Last weekend we played the Helloween show at the Poison Estate in Appleton: Wartorn, Sworming, FCTC, and Choose Your Poison. Our crew was as follows: Joe, Barrows, Lydia, myself in the van, and Jones, Brad, Palmer, and Greg in Jones' car. When we got to the Poison Estate I was surprised to find that a carload of people from the Eau C. had driven all the way down for the show. Tony, Stacy, and a couple of the Brazilian/Mexican punks from the cities had come down. Cascas and Rodolpho hadn't even slept the night before, so they were royally fucked up.
It was a costume show, and shit, there were some awesome costumes. Rodolpho had a cheesy shark costume with a head hole where the mouth was (picture), and he kept "eating" people by pulling the costume over other people's heads. Flags was dressed as Choose Your Poison (picture). I was Toban, Brad was Shane, and Joe was Liz. Joe was hilarious in a mini skirt and wig. His reaction was, "Dood, I look like my mom." To which I replied, "Dood, then your mom must be pretty hot."
I tweaked my ankle and bruised some ribs when we were unloading. See, the stairs that go to the basement go down about 5 stairs, then there is a landing/90 degree turn, then five more stairs. The thing is that the way the light falls on the landing, it looks like two stairs when it's really just a flat landing. I was carrying my guitar, tried to take that extra non-existent step and went down. I didn't want to fuck up my guitar so I kind of did a half turn on the way down and landed on my back. I wasn't even drunk. Luckily Brad and Toban were in the basement and came to my rescue with, "Dood. You 'kay?"
We played and rocked the shit out of that place, yada yada yada. The guys at the Poison Estate had made something like 15 pounds of pasta for the bands, and when CYP went on Shane brought a big bucket of it in the basement. Great fucking idea Shane. After about 5 minutes, there was pasta everywhere. And not in the good way. If one of the old testament plagues had been pasta related, this was it. Towards the end of their set everything went black. Cause: blown breaker. We flipped it back on, sparks shot out, and it was fine in the basement, but there was no power upstairs. Then when Wartorn went on (as Necro Panda), the pasta had been ground into a paste that coated the floor about a quarter inch thick. I was trying to stand in front of the mics and shit so that people wouldn't knock it over, but I kept slipping and falling, then would get back up and fall down again. It was like ice. In retrospect, it would have been hilarious to watch a bunch of drunkards in silly costumes slipping and falling all over a basement in the midst of a hardcore show.
Later, after the bands were done and we had loaded shit up, I was sitting in the back of the van with the door open, getting some air, when Greg came over and sat down. He mumbled something, and then puked up about 2 pounds of pasta; straight noodles, not even slightly digested. He mumbled something more and then stumbled away. Classic Greg. Side note: we continually made fun of Ryan for being Canadian with insults such as, "go run some kilometers," "measure something in liters," and, "Canada is America's hat." We don't really even know if Canada is metric, but it's the thought that counts.
We eventually ended up back at Hart and Ryan's (of Wartorn) to call it a night. But the gods of partying had other plans. We found power tools and an axe. I plugged in the circular saw and started it up. Then Palmer came over with the axe, and I took the saw to it. It made a shit ton of sparks and Ryan got all dad on us with, "all right, that's it, no more power tools."
The next morning I made fun of Ryan for making his bed, and we rounded up our crew of around 12 people and went to some Indian food buffet place, courtesy of Hart's whim. Seriously, who takes a bunch of hungover/drunk people to eat Indian food for breakfast. We pulled in to the parking lot and Joe was making these burping noises with this wide eyed look on his face. I immediately knew what was about to happen and jumped out of the car. Joe leaned out and puked all over the place. Awesome. Then we ate Indian food. Joe, Greg, and Palmer took massive shits while me and Ryan threw food at each other from across the room. I feel sorry for the people that work there, as well as the elderly couple that had to sit relatively near us.
After "breakfast" we all went to the bar (at about noon). Palmer and Greg started doing shots while I drank whiskey and the other doods drank beer. At this point I realized I didn't have the money from last night. I asked Joe; he did not. I asked Brad; he did not. So I called Shane. Shane swore that he paid one of us $60. We couldn't find it anywhere, and to this day have no clue what the fuck happened to it. I'm surprised this hasn't happened sooner. The ride back consisted of me and Joe doing Bob Seger impressions and offering Barrows "five hundred dorra" for his van.
Moral of the story: this weekend of debauchery has shown us the light to salvation, and we will revert to our former ways as described in James St. Matthews article in this issue of the Flipside.