A high-school friend of mine was playing a gig on Saturday night with his band
Demon Eye
at the
Sidebar Tavern in Baltimore. Now, I'm not really into the metal scene, or really anything that can be categorized as "a scene," so I'm venturing outside my comfort zone so that I can support my friend. I believe you need to do something outside of your comfort zone every day, otherwise you're not expanding your comfort zone. So, I drove over to Baltimore in the afternoon, getting into the hotel just early enough to avoid the traffic for the baseball game. I caught the hotel shuttle over to the Inner Harbor for dinner and a stroll before the doors to the show opened up. After several hours of observing folks, I get the sense that Baltimore is kind of like Randy Quaid's Cousin Eddie in
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation to Washington, D.C.'s Clark Griswald. But the
aquarium looked great, and we'll probably come back later this summer.
I got to the venue right around 9 pm, just as my friend's band was unloading the trailer. So I helped them carry stuff in and didn't have to pay a cover and got comped two glasses of the local brew:
National Bohemian. Can't say I'm a big fan, but free made it taste better. The first band, Witch Hazel, went on and did a decent job. Best part of the set for me was when the lead singer pulled out a cow bell for his solo.
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| More Cowbell! |
Then my friend's band,
Demon Eye, got up and delivered a solid performance of kick-ass metal. The previous link doesn't do justice to how heavy the live version is...my beer was actually vibrating so much that I had to keep changing hands because they were getting worn out holding it. Maybe I shouldn't have been so close to the speakers, but whatever. At one point, my friend stepped off-stage and kept playing while the audience surrounded him...rock 'n roll! Here's a pic of the band (the bassist is just off to the right of the frame, but this was the best angle I could get).
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| Rock on. |
Another band followed them to close out the night, but I couldn't really get into their sound so my friend and I sat in the back of the place and caught up on life since the last time we saw each other nearly two decades ago. We've been friends on Facebook, but that's not the same as being there in person. After the third band finished up, I helped pack out the gear to the trailer and headed back to my hotel. So, I guess I can cross "Be a roadie for a metal band" off my bucket list now, right? I think I got in to the hotel some time after 2 am, which is the latest that I can remember ever being out on purpose.
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When they said the restroom was "pretty metal",
I was picturing something in brushed nickel. |
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