Long, Dim Road
Time to talk about last weekend. There's no way I can convey the awesomeness of it in words. Misti, feel free to add any details I leave out.
Also, this weekend was part of my birthday present to Misti. Happy birthday hun.
Friday I drove up to Martinsville and met up with Misti. We left from her house to go to Chicago. On the way there we hit some heavy rain, but being the badass driver I am it wasn't a big deal. We were going to my aunt Julie and cousin Emilie's house first, since that's where we were going to be staying for the weekend. We hit Chicago right around 5pm. As a testament to just how great a driver I am, I still managed to make it to my aunt's on the northwest side (Palatine) in 4.5 hours as opposed to the 5.25 hours Mapquest said it would take.
I've missed Julie and Emilie. They're probably my favorite part of my extended family. Julie is an amazing woman. She's a production director for Sara Lee, currently has a bachelors in journalism and once Emilie goes to college she's going to return to get her masters and pursue her real career goal.
Their house is amazing. Absolutely gorgeous. Julie is the best host ever. I wound up feeling bad in the first hour because she refused to let me or Misti do anything for ourselves. She kept offering us drinks, snacks, etc. She cooked us chicken parmisean. She's also the best cook I've ever met. I mean that. It was ridiculously good.
After we ate Misti and I got cleaned up and headed to Rockford about an hour away for the first Tossers show. The club was actually a really nice place. Much more stylish than the clubs around here. The men's was all metallic except for the black walls and stall walls, which also had lots of blacklight reactive stuff on them. The lighting was provided by a blacklight and an intelligent light that would change the pattern it moved when you flicked the switch.
Dan (bass player for the Tossers) recognized me right away, which was kind of a relief. We then pawned Misti's jacket off on him since he was watching their merch booth while the other bands were playing.
We were both way overdressed for the show. I almost thought we'd get lynched by all the hardcore punks in their hardcore punk gear, but my guess is that Misti's visible tattoos saved us. Misti got extremely drunk, and hit on by a few different guys, all of which I thought were incredibly lame. One especially dorky guy invited us back to his house for the after party, telling us the Tossers went to his afterparty the last time they were there. He also tried to tell me how cool bands will be with you if you aren't an "obnoxious fan asking to take pictures and have them sign autographs" which kinda irked me since at Charleston I'd had them sign the slip for a CD I got Misti for her birthday.
This was all before Aaron (Duggins, tin whistle player) and Bones (drummer) came in to help set up for their set and recognized me. I was relieved. Even though I talked to him the most in Charleston I was worried he wouldn't remember it because he was so drunk in Charleston he couldn't even stand up straight. Crazy Irishmen.
The show was really good, of course. There was one idiot who started a beer fight with Aaron in the middle of a song which pissed off Becca (the fiddle player) because her bow got wet, which can ruin them. She wound up telling the guy very loudly she didn't like him. He tried to act macho. Then he proceeded to try to win them back over buy buying a round of drinks for them, which he took straight to Tony (Duggins, lead singer, mandolin player, and Aaron's brother) who sings with his eyes closed so he missed the whole beer fighting thing, as well as the guy trying to set four drinks in front of him. So the guy decided to toast towards Tony and drink all the drinks. Smart, considering he could already barely stand up. He also knocked over one of the monitors and then started his series of stage dives which he kept doing in repeat for the last two songs just as soon as he could get to the front after the previous one. I wanted to choke the guy. It just really pissed me off.
They (the Tossers) were all noticably pissed off by the end of the set. They even stopped in the middle of one of their new ballads because the audience stopped paying attention and started chatting. Tragically many people watch Irish punk just for the raucus drinking songs. Then there was the idiot guy. They were so annoyed that when someone called for them to play Irish Rover Tony went ahead and started playing it right as Aaron explained that they always do Irish Rover as the last song of the night. They did wind up playing one more though at the request of the club. They asked for requests, and Aaron said they'd do whatever I wanted. I deferred to Misti since it was her birthday. So they played Irish Whiskey as their last song at Misti's request.
Afterwards I was surprised to find out Tony and Clay (banjo player) recognized me too, since I barely talked to them. I introduced Misti to everyone (except Becca, who was being antisocial) before we were kicked out of the bar by the bouncers so they could close.
Weird fact: it seems like all bars in Illinois close at 1:30am.
So I drove drunk-ass (Misti) an hour back to Palatine and we tried to sneak in and pass out in the bed Julie'd made for us on their futon. Yeah, super-hostess, like I said before.
