"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." That's the saying right? Well, we got a giant excersise in that on Saturday night in Laramie, WY.
We left Ft. Collins at around 1:00 or so and headed for Laramie, which is just a short two hour drive from Ft. Collins. The drive was amazing, indescribablely (sp?) beautiful, amazing rolling hills, puffy clouds and snow capped mountains in the distance, very serene. We rolled into town very early and headed over to The Parlor, the venue, to check it out. The Parlor is a bar/arcade/dance thing above The Buckhorn Bar, the only bar in Laramie. The place was closed, but someone was supposed to come later to open it up. So, we chat with some locals at the bar and start walking around the town. Kind of a cute town, very old and very small, the total population including the University of Wyoming was 23,000 we were told while getting bagels. We walked around for awhile, got some belt buckles, post cards, and other goodies like the good consumers we are. Also, hit up the local record store and picked up some CD's (The Queers "Love Songs for The Retarded'" which is great, Leftover Crack's "Fuck World Trade," which I haven't decided on and Rocket From The Crypt, I forget which album, but it was a tasty choice.)
We are a little concerned at this point because we have failed to see one flyer in town for the show. About a month ago I was told by some friends of ours that are in a big punk band in Laramie that the show was set up, flyers were made and a guy named Justin was going to handle it because they were going on an amazing tour. They're great guys so I don't doubt that it was all set up, I had failed to hear anything from Justin even after contacting him several times, but we continued with the optimism.
So, we're hanging out outside the Buckhorn, talking to some really nice, drunk locals and just chatting it up. We were told that the guy who runs the Parlor usually shows up around 8. So we wait and 8 comes and goes and heads into 9. A really nice, drunk local named Dave from Richmond, CA talks to the guy who runs the Buckhorn and he says that we can set up downstairs if we wanted to and he'll charge $2 at the door and we get to keep whatever we make. The guy who ran the bar was a very surly, tattood (sp?) older man, with a long grey haired pony tail, but really liked us because he was from Sacramento. So, the guy who runs the Parlor gets there at 9:30 and knows nothing about the show and can't get a hold of Justin, so we go into super ninja DIY show mode. We had heard from the doorman that some Meth dealers were there last night and theatened to come back to shoot up the place, but we were determined.
We haul all of our stuff in, clear off the "stage" and begin to set up. The have no PA, so we plug the vocals into the guitar amp and have only one mic setup. They started collecting money when we start playing, so we get it going around 10:30. We rocked it, me playing as quietly as possible because the drums were blowing the bar out. Overall a few people were interested, a few people loved it, and most people just didn't give a shit, but in general it was a success and people were happy we weren't a cover band. Justin never showed up the whole evening. We collected our money, loaded up the van, said goodbye to the wonderful locals, the lovely bar owner, and headed out of Laramie. I'll have to sleep on whether or not we'll be back in Laramie again.
Tomorrow is a very long 14 hour drive to Fargo, where Casey has a place for us to relax and rest our pretty heads. Next show is in Moorhead, MN on Tuesday, hell yeah!!

Matt