Boston Show Recap

Dan and I hopped in a rental car Saturday and made the trek up to Boston to play Precinct in Somerville. It was a beautiful day for the drive, and one of the highlights was listening to the CD of Teeth of Mammals. They are an amazing band from Reading, Pennsylvania taht we played with when we played Philadelphia many moons ago. I really dug their set and was psyched to pick up their full-length CD and their new (at the time) demo. Dan hadn't heard the CD, so we listened to it and it just blew us away. It has one of the best ending to a CD I've ever heard, with a great song that brings the whole album to a thunderous, complete finale.

We got to Somerville a bit early so after checking out the stage we walked up to a comic book store and checked it out. There was a really cool dog who lives in the store who was very friendly and came over to have me pet him several times. We then headed over to a Subway sandwich place so Dan could get some dinner.

We sauntered back over to Precinct, which is a really nice bar with a great little stage in the back bar area. We got set up, chatted up some folks who had come out and then took the stage to play. A bit of a rough start with "Jagged Cross," as the mic died somewhere around the first chorus. But James, the bassist for Plumerai, replaced the mic in the break between the first chorus and the second verse, and after that we were good. "Better Lives" and "Into Debt" went particularly well. We also played our first slow song ever, "What We Deserved All Along," live for the first time. I think people were a bit thrown by it, but it seemed like it captured everyone's attention in a way our other songs don't, which was a cool feeling. By the way, the song is slow, not light...we still rock fairly heavily with it, even though the tempo is slower and the melody and vocals are a bit "prettier" than the usual VB fare. "Motherfucker" got a great response at the end, with people emerging from the shadows in my field of vision, dancing up a storm.

The set list:

1. Jagged Cross
2. Kick You Out
3. Sarbanes-Oxley
4. What We Deserved All Along (live debut)
5. Better Lives
6. Into Debt
7. Alien Homeland
8. Binge
9. Motherfucker

After our set the cool Boston band The Daily Pravda took the stage and played several great songs. We had never met them before, a great bunch of guys and really great musicians. They have a new album coming out at the end of May, we wish them all the best with it.

The headliners for the night were our friends in Plumerai, and this was going to be a Plumerai show like no other for us because for a short period we were going to be in it! Martin, the guitarist, asked us to play with them on their crazy-rock-out ending of their song "Avernal" towards the end of their set. Dan and I were game but there was no time to rehearse to we were just going to wing it and hope for the best.

Plumerai's set was just amazing. They started with a brand-new instrumental that blew me away, and then went through a bunch of songs new and familiar. These folks are one of my favorite bands, and it was just a sheer joy to watch and hear them.

Then it was time for our bit, they got to the ending of "Avernal," I pikced up my guitar, Dan went to his snare drum and cymbal, and along with Mark, another guest musician, all eight of us tore the shit out of the song's finale. It was literally one of the highlights of my life, some of the most fun I've ever had playing on stage.

We hung around for a bit and then said good-bye to everyone, headed to the local IHOP with our friends/super-fans John & Theresa, and had some damn good pancakes. We crashed at John & Theresa's place in Watertown, got up bright and early on Sunday, and made the drive back to NYC. All in all, another great trip to Boston.

++Collin