singing the "cops shut down my rooftop concert" blues

2008-04-30

Oh man...

Tonight was AWESOME!!!

Lets start with the opening man, Mr. Paul Bryne... ladies and gentlemen give this sexy hunk of guitar playing stud muffin a hand. The cool thing about Pauls music is that he doesn't sound anything like me. Paul, for instance, could probably land himself on the radio with his music. You will NEVER hear my music on the radio, nothing against the radio, just no radio station would ever play my weird ass shit.
Paul was absolutely amazing. he is as skilled a guitar player as he is a sexy man.

..... and then there was Mallory Redinger, or as we all know her, Mal-Pal.
oh my god Mal-Pal. just those three words, oh my god. Those are the only words that could ever hope to possibly describe Mal-Pal. Mallory has a way with words that is just utterly mind boggling... she's fucking amazing, and i'm in love with her.

My set was really fun, at least for me. I started it off with a new song that i just wrote this week, tentatively called "bodies" which i feel went over well. I played some old hat favorites, such as "black hole will swallow you up" as well as other newbies, such as "abstract flowers are words" which actually sounded like "sonnets of metamorphosis" with the lyrics from "abstract flowers are words" which felt pretty amazing, and may require a re-recording.
Now, in the middle of this new rendition of "abstract flowers are words" I got a lovely visit from the Columbia Police Department. apperantly it's illegal to steal power from the University and then use that power to hold a concert (without a permit) that can be heard three blocks away.... "I'm sorry officer, it seemed like such an excellent idea at the time"

The beautiful thing is, I've done a handful of these concerts over the past two years. In fact, i think that this was number four or five. This was always going to be the Last Conley show. It was by no means perfect, it was cold again and people started leaving early (I was going to only play two more songs anyway before i packed it in). HOWEVER, the ending was perfect.

The first conley ave garage show was fun... not that many people, but the music was top notch and the weather was great. The second show was better. The third Show was AWESOME! a ton of people came, Leah (my ex girlfriend) was able to make it, and I played better than i had ever played before. That was the birth of "black hole will swallow you up" as a crowd pleaser, it was also the first time i had a crowd sing along ("E-Bow the Masses"). The show after that was really really fun, but FRIGID cold. It was about the worst weather to play a concert on top of Conley. Then there was tonight... a little on the cold side, but with opening acts and an amazing crowd turn out. After succesfully avoiding the police every other time i played, to have the shut me down tonight is probably the best send off for my Conley Ave Traditions. Thank you every one who attended, thank you SOO much Paul Byrne and Mallory Redinger, you two make my LIFE. and a very special thanks to Esten Hurtle, who was doing a photo Journalism project on this concert and got to document the entire thing.


I love all of you SOO much, even the wonderful people at the Columbia Police Department, who were only doing their jobs, and were actually pretty great about the entire thing.


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