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It was November 4th, a Thursday, and we took two cars out to Cambridge. Brian and our guest bassist, Kevin O'Rourke took off in one, and I took off in the other.

My journey included picking up Tony at his school in Springfield. He came straight from teaching and was wearing his tie and everything. Crazy, Mr. Westcott. Crazy, man. "Hey, did you hear that Mr. Westcott is in a band?" "What?!? A teacher in a band?!?" "It must be really lame."

Tony and I made the rainy, rainy drive to Boston and pulled in to the parking garage and parked right next to Brian's car. He and Kevin had just arrived and were just opening their doors. So, I smashed into the driver side door and ripped it off its hinges. No I didn't.

We lugged our stuff a few blocks and entered the secret door into the Middle East (The music club and restaurant, not the thing on the news). It was pretty empty when we got there and that familiar dread immediately filled my heart. It's the dread that comes with realizing that you dragged these three other guys out on a rainy night so they could play to an empty room. Don't worry, though, my fears were soon proven unfounded.

Here comes a big hat, it must be David Bash, the man behind The I.P.O. Yep, it's him alright. We were in the right place at the right time. And here comes Andrea Kremer smiling and offering to help us in so many ways. She manned our merchandise, set up a mailing list for us, even let us use her amazing technicolor dream pen.

A gruff bar manager, at one point in the beginning of the evening, muscled his way up and ordered us around a little. His no-nonsense tone and directness forced me to turn to Brian and say, "We're definately in Boston." Yeah, yeah, I know Cambridge is not Boston. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tough. The point is: Boston equals mean angry guys.

"Uh oh. You guys, our set is only 20 minutes long not 30. We need to scratch a couple songs off."

Suddenly the first band, Rosie Huntress, was finished and it was our turn to take the stage. We set up as quick as possible and kicked into Something's Taking Over. By this point the club had a pretty good sized crowd and people were digging us.

Kevin did an excellent job on bass. I felt totally confident the whole time. We suped it up a little bit, as you seem like you have to do when ever you play one of the Boston/Cambridge rock clubs. Things became loud and fast, but the crowd was with us the whole way. I had a blast. Unfortunately, twenty minutes is a really short, short time to play.

After the set, a bunch of folks came over and were very nice to us. We sold a few cds and some shirts. I think Kevin had fun playing. Some of our old friends from Connecticut and Boston came out to the show, Miriam and Nelina.

Brian and Tiny took off immediately and Kevin and I hung out for a bit and checked out some of the other bands. It was too loud, of course, and I forgot my earplugs, of course, so I bought a couple pairs at the bar. The band that sticks out in my memory is Lincoln Conspiracy. The had some very tight arrangements and were just bass, keyboards, and drums, and the drummer sang. Yay.

Kevin and I stayed for as long as we could and then grabbed all of our stuff and headed out into the pouring rain and drove home, all the while talking about music and friends and the world.