So we've played at Cafe Martini once before and it's a more of a bar than a music venue. While it doesn't have a stage, lights, or house sound, its got a great vibe and is much easier for us to get intimate with the crowd (and the crew that works there is super supportive of us). The only real complaint could've come from a couple of our fans who unfortunately were the recipients of someone getting sick near the bar... luckily, we had plenty of Speaks t-shirts handy at the merch table to get them something dry to change into, haha!
No Second Troy stepped it up on short notice to open the show for us and did an excellent job getting the crowd warmed up. Then we tore everything up the way we usually do, playing a longer first set and then a shorter second set. What was the most amazing thing to me, though, was the fact that just before we started to play there was a line outside of about 30-40 people trying to get in. Wait a second, in Centreville?? Even with the weather being as poor as it was, so many people came out to support. Not only that, but we had birthdays in the house as well: Zen (aka Screech) and manager Sonny's too (and one more that I think I'm missing). All in all it was a great time... especially with our fans that drove all the way from freaking Frederick, Maryland that closed out the place with us... and then had to WORK at some insane hour (5:30am?) the next morning (read: I don't think they slept). Towards the end of the night after we'd finished playing I heard something about "Slash" over the PA but I'm not quite sure what was going on with that... here are some pics (courtesy of our boy Myk Menez) to show you how crazy it was...
As for the Fuzion Lounge, it was our second time getting down to the Southern MD area (still can't believe it's in a city called California, heh), and we were actually early this time (imagine that) so a few of us decided to get dinner next-door at the Asian (predomenantly Viet and Thai influenced) restaurant. Looking over the menu, dinner had the potential of being really good, but when it took over 30 minutes for us to just get our appetizers and then another 30+ minutes to get our dinner... the food was good, but it wasn't quite worth the wait. But the people who worked there were cool and it just looked like they were really short staffed, so it's all good.
Onto the show! Minus One opened things up and it was great to see them as it's been some time since we've heard from those guys. They've been busy writing a lot lately it seems. We performed second and we were all really impressed with how many people came out to support us - had some friends from other bands based out of that area (like Echoes Of Us), some of our old-time SoMD fans, and also met a bunch of new fans too. We had a great set - big stage, good lights, and good sound (not to mention I broke a stick literally in half about 30 seconds into the first song of the night, "Carpe Diem"... that was awesome!). Endway from Massachusetts (yeah! My home state!!) closed out the night in style. Really cool guys & hopefully we can swap some shows together... I'd love to get back up to beantown to play for some of my old friends up there.
As always, a big shout out to our crew who's invaluable to ensuring our shows run as smoothly as they do: Rob, Flip, Noli, Marc and "Mama Missy" - you guys are the best!
-dl.
1 comment:
Man I had BLAST! Thanks for letting me "practice" some live show photography with you guys :-) It will get better I swear...
xoxo
"Pretty Boy" -aka-
the 5th Beatle
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