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| Don't Play G Major with Your Thumb! |
I would just like to start by stating that this particular post has been requested by my friend Payton who found that his memory is rather faint of the event.
Down in the depths of Indiana there was a school. A school where there were students. A school where the students were overworked. A school where the overworked students had lost hope and needed days off in order to prevent their suicides. So instead, they get really drunk and/or high to blow off steam. This school was only known as Rose-Hulman...
duh duh duh...
Anyways, every year in Terre Haute, Indiana; the Rose-Hulman chapter of Sigma Nu hosts a music festival/party at their fraternity house. My friend Payton has requested that I write a play-by-play of my experience at the party and what I had thought of the whole ordeal.
I suppose a good way to go about this would be chronologically, so here goes nothing. Back in 1992.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................And then it was about 8pm on April 18, 2015 that things really started getting interesting. At this point there really weren't a lot of people there yet. It was mostly just the frat brothers doing what they do. However, a band stormed the hole-ridden, makeshift stage wielding two keyboards, an alto saxophone, a trumpet, a bass guitar, and a laptop. If this band had a name, no one knew of it because even on the show schedule, the band was only listed as "DJ's Band" (and the young man named DJ wasn't even in the band). They were fine; a pretty mellow R&B group. It's hard to say that they were fantastic because they didn't play anything particularly tricky. However, they seemed pretty competent at their instruments so there were no real critiques to be had either.
The next band was a group that was only titled as "House Band," consisting of members from the fraternity. The band came up and played a mediocre rendition of "Back in Black" I believe that stopped abruptly. It was at this point that the singer of the band decided that he didn't want to do this anymore and resulted in 18 minutes of the rest of the band just fiddling around on instruments without him with no kind of direction or togetherness, just fiddling.
After that mess was over, DJ's Band came back on again. Why? I'm not really sure but I guess the first set was a warm-up or something so they played again, which was fine like the last time.
The following band, Equinox, was a mediocre rock group with plenty of throwback rock tunes to play. The band was fine, especially for a group that clearly did not rehearse often as the lead singer didn't know the words from memory. The lead guitarist was pretty talented and the bass and drums were solid.
During this set, Payton had come back from wherever he was and had seemed to be at the step where his drunkenness was clearly evident. Stumbling onto the scene, he asked my friends if we wanted a drink. My friends took him up on it. Then he specifically asked me, "I know you don't drink but, do you want a drink?" I laughed and looked the other way. Then he chucked a beer bottle into the tree line behind the house; which narrowly avoided bashing any skulls in.
Other than Payton's shenanigans, it's also pretty important to mention at this point that there were a large number of people present at the party now. On the inside of the house, there was a DJ playing EDM and house music and, from this point on, the dance floor was completely packed. I was truly impressed with the turnout and at how well the hosts had thrown a good party. Not only was the dance floor packed, there were a good number of people outside too. This was especially true at a pair of beer pong tables between the dance floor and the stage the bands were playing on.
Payton had really hyped up the next band and they certainly didn't disappoint. Tenstrip had really come ready to kickass. Mixing elements of metal and grunge, the band just came on angry and irritated which I, personally, had found to be quite a fantastic blend of emotions. This band didn't joke around either. The two guitarists had half stacks and the bass player had a full cabinet. Surely, quite a bit of money went into their rig. The band also had CDs and cup holder things that they were selling at a merch table, pretty legit. They had the sound and stage tenacity to back it up too. If they were in the Chicagoland area, they would definitely be one of the best metal bands in the area.
It's at this point, Payton had really become the life of the party. He decided to go up to me, tell me that I had to kick ass when my band played and that he would be really disappointed if I didn't. Then he ran over and tried starting a mosh pit. Unfortunately, he decided to try and start it with the largest of his frat bros which only resulted in him ricocheting off like a pinball every time he hit as he continued to try and get the big guy to move even an inch. After some moshing with other guys, there was a guy wearing a robe that came from what was seemingly nowhere. He got pushed and freaked out because he was worried for the safety of the two live rats inside his robe.
Well then...
Payton had proceeded to grab a bottle of whiskey and offer it to Tenstrip while they were playing. The bass player took a swig, announced that it was good whiskey, and gave it back to Payton who proceeded to start chugging. After half a dozen good chugs, he moshed some more and then randomly went to this cute girl and started talking to her. This only lasted for about a minute but she was clearly responding to what he had to say. I couldn't tell for sure since I was at quite a distance away but after the minute was up, it appeared that despite the first impression appearing to go well with the girl, he had decided that he was more interested in moshing so he abruptly turned his back on her and started pushing people again; leaving her covering her mouth and giggling.
At some point during this, Payton had bit his lip or something and started bleeding profusely. When asked if he was okay, he responded with the classic "FUCK YOU!" that so clearly shows the appreciation for the concern. The big guy that he was trying to mosh with earlier tried to direct Payton back inside. Being uncooperative, the big guy slung Payton over his shoulder like a bag of sand and walked away with him, never to be seen again...
