Jan. 20 @ GO BAR - Athens, GA

The space is really well put together for a bar of that size. Tom seems to be very deliberate about his imagery and in the way that he runs the place, and it works really well. The first band, The Jack Burton, played straight-forward, loud rock & roll. By loud, I mean insanely loud. So loud that it was loud through my Shure E3 noise-cancelling in-ear monitors that block out aloooot of sound. I can only imagine how crazy it was without ear plugs.

We decided it would be easier to cut some corners and not use our PA speakers. The house PA was a little weak, so Mark's dense-electronic music didn't really push through your chest like I wish it would. I want to see what his music sounds like through an insanely loud speaker system. Halfway through his set, I heard some live-drumming, and to my surprise, DJ was drumming over a continous minimal-techno piece that Mark had been meaning to play. I enjoyed the surprise.

Teenage Souls played a similar set to the night before. He had a really avid fan standing direcly in front of him the whole time he played, shakin' to the hard-to-find groove, which is awesome.

The house PA died half-way through our first song, with no chance of revival. People were really getting into the music, so it was a huge bummer to have to stop. I ran out to the car, grabbed our PA and mixer, and set us up through our system as fast as I could. Once we started the set over again, I felt loosened up, and slammed out the beats much harder and more on beat than the previous time, which is fun.

Road Lesson #2: Always use your PA speakers in addition to the PA that is present.

The Visitations played last after us. They are an interesting mix of electronic and acoustic elements tacked onto a pretty striaght-forward folk armature. They played a tight set, and are very good at what they do. Mark's post-show comment: "I got a really strong Ween vibe from them". Couldn't agree more.

January 29th, 2009 by Sam