Saturday... More to come when I have time to finish updating this, which isn't right now.
Also, this weekend was part of my birthday present to Misti. Happy birthday hun.
Friday I drove up to Martinsville and met up with Misti. We left from her house to go to Chicago. On the way there we hit some heavy rain, but being the badass driver I am it wasn't a big deal. We were going to my aunt Julie and cousin Emilie's house first, since that's where we were going to be staying for the weekend. We hit Chicago right around 5pm. As a testament to just how great a driver I am, I still managed to make it to my aunt's on the northwest side (Palatine) in 4.5 hours as opposed to the 5.25 hours Mapquest said it would take.
I've missed Julie and Emilie. They're probably my favorite part of my extended family. Julie is an amazing woman. She's a production director for Sara Lee, currently has a bachelors in journalism and once Emilie goes to college she's going to return to get her masters and pursue her real career goal.
Their house is amazing. Absolutely gorgeous. Julie is the best host ever. I wound up feeling bad in the first hour because she refused to let me or Misti do anything for ourselves. She kept offering us drinks, snacks, etc. She cooked us chicken parmisean. She's also the best cook I've ever met. I mean that. It was ridiculously good.
After we ate Misti and I got cleaned up and headed to Rockford about an hour away for the first Tossers show. The club was actually a really nice place. Much more stylish than the clubs around here. The men's was all metallic except for the black walls and stall walls, which also had lots of blacklight reactive stuff on them. The lighting was provided by a blacklight and an intelligent light that would change the pattern it moved when you flicked the switch.
Dan (bass player for the Tossers) recognized me right away, which was kind of a relief. We then pawned Misti's jacket off on him since he was watching their merch booth while the other bands were playing.
We were both way overdressed for the show. I almost thought we'd get lynched by all the hardcore punks in their hardcore punk gear, but my guess is that Misti's visible tattoos saved us. Misti got extremely drunk, and hit on by a few different guys, all of which I thought were incredibly lame. One especially dorky guy invited us back to his house for the after party, telling us the Tossers went to his afterparty the last time they were there. He also tried to tell me how cool bands will be with you if you aren't an "obnoxious fan asking to take pictures and have them sign autographs" which kinda irked me since at Charleston I'd had them sign the slip for a CD I got Misti for her birthday.
This was all before Aaron (Duggins, tin whistle player) and Bones (drummer) came in to help set up for their set and recognized me. I was relieved. Even though I talked to him the most in Charleston I was worried he wouldn't remember it because he was so drunk in Charleston he couldn't even stand up straight. Crazy Irishmen.
The show was really good, of course. There was one idiot who started a beer fight with Aaron in the middle of a song which pissed off Becca (the fiddle player) because her bow got wet, which can ruin them. She wound up telling the guy very loudly she didn't like him. He tried to act macho. Then he proceeded to try to win them back over buy buying a round of drinks for them, which he took straight to Tony (Duggins, lead singer, mandolin player, and Aaron's brother) who sings with his eyes closed so he missed the whole beer fighting thing, as well as the guy trying to set four drinks in front of him. So the guy decided to toast towards Tony and drink all the drinks. Smart, considering he could already barely stand up. He also knocked over one of the monitors and then started his series of stage dives which he kept doing in repeat for the last two songs just as soon as he could get to the front after the previous one. I wanted to choke the guy. It just really pissed me off.
They (the Tossers) were all noticably pissed off by the end of the set. They even stopped in the middle of one of their new ballads because the audience stopped paying attention and started chatting. Tragically many people watch Irish punk just for the raucus drinking songs. Then there was the idiot guy. They were so annoyed that when someone called for them to play Irish Rover Tony went ahead and started playing it right as Aaron explained that they always do Irish Rover as the last song of the night. They did wind up playing one more though at the request of the club. They asked for requests, and Aaron said they'd do whatever I wanted. I deferred to Misti since it was her birthday. So they played Irish Whiskey as their last song at Misti's request.
Afterwards I was surprised to find out Tony and Clay (banjo player) recognized me too, since I barely talked to them. I introduced Misti to everyone (except Becca, who was being antisocial) before we were kicked out of the bar by the bouncers so they could close.
Weird fact: it seems like all bars in Illinois close at 1:30am.
So I drove drunk-ass (Misti) an hour back to Palatine and we tried to sneak in and pass out in the bed Julie'd made for us on their futon. Yeah, super-hostess, like I said before.
Saturday... More to come when I have time to finish updating this, which isn't right now.