Shows 67 and 68: Acoustic / Electric

The weekend for before last was a big deal here in the Kansas City area because a new event was going down called Kanrocksas. We know, the name is pretty awful. But the lineup wasn't. This event was two days of music (Muse, The Flaming Lips, The Black Keys. A Perfect Circle, Eminem, Arctic Monkeys.Primus. Ween, Flogging Molly, and many more) held in the middle of a Nascar race track.  You gotta love the Midwest :-)

We were given the opportunity to play an acoustic set in the VIP area along side several other local bands on the INK Unplugged stage and of course we jumped on it.  We arrived at the race track that evening and made our way to the VIP area. It was a massive area with very few people by context.  After the band that was on finished it was our turn so Ryan and I setup and started to play about 10 minutes before we were originally scheduled. 

It was quite an intimate performance. There was a crowd of one person (who happened to be our bass player, Brent) watching us.  And after about 1 and 1/2 songs super loud techno/dubstep/whatever you call it began on the main stage, directly behind us.  So there we were, two guys with acoustic guitars playing to no one while a DJ's set is blasting us out.  We played another 5 songs and finished what we started. 

Needless to say, not one of our finer shows, but we'll chalk it up to "character building". The next night we heard that someone at the show said we just quit and walked off instead of playing?!  Pretty fucking sad. Oh well, it's not the first or the last time that shit has been talked about our band.  It's just fuel for our fire. On a lighter note, we'd like to thank Chris H. and INK magazine for having us out.

The next night, we had a polar opposite experience at recordBar with our friends, Maps for Travelers. This was a last minute show that was put together and although the turnout wasn't great, both of our bands played like the place was packed. It sounded absolutely killer (thanks to Paul Malinowski), and it was a damn fine show. We really enjoyed playing that night and it really helped us wipe away the funk of the previous night.  recordBar is the place, for sure.

Big thanks to Maps for Travelers , Steve Tulipana for putting the show together, and the recordBar staff for being badasses as usual.  It was a good night, and we'll have to do it again soon.

- Gene