May 2, 2003 - Chapin Auditorium, South Hadley
HENNING: This is the morning after a long weekend of music. On Friday we had a day-time show at Mt. Holyoke College, so I took the day off from work. All week we had been wondering about the forecasted rain. Would it or wouldn't it? The concert was scheduled to be outside at 4:00. All day it was really beautiful outside. In the mid 70's and sunny. All day that is, until 4:00. We showed up on campus with dark dark clouds behind us, and to our surprise we saw an outdoor stage with no covering over it. People seemed to be setting up, a lot of students were lying out in the grass, the Herrell's Ice Cream Magic Bus pulled up. It could have been a real summery festive day. Then a clap of thounder erupted and almost instantly the rain began to fall. We all packed up our stuff and brought it into Chapin Auditorium, which is a beautiful old room with a large stage, big open floor, balcony seating, and carved wood all over the place. We quickly set up our stuff on stage, there were wet girls running all over the place. The stage set-up was limited and I knew we were going to have a really hard time sounding any good. They did have a bunch of people working, who knew how to run the room, so that was good. The place remained mostly entirely empty for the remainder of the afternoon. Occasionally a few students would wander in while waiting for a bus and there was the original group of 15 or 20 who stayed throughout. As we played, ladies were dancing and doing cartwheels and hula hoops. It was pretty fun. I couldn't hear the drums at all, which is a whole new experience, so I think we were pretty off. It certainly felt like we never really clicked. We played our set and broke down our stuff and Tony and Max took off imediately. Brian and I decided to stick around for some free Subway subs and to see what the other bands were like. This was the first show with my new camera and I was taking pictures all over the place. It was kind of fun walking around the auditorium, but we spent a lot of our time sitting in a stairwell. Eventually the subs showed up and after a mad scramble lit by stage lights we determined whose sub was whose and headed off to a back room to eat. Yay, there were chips, too. After eating, I was exhausted and we left. We each had our own car. I drove home listening to the Feelies and wound my way through the beautiful Route 47, passed overflowing streams and lush new fields. Although, in some ways the show was a sort of disaster, what with the rain-out, it was still pretty fun. The folks who booked it and ran it (Jen and Chris) were incredibly nice and accomodating and Jen says that she would like to have us back in the fall. Hopefully, that will work out. MAX: Henning described Friday's Mt. Holyoke show well... I didn't have a very good show performance-wise (I managed to start two songs in the wrong key and hit many a rotten egg along the way) but enjoyed watching the students having fun running, skidding and falling over themselves in the big boomy auditorium. I felt like we were a band in a fishbowl, where everything is echo-y and sound takes five minutes to bounce back from the walls. I had to scram as soon as we we hit the last notes, so Tony and I did our best to cover the equipment with a big blanket to and from the auditorium in the little South Hadley monsoon. TONY: Friday afternoon: Henning and I notice a young lady suntanning in a backyard adjacent to Ning's. He turns to me and exclaims: "It's going to be one wet, hot summer." Friday was indeed very hot until 4 pm, whereupon we were hit with the very wet. I enjoyed everything about the Mount Holyoke trip (the people, the place, even the crazy weather) save for our actual performance. I don't think we've ever played so poorly. Hearing ourselves and each other was a problem. At one point, I remember looking back at Brian, who was bashing away, almost completely inaudibly from where I was standing. See, after unloading the cars outside and then hauling everything indoors as quickly as possible so that equipment didn't get wet, we set up quickly and just let the less-than-ideal setup stay as is. I had some wicked buzzing in my amp, we heard our vocals echoing and bouncing all over the auditorium half-seconds after we heard them in our monitors, etc. etc. Just sort of a jumble of noise, probably our amps were too loud, too. So we were most likely to blame for most of the sound issues. But even sound aside, we just didn't play well. Max has admitted many goof-ups, I made twice as many as I heard him make and Henning absolutely could not manage to sing lyrics in order, which made my harmonies especially difficult! BRIAN: Mt. Holyoke: the crew could not have been nicer and more helpful. thank you very much. Mother Nature could not have been meaner and more annoying. But this is why she is our mother. The sound could not have been worse. Walking around the old building and watching the students gather their courage up before running through the downpours across campus was fun.	Uncomfortable Everybody Loves Martha Soup of The Moment Ayla Sitcom Theme Photobooth Curtain One Lady Dancing The Wichita Train Whistle Sings Something's Taking Over Rock & Roll Camper V-66 1,000 Times The Screen Door Omnivore