Our first show was Wednesday night in Houston at a venue called Super Happy Funland. We didn't really know what to expect from that place. All I had heard about it was that it was this weird sort of hippy commune out in the sticks. One of those hit-or-miss all ages joints.
We arrived there after a slightly-longer-than-it-needed-to-be trip from Baton Rouge. It's a bit hard to describe what the place was like. It was in the middle of a run-down, low-income suburban neighborhood. From the outside, it looked like, well, a house. The interior had a very strong "70's children's show on acid" vibe to it. The walls were painted over with often disturbing cartoons. One corner of the living/reception room had a variety of toy instruments strewn about. This was an all ages joint, but they were selling beer and cheap-ass boxed wine from the fridge for "donations". In the back of the house was the stage. It was, surprisingly, a real actual stage in a larger-than-you'd think room, complete with theatre-style seating along either end. On the stage end of the theatre was a run down piano that actually sounded pretty nice despite having a few keys missing.
the beatstrings
There were four and a half bands on the bill that night. The first band was called Beat String. They sort of sounded like the strokes but with more interesting musical ideas. I liked them okay. The next band was a bunch of high school kids in a band called "Corporeal" (the kid pronounced it "core pour ree AL"). They played a few interesting sounding songs before basically wanking off for half an hour. The last half of the show felt like you were just sitting in on them practicing.
We played after them. A surprising amount of the crowd stuck around for us, though we later learned that they were there for the last band. Still, we got a pretty positive response. I was approached by a pretty girl about my keyboard after the show, which is good enough for me.
The last band was this group called Stove Blow. They were one of those uh, "experimental" two piece bands with guitar and drums. Sort of like Hella except much less talent. Still, they had relatively interesting music and they played with energy. I was entertained, if only mildly.
After that band played, pretty much the entire crowd cleared out. But that didn't keep the last entertainer on the bill from playing. I forget what his name was, but he was described to us as a "drunken rapper". It was basically this white dude who looked like Al Bundy delivering awkward raps over some canned samples. The highlight of his performance was the lyric "I used to ride a bike with rims/ now I take vicodins". About halfway through his set he arbitrarily gave up and abandoned the stage, which was just as well because no one was really listening anyway.
It was pretty successful show for our first night on the tour, all things considered. We sold a few CDs and made a few new fans. There were actually quite a few hot girls there but I'm fairly sure that they were all like, 16, and I wasn't willing to get myself drunk enough to convince myself to try and make out with any of them. There was this one girl with pigtails that totally wanted me, though.
...and that was that!
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