to the stadium. The “stage” was a truck bed that was setup right behind home plate and the crowd stood out on the grass in the field. It was kinda weird especially when they turned on the stadium lights in the evening. The sound was pretty good for an outdoor show but only if you stood about 50 feet back from the stage. People who stood up front made us feel welcome but couldn’t have really enjoyed the show because it sounded like ass up there. A lot of people came up afterwards and gave us plenty of generic comments like “thanks for coming out” which actually translates into “You sounded like ass tonight but under different circumstances I might really enjoy your music.” So true. More technical difficulties tonight … my input jack broke on my guitar, I broke an A string and Justin’s guitar cord broke in the second song. That’s 3 cord failures for us in a month. In typical central Oregon fashion we had to cut our set to 7 songs. That kinda sucked for us since the van is in the shop and we had to rent a trailer for the 4 hour drive to Roseburg. 8 hours of driving, 20 minutes of setting up and 20 minutes of playing. I’d like to be pissed about it but it was a benefit so really who cares? It’s more about getting everyone together for a cause than seeing a technically perfect show. Thanks to Paint By Numbers for inviting us to play and also thanks to Easy Target as well. Special shout out to everyone who came out to see us last night in Eugene!
Show Journal 2001-08-16
I apologize in advance for a somewhat generic show review. Nothing terribly exciting or noteworthy happened tonight. It was just a good, well ok … great show with New Found Glory. As usual in Eugene tons of familiar faces came out to see the show (Compact 56, EPD, Paint by Numbers, Barry, Hopper and the Mullet) which made it extra fun. I think we recognize more people in Eugene than Portland sometimes. A lot of people seemed to be into us when we played which was cool given the size of the club. The high point for us was at one point during ‘Kelvis’ I looked out and there were at least 100 people were bouncing along to the music. It was sooo cool to see. (Well at least until New Found Glory played and got about 500 people bouncing up and down!) Still though you gotta start somewhere. Speaking of which New Found Glory were pretty cool to see live. It’s amazing how energetic they are live. Also, their cover of ‘Never Ending Story’ rocks! Thanks to everyone who came out early to see us, thanks to Dan and Mike for the show and Lisa for selling our stuff. No thanks to Justin for having the crowd clap along to our song out of time with the song.
Show Journal 2001-08-11
Man what a good show. I was a little disappointed that the outdoor thing didn’t happen but at the same time I’ll play at Reid’s any day. The fog machine allows the Pit Stop to surpass all venues in coolness. I’ll spare you the individual replay of all the bands but will mention that Allister probably kicked the largest portion of ass that night. Our set was pretty good. It was hot as a mo-fo up there and I think I lost 5 pounds in sweat before the first song. We had 3 guest vocalists during Berserker which was kinda cool. Something very creepy about high schoolers singing the 3rd line of Berserker though. Tonight was the debut of Justin’s brand new guitar amp which sounded amazing until the guitar cord got smashed and rendered the amp incapable of producing sound. Luckily the problem was just a $20 guitar cord rather than a $1000 Marshall amp head! Still there were a few minutes of panic. Thanks to all who came and cheered and made us feel like a big important band in front of the actual big important bands. Again, thanks to TJ for the hook up. No thanks to Brady for choking on his big joke telling opportunity!!!
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My how things can change in a few days. Two days ago we were ready to give up on the tour now and now we only have 2 days off! Mad props to Dave for clocking serious hours on the phone. Currently the only gaps we have are Friday 8/31 anywhere in California, Arizona or New Mexico and Monday 9/3 anywhere between Denver and Chicago. Please e-mail us if you can help.
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Damn, our tour dates are getting dropped faster than Jim’s pants at a NAMBLA meeting. Can anyone out there hook us up? Basement? Garage? Living Room? Anything? Don’t be afraid to e-mail us if you think you can help. Everyone claims to respect DIY booking but sometimes it really sucks.
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We’ve added tons of new pictures to the 2001 Pictures page. Go look at them.
