Zanies Too: Ready -- Set -- Syndrome!

Wow.

Just under 48 hours ago we would have spent Saturday at the drive in, or maybe playing some basketball, but around 2pm on Thursday I got a call from Chuck this booking agent/sound guy from Zanies Too in Indianapolis.

I had e-mailed Chuck and offered to fill a spot on Saturday's show at the last minute - hoping for an opportunity to play. I didn't actually expect a reply, but Chuck came calling and I answered. Well actually I missed his call, and -- wait I'm getting off subject.

Basically Chuck told me he didn't expect a huge crowd -- that he was booking a "string show" (apparently this means a 'string of different styles of music). He told me the first band was like a female pop/punk band - that the second band was more of a rock band, and that "well you guys are really something all on your own."

All the bullshit aside the show started to sound like an audition. An opportunity to cover a spot where another band had dropped out, and use it as a launching pad to get us in Indianapolis. Chuck had told me that the bar was being labeled as a "metal bar" and he didn't want that so they were going to try and bring in some different music. To be honest - I was trying to convince myself this was an awesome opportunity, but I don't know how much I really believed it.

(There was the whole issue of getting Eric off of work, but I'll leave that end of the story out as it's merely details of calling back and forth.)

We actually arrived at the bar at around 915pm and Chuck let's us know we were going on last. We got to talking with the first band (the pop/punk "Pigtail Crooks") and they were telling us how their lead singer had just quit 2 days before the show. (Actually at first I thought they had said she had just canceled on this one show, but we found out later she had quit the band)

But we loved their stuff! Because of the last minute change they had brought their friends and had different friends sing along with their music. (We found their impersonation of their formed singer fucking hilarious!) This is also when one of the waitresses asked us if we were going to "scream and growl" at her or if we were the "folk band." To which we replied "Is that what they told you?"

The next band was called Thrive a (I would call it progressive) rock band that sounded like a lot of stuff I've heard on X103. They spent their time on stage talking about working on their second album. They spent their time while we were on stage (literally) hitting a punching bag.

So then we got up on stage around 12:30am, and we did our thing. Actually we got booed before we started playing because Matt said "There has been a lot of loud music and we're going to mellow out for a minute." It didn't take long for those poor responses to change as we started playing through our album that we're working on. So you get most of the way through Morning Time and then the music just explodes.

After the show we heard a lot of great feedback. I'll run it down in a series of random quotes.
"The musicians who were here said it was original - musicians who didn't even play tonight and were here said you sounded original."
"In 30 years of running sound I have never seen someone do that." (reference to Matt's acoustic/electric amp rig)
"Honestly it's like you said - what you hear on your recordings is what you get. I've had people come in with great album's and suck. But really I was impressed -it was better than I expected."

We passed out a couple of demo's, and got our asses out of there. But Chuck told me he'd like to have us back to open for a well known band on a night when it's packed. So it turned out to be worth all the struggle and work to get up there on short notice.

Thanks to Chuck and Zanies Too, Pigtail Crooks, Thrive, and everyone who stayed to listen!
We'll be back as soon as we can!