Day 5

I woke up before everyone else, as usual, and really wanted today to start off right, but little things kept making me falter, like my laptop wouldn't charge (turns out the battery came just a little bit loose, locking it back in solved it), and other little things like that that kept me irritated. But I was committed to changing my luck, so I decided to cook the band a big breakfast. Brendan and I went down the block to Safeway and I got a bag of potatoes and some thick toast. We got back to Chris' and I started making hashbrowns, eggs, and French toast. It all came out pretty well, and while I was cooking it I talked to Chris a bit about the new Teenage Bottlerocket album, and he showed me a signed picture that one of the Hextalls guys left for him on his refrigerator. Ryan and Peter were sleeping, so Brendan and John had my food, and I think it was the first time that John had ever had French toast, and I think it blew his mind.

Today was actually pretty uneventful; I stayed inside all day until the show that night. Ryan went and got a haircut, and John was trying to find a place that could repair his broken lug on his snare drum, but besides that, we just sat inside all day and people played, yet again, more Xbox. Peter was told that he was probably going to be singing lead vocals again tonight, so he spent almost all day practicing the set over and over again. I don't think it was that necessary, and he caught a little bit of hell from Ryan who told him to stop because he sounded fine, but Peter actually got pretty mad about it, saying that he wanted to be perfect tonight and that he's sorry if he just wants it to sound good. I admire Peter's dedication, he cares a lot about how he sounds, not only in this way, but he does things like changes his strings almost every other day and warms up backstage every night. Practicing for literally over 6 hours seemed to be a little over the top, and this is punk rock we're talking about here, so I think I was on Ryan's side on this one. Chris made us dinner, which was really good. Macaroni and pasta sauce, and he made sure that I got some pasta before the meat was stirred in. It was good, I was disappointed that I didn't get to have seconds because there wasn't any left that didn't have meat in it.

We're playing tonight at the Funhouse, which is a bar in Seattle that I've never really been to. It's 21+, so while I was living in Tacoma, I never got to go there even though sometimes cool bands would play. It didn't take too long to drive there, and we loaded in the small back room. The Funhouse was a cool little place, but it was hard to find a place to set up merch. We grabbed a folding table and chair from the back area and found a place though.

The backstage was a little room that was covered in probably thousands of band stickers. It seemed like everyone in the entire bay area hits up this place for a show; I recognized a ton of the bands. Danny had told me to look for the Pillowfights! sticker, and there was more than one. I don't remember if it was my idea or Danny's, but I said that I would put an Atom Age sticker next to the Pillowfights! one. I was kinda weird about doing it in front of the band, though. I didn't want to bring them into my mushy cutesy life, I try to keep that at a minimum around them for their sake. I don't think that anyone else in the band has a girlfriend, so once again, I don't know the rules of rock and roll. I know. It's stupid. At the end of the night as we were leaving, I slapped a sticker next to the Pillowfights! one and took a picture and sent it off to Danny.

Peter was practicing backstage for the set like he'd been doing all day, and he wanted to know if I wanted to do “The Witch” which is a Sonics cover that The Atom Age used to do. So we jammed on it a few times through, it wasn't that hard at all, just a modification of the 12-bar blues and a tempo change here and there. I had learned it way back when Peter wanted me to know it when I first auditioned for the band, and I remembered the backup vocals for it, as well. Backstage there was also a huge cooler stocked up with tons of PBR, but I don't think that any of the bands tonight drink, so Chris (who had shown up) helped himself. For some reason, it's a little disappointing hanging out in bars every night and not drinking anything even though there are free drinks. I wasn't really tempted by the cheap PBR, but I would have liked to have just one decent brown or amber beer available on tap. It's not a big deal at all to me, but if I spent 10 days in a banana factory, I would be tempted just to eat a banana, even though I'm not the hugest fan.

For a Monday night, it was a respectable turnout. The first band didn't gather that much attention from the patrons, so it looked like most people were focused on their drinks at the bar. We played second of the three bands, so we loaded the gear on stage and quickly set up. Ryan decided that his voice was doing a lot better, so he said that he would be able to sing after all. Peter looked a little bummed out, but he was in good spirits about it, saying that at least next time he would be well prepared for it. Ryan did his usual “Hi everybody, we're The Atom Age. We play 21st Century Rock 'N' Roll. This one's called Turn It Around,” and there we went. We played “The Witch” and it was really fun, I think that it fits The Atom Age sound really well and I played it fine, and Peter sang it so at least he got in a little bit of lead vocals. There was something up with the low end of the monitors or the subs of the stage, and it made my bass sound all wobbly, so I kept thinking that I was out of tune, but I guess I was fine.

Our set was good, a big improvement over last night. A bunch of people that were sitting at the bar came and watched us, and we drew the attention of most of the place, so that was really good. Not as good as the house show or the awesome Port Orchard show, but still very good for a bar show on a Monday. Merch sales were above par, too, it seems we made some fans and turned some heads, which is what we're all about. Satisfying. We stuck around for the last band, and I agreed with Chris when said that they seemed like they would sound good on record, but live they were a little low energy. They came up to us after the set and said “We hate following bands like you, you have really good energy and we're pretty low key, haha.” They were cool dudes. I don't think that they had anything for sale, and I was too busy loading out the gear through the cloud of pot smoke behind the bar to double check, but I would have liked to maybe pick something up from them.

On the way back from the show, we hit up the Wendy's drive-through (clearly). Ryan's ordering, and he asks me last what I want and I say “5 Jr. Cheeseburgers, no meat, and make sure they put them in the microwave so the cheese melts.” I knew that he would respond with this before I even opened my mouth. “There's no way that they're going to get that right. No way.” He apologized after the drive-through people gave the rest of the band the food, and he said that, if I wanted, we could go to another place. I said that it was fine, so we went back to Chris'.

More Xbox, and Ryan finally downloaded this demo of some action first person shooter that he'd been wanting to play since he found out that I have a really good laptop for gaming. So he took that over and I sat and watched the rest of the band play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare until I said “Hey, you know what looks pretty good right now? This floor.” (this is an inside joke between Rory (my roommate back home) and I, but the band didn't know that). I grabbed a pillow, laid down on the floor, and within 5 minutes I was asleep.