Upside Down (stomach) Plaza

Photos by Jennifer Garland McGinty


The show with Balthrop, Alabama was a good one with three very well-played performances, but the turnout was fairly crappy. I attribute that partially to the bar, which at one point smelled like vomit -- not sort of like vomit, exactly like vomit, allegedly due to microwave popcorn. The bartender says it always smells like that and everyone always complains. That to me is a great reason to continue to cook microwave popcorn, right, but such are the ways of the Upside Down Plaza -- a last resort as a venue for this show. Mike Kitchen had the quote of the night to the bartender, "Did someone throw up in your microwave?"

Opening for us was Andrew Vladeck, a banjo player and one-man band with all sorts of pedals, foot percussion (a little stomp board with a mic on one foot and a tambourine on the other) and a harmonica. It was amazingly impressive. Our show went pretty well I thought vocally. Some jackass threw a lit cigarette at us after our first song and I fumed through it, wanting to chase after the douche bag. I settled for telling the bartender who ran after him. Have I mentioned I don't much care for this bar?

We debuted some AC/DC covers for a show coming up this Saturday at Bottletree and there were some hiccups here and there, but generally I thought we brought it and we got many enthusiastic comments. Balthrop, Alabama brought nine members and had a wide range of instrumentation from accordion to alto saxophone, plus a guy who was creating live drawings on a projection screen. At one point I swear I saw a Transformer action figure in some sort of battle mode over a mountainous terrain (or that could have just been too much PBR on my end). A couple of songs had nice cajun vibe that I really dug and their storytelling songs reminded me a bit of the The Decemberists. It amazes me to think that Peter, Paul and Pascal have known each other for 20 years. I hope we all three get to play another show sometime. We three were a good mix and Tim Kelly did an especially fantastic job donating his time and PA system to the plaza since the piss trough doesn't even have one.

Needless to say, I hope next time they come to town we play at much better venue -- maybe even one with their own sound system and any smell that doesn't involve the human body or stale ass nasty cigarette smoke.

Is that so much to ask?