July 8 , 2003 - The Space - Hamden, CT
HENNING: Prior to arriving at the Space I really had no idea what to expect. The emails that I had received from Chris were terrifyingly entertaining, he's a born writer with an amazing wit and we in the band couldn't wait to meet him. Besides that, I had only heard that the monitors were really bad at the Spcae and to be ready for that (that would soon be proven to be wrong.) It was kind of a strange gig in that we were to be the featured band at an open mic. I've been to lots of open mics and you never know what you are going to get. So, we were ready for anything and went into it with low expectations. Tony and I drove down ahead of time since the other three couldn't make it as early - bonus surprise was that at the last minute Ken found out he COULD do the show after all. Yee. We pulled into the strange parking lot of what I thought was a pretty run-down industrial park (I later learned that the other buildings all around us were churches, they didn't look like churches, they looked like industrial office with loading docks and everything.) The Space was a building on it's own that stood in the center of the parking lot, like a sparkling gem mounted in a cheap ring. We were immediately greeted by Steve and his posse of 5 young friends, who were more than eager to carry in all our equipment. Tony and I entered the building, while shaking our heads, "no, we're not brothers" to the inquisitive kids, and Steve took us on a tour. A tour of paradise. The bottom floor of the building was the performance space, about four times larger than I had imagined. About 50 folding chairs were lined up facing a large stage, various other easy chairs and sofas were scattered around the room. On the stage was an extensive array of instruments and a large sound system and there was a sound guy tweeking everything. Other volunteers were dashing around the room, preparing coffee and readying everything for the oncoming evening's festivities. The room was covered in decorations, colored lights and sparkly things, pieces of video games, posters, and an impressive array of seemingly random brick-a-brack. On the second floor was the green room - a comfortable lounge area that made most green rooms look like frat house bathrooms. Across the hall from that was a small thrift shop, like a mini version of Una's in Cambrigge, it was being manned by a nice and talkative young hip looking girl. Down the hall was the recording studio! Did this place ever end? We peeked in, somebody was in there working on something. I think it was a guy from The Butterflies of Love. Tony and I spent the next hour or so, talking to folks and exploring and sitting in the green room, every once and a while , I would call up Brian and check on their progress in getting down there. We ordered a pizza that arrived just after the rest of SFTD and it was good. Soon, we were down in the listening room watching Steve and his Brother from Mighty Purple play some duets. They were really good and were joined by a really nice guy named Kenyon on harmonica. I glanced back at the crowd just before we were taking stage and saw some familiar faces. Miriam (in her SFTD shirt) and friend were there, as were the Bourgeois Heroes with a friend. I also recognized a few from my days in the Steamtrain. We started playing and the crowd was perfect. They laughed at all the right times. The listened with interest. They were incredibly receptive and kind. It was one of my favortie performances yet in that aspect. After our set, Tony and I hung around while the others took off. We stood and talked in the dark humid parking lot to Chris and the Heros and a few other folks for a few hours. I felt a little guilty about not watching more of the open mic acts but, 1.) I've seen probably over a thousand open mic acts in my time and 2.) the company was too nice and interesting. The rest of SFTD took off pretty much right after our set. Let me tell you one of the most memorable things about playing at the Space. Steve had these five neighbors who were all brothers and probably between the ages of 11 and 16 or so. These were the kids that helped us bring in our equipment. All night long they were helping us out and asking us questions. Randy especially, I think he was the youngest, helped us out. He sat at our merchandise table and sold all our stuff all night long. Speaking of the merch table. These same kids set that whole thing up, making a sign, folding all our shirts, and displaying everything attractively. It was awesome. Anyone in the area, I highly recommend checking out the Space sometime soon. There should be more places like that. KEN: "the space" was one of the coolest places i've seen. everyone was so nice! the pizza (delivered from elsewhere) was good! they had cool (and well-kept!) record jackets as wallpaper-ish decoration for the bathroom walls, and the albums themselves were nailed up all over the ceilings of the lower-floor rooms! anyone out there looking to play an interesting show, go there. the audience was very supportive. i felt like i made a sloppy mess of our short set..."the space" had a keyboard there for bands to use, so we did, but i wasn't used to the keyboard's available sounds. there was no synth for "uncomfy," "martha" and "omnivore" (that's half our set right there) so for the latter i tried the clavinet setting and got funky, which made tony laugh (and get cheesily bluesy on the geetar) and henning REALLY laugh (thereby unable to sing for a little bit). i felt bad because i wasn't trying to derail the song, and even if it was only for a few seconds, it seemed really amateurish or something. sorry, hey. still, it looked like we sold a lot of discs, a couple t-shirts even, and max and i got complements out in the dark and muggy parking lot. i'm glad i was able to make the show. plus on the way home, brian and i got fanboy-excited talking about the fall (i saw them at the middle east on saturday night, business as usual, except the new lineup is disappointingly generic). and then brian, max and i talked about henning. and his nice factor. does anyone know the song "m factor"? if you can hum it to me i'll gladly buy you a nice ice cream cone or ding dong cart treat of your choosing, because you are a freak in the best way.