May 17th, 2003
924 Gilman
Berkeley, California
Bands: Once a Hero, The Enablers, The Shivering, Yaphet Kotto, Lungfish.
So, we had planned to drive throught the night to Berkeley. Well, we didn't make it very far. We were just crossing the border from Utah into Nevada and were stopping to fill up with gas when we noticed that Annabelle's power steering wasn't working. Upon inspection at the gas station, we found a more serious problem: One of the belts had broken off, and the engine cooling system was no longer functioning. Needless to say, we had to stop driving. We called AAA and they had to tow us 100 miles to Elko, Nevada.
So, we spent half the night in a towtruck and half the night sleeping in Annabelle, who had to stay parked waiting for the repair shop to open. When morning came, we had the repair shop fix Annabelle. While we waited, we took a stroll through town (which wasn't much,) played a couple slots at the local casino (Jon won 30 cents,) and ate breakfast. When we returned to the repair shop an hour later, Annabelle was ready to go. Luckily, our assumptions about the belt were correct, and the repairs didn't completely empty our wallets.
The rest of the day we simply had to haul ass in order to make it to Berkeley in time for the show. After driving through the desert for an eternity, we crossed the state line into California and drove across the Sierra Nevada Range, pictured above. The scenery there is absolutely gorgeous. Eventually we rolled into the Bay Area and got ready to play at what is arguably our favorite venue.
924 Gilman is still the same incredible place it was last year. New Graffiti, new posters, different bands, but the same punk rock atmosphere. We played first again this year to a supportive crowd, making sure to rock extra hard. Our set was fairly short, but we put only our best stuff into it.
The second band, shown above, are the Enablers. This band was extremely interesting, and very difficult to classify musically. Their song structures were composed of more mellow indie-rockish verses, with dissonant, sometimes atonal, heavy and driving choruses. The vocals were basically spoken word on the verses, using a regular style of speech instead of rhythm, and consisted of screaming on the choruses.
The third band was the Shivering, who hailed from the Bay Area. They had several musical influences, most notably hardcore. They were full of raw energy and were received well by the audience. The fourth band, pictured below, was Yaphet Kotto. They were also of the hardcore variety, but a slightly different flavor. They had some pretty complex stuff going on, and we all dug it.
The fifth and final band of the night was Lungfish from Maryland. These guys have been around for over a decade and were apparently releasing their 10th or 11th album to date. That'll be the day- 11 Once a Hero albums. Anyway, Lungfish had a style of their own, usually picking an original guitar riff and repeating it all the way through the song, which reminded us of Doris Henson, who we played with in Las Vegas Last year. Most of the crowd at Gilman was there to see LUngfish, demanding an encore, which resulted in a total set time of an hour and 15 minutes.
So, after the craziness of being stranded in the middle of Nevada, the insanely long drive to Berkeley, and a second awesome show at Gilman Street, you don't need to be a genious to realize how tired we were. We drove to the apartment of a friend of Alex's and crashed immediately. Tomorrow we'll be heading down to the Los Angeles area for our show in Fullerton, followed the next day by a much-anticipated show at the Troubadour in W. Hollywood with the Murderdolls and Josh Todd. Stay tuned as we wrap up the first full week of the Shock and Awe Tour '03.
-Once a Hero
