The Big Day. With hopes in the clouds and butterflies in the belly we met at Bardenay for a drink/pre-game rally. Then it was load in and setup on the big stage without any other bands’ gear backlined! After a couple hours of sound checking, lighting design, recording prep, eye make-up layering, and merch set-up, it was time to open the doors to the fans awaiting out front. After some hilarious backstage banter with Marcus Eaton– he has a career in comedy if he ever hurts his hands– he went on to start things off. The crowd grew steadily and Marcus played masterfully: quicker than ever and just about beyond comprehension, smooth, strong vocals, and a seemingly more latin style, and that tasty-ass percussive strum-looping. Next up was emcee Captain Happy (Jesse Bastian) in full happiest-superhero-ever garb. He did one of his amazing spoken-word pieces and worked the crowd up with his trademark exuberance. By the time we went on the place was packed and everyone was high with expectation. The boys tore into a searing set, focussing on tracks from the album but playing a few newer tunes too. The crowd was incredibly reponsive: screaming inbetween songs, generally freaking out, and singing along, much of which was caught on film by our two roving cinematographers. With the killer audio recording (Thank You Jeremy Swain!) and footage we got we hope to post some sweet video sections online, or maybe eventually put together a full DVD. We sold well over a hundred albums during the show, every last pair of Equaleyes booty shorts (which our sexy female fans gladly modeled around the venue, to the dismay of security personnel), and distributed a lot of other new clothing items. Apparently some guy tried to get into the show with a prison i.d., was rejected, bit the door guy, and was taken down violently and away by several cops. However confusing a thing like violence may seem at an Equaleyes show, it reminded me of a night in Moscow when Jeff went into the first verse of one of the sweeter love songs and a fight broke out between two dudes on the floor. All in all, the most successful and touching night of our careers (especially after working on the album for 18 months) and I can’t thank everyone who was a part of that enough.

by Jesse Shell

Tags: Bouncer Biting, Captain Happy, CD release, Knitting Factory, Marcus Eaton

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 9th, 2008 at 4:53 pm and is filed under Road Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.