December 1, 2006 "(You Don't Know) The First Thing About Blue

12/01/2006 Level 8 - Evansville, WI
Other bands: Smile Empty Soul

A freak snowstorm dumped almost two feet of snow on us overnight, stranding our van in a drift for five hours in a hotel parking lot. All we could do was drink gallons of free coffee from the lobby, and soon we were able to urinate our way out.

But we weren't the only ones with big problems en route. Smile's tour bus drove off into a snow-filled ditch and Eddie's already beet-red face was even beetier with rage at the driver for failing to properly navigate a turn that would have kept them out of such a predicament. They were safely at the club when we rolled up, but I assume they had to call one of those giant trucks with 50 wheels and a giant crane they use to pull other broken down giant things.

Level 8 was a roadhouse cut straight from the Patrick Swayze textbook. A wood-paneled grog cave nestled in some trees with a big VFW-style rec hall attached for concerts and pudding wrestling. Chord magazine called after load-in and talked to me about interviewing someone in the band Lifetime. They wanted to do an artist-on-artist series and liked my writing in other rags I'd appeared in.

The bar kitchen fed us more of the greasy pub food we were acclimating to, and that our bodies were frantically trying to detox through pores and orifices. There are only so many chicken tenders and steak fries one can enjoyably eat before feeling like a hundred years of sudden aging has suddenly befouled your skin and sense of well-being.

To make livers worse, we did shots in the back room with Smile Empty Soul and then drank some more before and during the set. A few hundred people showed and we performed another lung-puncturing set like we had trained ourselves to do.

Afterward we hung out on the bus, drinking more, and I remember talking about Incubus but calling them "Inkabus" in my near drunken stupor. I really had never indulged in the "bus party" culture and I don't really know why now, here in Evansville, WI, was the time I chose to dive in. Some girls from the show got on and one, swept up in the MTV moment, flashed her breasts to everyone, but then later nearly collapsed in a heap of shame.

All the bands migrated back to the bar, which had now ushered in karaoke night and was filled with ruddy-faced locals. After some peer prodding, I took the mic for first and last time I'd ever take a karaoke mic and chose Queen's We Will Rock You. Like anytime we ever did a cover, I bumbled through the lyrics Mrs. Stanley Drink My Wine-style, and Eric would later tell me I looked like I snapped right back into my stage skin. A tight horseshoe of band members and drunk barflys wrapped around me and sung along.

Then like all good films with a bar scene, the music slowed down and I slow danced with an old bar hag. She grabbed my ass and I tried to not sway my pelvis too close to hers. Nic had a hag of his own hanging on him, and we danced with our ladies of tanning bed skin and Virginia Slim lips.