Tied For Last

This was a battle of the bands in which the winner would get a chance to play the "Local Heroes" stage at the 2003 Warped Tour.

We were supposed to check in at 11am and draw times to play. I should have know things weren't going to go our way when, even though we were the first band to check in, no one let us know that they were drawing for time slots, so we ended up being stuck with the opening slot.

The crowd was pretty much made up of high school students, with even some parents there. This was quite different from our usual 21+ crowd, and I could see some parents cringe upon hearing the opening lines to "A Song for the Ladies," which is always fun. The band was actually doing well up to that point, but about halfway through the song, Tom's guitar went out of tune without him realizing it, and we lost some of the momentum we had built up.

We only played about half of our usual set, but other than the small guitar problem which was rectified by the next song, we played quite well, and won over a new fan or two in the process.

Quite a few of the folks who worked there, and many from the crowd complimented us on our set, but my good mood was soured a bit when I learned that the promoter I had paid to record our set had forgotten to notify the sound booth, so we were stuck without what would have been a pretty good live recording.

Alas, the battle was decided by audience response, so, since we weren't locals, and thus weren't able to pack the place, we went home empty-handed.

Special thanks to all those who stayed around to cheer us on for 4 hours following our 1pm set. You guys all rock damn hard!

The band that won - The Buddy System - were the hometown favorites and were indeed a pretty good band.

We'll get on that damned Warped Tour yet.

Set List:
Superstar
Party Dress
Live In
A Song for the Ladies
Wasted
Eve of Destruction
Take Janine Away