Show Review
This was the best I’ve seen Octane play. It’s a wonder why they aren’t on one of the big punk labels. They’re just as good, if not better than most of those bands. My favorite songs have to be “Day Of The Dead” and their Misfits cover, “Astro Zombies.” What can I say? I’m a sucker for a great Misfits cover. I’m really looking forward to playing with them again. (Outreach)
Show Journal 2001-07-28
Yet another awesome Eugene show. The guys in EPD did a great job of setting up this show … solid lineup, decent venue, ok sound, good promotion, etc. The only bad part was the directions. In fact we ended up driving around for an hour in Eugene but they got enough crap from the other bands so I will spare them any further embarrassment. Plus, if they are nice enough to set up a show and ask us to play … who cares? By the way during that hour we decided that if we ever make it big and sell millions of records we are going to move to Arkansas. More specifically we would like to move into neighboring houses on a dead end street and as Dave puts it we’ll spend our days “drinking beer in the morning, slashing each other tires and basically just not giving a fuck about anything until we go broke”. Sounds good to me. Back to the show. We missed Self Inflicted because we were still lost. Sorry guys. Gray is Grey was cool … really cool. We know Jamie and Tim from the Thrust days and they are still cool as ever. Pretty heavy music and very cool to watch. They don’t sound like anyone else and it’s very refreshing. Tempting Fate was good as always. Their guitar player is amazing, so they always have my vote. Rocking songs don’t hurt either! EPD sounded better than ever before and put on a good show. I think they had the biggest crowd of the night but since they put on the show they deserve it! Outreach wins the award for toughest sounding band of the show. They completely rocked and I’m glad we didn’t have to follow them. Paint By Numbers started off strong but got hit with the broken PA in midset. Due to the technical difficulties with the PA and slow load in’s it took almost 2 hours to get from the end of EPD’s set to the beginning of Dead Even’s. It was beyond anyone’s control and not that big a deal but it ended up sucking because Dead Even had to cut things short. Seems like that happened the last we played together as well? Despite the spotty PA performance I thought they rocked tonight. They will probably disagree but it was a very short and intense set and fantastic to watch. Boy those Mexican wrestlers sure can play guitar! We finally played at around 9:45. The show started at 3:00 and I thought for sure people would have bailed out after 6 bands but everyone seemed to stay around until we were done. That was very, very cool of the crowd and that is why we love playing in Eugene. We got to play a few more songs than usual and people seemed to know the words to most of them. For example the song ‘Holiday’ was never released (it’s only on mp3) and I swear I saw at least 5 people singing along with it. Good thing because Dave’s voice sounded like he had gargled battery acid by the end of the set. Somewhere Scotty Potty is smiling. Never mind. Our special thanks go out to Arne, Conor, Kyle, Dead Even and every one that came out to support the local bands. Super big thanks to EPD for setting up this great show!
Show Journal 2001-07-26
Reality check. Tuesday we played to 800 people, Wednesday was about 500, tonight was about 40. We knew going into it that it wouldn’t be an earth shattering performance but who cares when it’s your friends there to see you! Speaking of which we did see quite a few familiar faces which was cool. We haven’t played many Portland bar shows in recent months so it was kinda nice to have a change of pace. Stink and Linger were pretty cool to watch … lots of covers including my favorite L7 song. Our set was ok. It started kind of rough when Justin’s guitar amp inexplicably died in mid song. That stuff is so frustrating to deal with on stage. The rest of the set was cool and we pulled out a few of the older songs. SK and the PAB were great as usual. Their guitar parts and weird timings are getting more and more complicated and yet catchier every time I seem them. They are all fantastic musicians and really could be the rock and roll saviors they claim to be. Thanks to Scott for the show and a special shot out our super hardcore fans that couldn’t get in but watched the show from outside the door!
Show Journal 2001-07-25
Dude … Chico ROCKS!!! Man we had a good time playing in Chico!!! I had no idea what to expect but everything was perfect. Great club, great sound system, great promoters and an amazingly cool crowd. Everyone we talked to tonight was very down to earth and very friendly. Our set had a kind of rocky start due to some technical issues (wiring, strings, monitors) but after 3 or 4 songs everything started to fall into place. Eventually a pit started, people started cheering, Justin’s shoe fell off and then life was good. I think we finished pretty strong and we got a very enthusiastic response from the crowd. Antifreeze rocked much harder than last night and were treated like rock stars by the crowd. The Deviates kicked everyone’s asses all over the place. They were so tight and energetic it was frightening. I was impressed beyond words. As if the show couldn’t get any better tonight it was the last show on Guttermouth’s tour and they absolutely rocked. That was easily the most fun I’ve ever had seeing them play. Their set was crazy … there were tons of people on stage, flying stuff (cups, bras, shoes) throughout their whole set, and even a few flashers from the audience. Wild, wild set and a pleasure to watch. The highlight was when this really young kid got on stage (he had to be less than 10 years old) and Mark put him on his shoulders and gently passed him to the crowd where the kid surfed the crowd for a few minutes while everyone screamed and cheered him on while Guttermouth launched into another song. I can’t remember seeing so much energy in a room before … especially not at a punk rock show! Thanks to the other bands for letting us open up these two shows and to Justin and Medina for helped this come together for us. Most of all thanks to everyone who showed up early and gave us their support … it’s so encouraging to see when you play in a new town! We can’t wait to come back!
