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HOLD ON KIDS! THIS IS A LONG ONE!
I went to see a show with Mike and Collette. We headed to Roseburg to catch The
Locust, Plot To Blow Up The Eiffel
Tower, The Empty, RBS Syndrome, and Bitner.
After passing several bizarre vehicle topped signs and what is most likely the largest ADULT SHOP sign in the entire state we rolled into Roseburg....and promptly rolled out again because the venue was four miles outside of town in a small grange hall. Spying an econoline van and a crowd of kids outside we knew this had to be the place. Mike joked about how weird it must be for a band like the Locust to show up to a tiny venue out in the middle of nowhere....
Making our way inside we found that the crowd was pretty small, only about 30 people including us. Most of them seemed to be in the under 17 category, and definitely not as "scene" as I was expecting for a show featuring the Locust and Plot. There were virtually no tight pants! Bizarre! The first band, Bitner, took the stage, and they were decent. Fairly simple pop punk stuff. Not bad for their respective ages. The Empty took the stage next, and I gotta say I was impressed with their sound. Emo-riffic. I look forward to catching them play again sometime. The kids decided to mosh during the end of their set though. (Who moshes to a soft emo song?) So far the show was looking pretty damn good.
Then things started to get weird...
At this point Nate the promoter had wandered over to ask if I'd heard the news. It seems that the Locust showed up, puked in the parking lot and the bathroom and left. That's right, left. Not playing. Driving away. Their booker claimed that they were sick. I think that they were probably just disappointed to be playing in a small grangehall to a bunch of kids wearing Marilyn Manson shirts and baggy pants as opposed to a hall full of kids in tight pants and tighter T-shirts.
Nooow, it also appeared that RBS Syndrome had decided not to show up either, so here we were, barely scratching 7pm and the show was almost over. The resourceful promoter snagged a hippy looking kid out of the audience to bust out his acoustic guitar and provide a time-wasting break in the hopes that another band would show up. This was weird. Don't get me wrong, its very cool that the kid was willing to go on right then, completely spur of the moment. And it was cool that the crowd of punk/metal kids stuck around to watch him. But he was singing religious folk songs. To a crowd of punk kids wearing Misfits and Manson shirts. Weird. Do kids not listen to lyrics? Are they all secretly Christian beneath their black shirted rebellious exteriors? Have they all seen the Passion and were waiting for bloodshed? A couple of other kids got up and tried their hand at the guitar as well, and this was not good. Not good at all.
Then things started to get even more weird....
Nate then announced to the room that there was going to be a drinking contest. He busted out three 2-liter bottles of soda and asked for three volunteers, claiming that the prize for fastest drank bottle would be entry to his next show for free and $5: Enter..tall skinny kid! Enter...average crusty kid! Enter...small pseudo-goth girl! LET THE DRINKING BEGIN! Tall skinny kid OWNED that bottle of soda. He chugged it right down while the other two entrants either cheated or took small drinks. Then he and the crusty kid bent over a trash can and began to vomit, to the rowdy cheers of the crowd. Suddenly there was another crusty kid sticking his finger down his throat to hurl as well....yeah.
Plot finally began setting up their gear at this point, and our trio moved to the front of the stage to witness their glory. Vomit-smelling crusty kid decided to stand directly behind Mike and I while screaming "Play some saxamaphone!!! Play some saxamaphone! I done saw you guys last night!!!" (I do not lie, this is exactly how he said that.) Upon getting their gear in order Plot started up good and hard!!!
15 seconds later all the power goes out in the building...
A short time after that everything got back on track and Plot, again, started up good and hard!!! I'd unfortunately lost one of my earplugs at some point in the night, so I lost some hearing in my right ear, but other than that their set was awesome. They made driving all that way worth the effort. There wasn't as much dryhumping from the boys as I was expecting, but the lead singer did spend most of their set flirting with a boy in the front row, even trying to kiss him at one point, which completely freaked the kid out. Plot rocked this tiny grange hall, and I'm sure a few of the kids were completely surprised and shocked by their spazzy brand of artsy hardcore.
It turns out that a final band had showed up, Under Enuff? Something along those lines. BUT FIRST! More drinking contests! This time it would be milk...I tried not to watch this time because the thought of chugging milk and then vomiting it up into the same small trash can as two other people honestly disgusted me. We only made it through a song and a half from the final band because they weren't that great, especially after watching Plot tear shit up.
All things considered the show was pretty good. The only negative thing I could really gripe about was the sound, but from a promoters standpoint I know that you can't always have an awesome system set up, so that can be forgiven. Unfortunately the placement of the speakers did kinda suck. For some reason they were placed WAY out from the band and pointed in a weird direction, and turned up far too loudly for the size and shape of the room.
We hit the car, and tried to find Roseburg's "hot night spot", aka Denny's. After driving all over town, we spotted a street sign for "Mosher Ave" and immediately turned around for pictures (coming soon!). We eventually stopped at a Texaco to ask for directions to the Denny's. I wanted to eat at the "Taco Maker" inside the Texaco (because you can taste the Taco Maker difference!) but they were closed.