Tenstrip continued to play and ended about a half hour after their set time, which I didn't mind because they were pretty awesome. It was the next band that I remember the most details about on the account that I was playing in the band. The Deathstrokes took the stage about forty-five minutes after their scheduled set time. We kicked off the show with our rendition of MCR's "Look Alive Sunshine/Na Na Na" combo which got a guy in the audience to convince us to play another MCR song "Our Lady of Sorrows" which the fast attack and dark sound of definitely caught the attention of members from Tenstrip. We then played one of our originals "Higher Education," that got a pretty strong reaction from Tenstrip. This was so much so that the lead singer from Tenstrip gave us free CDs and one of those bottle holder things I was talking about earlier. It was a pretty cool feeling to get such overwhelmingly positive feedback from a band that was significantly older and more experienced than us.
The set went on relatively normally in the middle with us gaining moderate attention like the other bands had throughout the night. However, what was pretty annoying was that DJ kept asking us how many songs we had left or if we were finishing soon. I honestly wish he would have just waited for us to finish. We were supposed to be the last band of the night anyways...right?
Things started to get pretty great though when we got about two-thirds of the way through and started a cover of Green Day's "Longview." More people from other areas of the party were starting to gather around the stage and sing back lyrics at us. It was also during this song that I noticed that there was a girl taking pictures. Not just one, two, or three, actually I don't know how many she took. She was at the base of the stage with her camera just pointed up at me for a good couple of minutes. I would have sworn she was taking a video but it was definitely pictures because the flash would periodically go off throughout the duration. After she finished she smiled and gave me a thumbs up and I gave a thumbs up back.
DJ came up and asked again how many songs we had left. Grr, go away!
There was also a significant reaction to the next song; a cover of Harvey Danger's "Flagpole Sitta." However, in honor of the occasion, we followed it up with a cover of blink-182's "The Party Song" a song that no one seemed to really recognize except for a guy in a tank top playing beer pong side stage who would consistently throw his arms up in the air while singing all of the lyrics back to us. Seriously, he knew like every single one. I was pretty impressed.
The biggest crowd reaction of the night was the next song which was blink-182's "All the Small Things." I knew going in that people were going to like hearing this song but it was a bit overwhelming how many people became immediately interested. What was most impressive about it was that there were a crowd of girls flooding in from the EDM saturated dance floor inside to listen to us play. How they heard us playing the song over the music inside? I'm not sure. But yeah, that was pretty cool. Everyone's drunk asses were dancing to that one.
We then got to our closer for the night which was blink-182's "Dammit." The momentum from the previous song carried over as people got just about as excited for this one as they had for "All The Small Things." It's actually during this song that something kind of strange happened. Those of you who have seen The Deathstrokes before might know that during the chorus of "Dammit," I will do a particular dance move which is a kind of variant of The Pogo. Instead of jumping straight up and down though, I kick my heels to the left, then to the right, alternating with every jump. After the first couple of lines of the chorus, I noticed about four or five girls throughout the audience mimicking my move which carried over to the second chorus as well. Never in a million years would I have thought that someone would actually want to mimic my dancing. Even though they were probably drunk as fuck, I think it still counts.
When we finished playing, the whole crowd was chanting for an encore. This is pretty crazy considering that even Tenstrip did not get a call for an encore. So we decided to go out with MCR's "Vampire Money." They seemed to enjoy that one too because they were calling for another encore. However, we left it at that, especially since DJ seemed particularly eager to get us off the stage.
After we got our stuff off, not surprisingly, DJ's Band came back on again! Why would you want to play so many times in one night I don't know but I guess the first couple of times were rehearsals. During DJ's Band's third performance, we got some positive verbal feedback from people at the party. Most hilariously, there was this drunk girl that came up and fist-bumped our guitarist and said, "I liked that one blink song you did," and walked away.
Overall, the party was pretty good. The bands were mostly lackluster except for Tenstrip and, based on crowd reaction, us. The show management was awful on the account that it was basically non-existent. This was especially so when Payton was too drunk to do the little managing he was doing in the first place. What I think is hilarious is that Payton had been talking about for months that he would make sure not to get blackout drunk if we ever played at this annual festival. However, he did anyways.
And it was hilarious.
He woke up two or three hours after we played. He was still drunk as hell and he was incredibly upset about how he missed it. Apparently he doesn't remember a single moment being outside despite being the most outrageous person on the lawn. Not only that, but he didn't believe us and kept telling us to play our set. When we would tell him that we already did, he would just ask us to play it again or continually ask us how it went since he couldn't remember the answer to his question one minute later.
Oh Payton, oh Payton.
Event Flyer: https://www.facebook.com/SigmaNuBetaUpsilon
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