Death of the Life of the Party: Part 2

Sherry and I were scheduled to leave on our Quest for Colorado at 3:30 on Friday as soon as she got home in the hope that we would miss at least a little of the incoming snow storm. Omaha was far enough as it is, and we didn't want to add snow to the mix. 3:30 turned into 4:30, but we were finally on our way, or were we? the snow caught up with us five minutes into the trip. It was getting hard to see out of the windshield, so I turned on the windshield wipers only to have the driver side wiper blade fly off the car and land somewhere on Interstate 90.

Factor in the time it took us to get to Menards, find, buy, and install a wiper blade, and not get killed in the process, that would put our new departure time at around 5:30 just in time for rush hour on the belt line. Any normal person would take this little incident as a sign to turn back, but we marched onward.

Lets just skip past Iowa and Nebraska and fast forward to Fort Collins, CO. It felt good to be back in the fort. We made the trip three times prior to see a local band that some of you may have heard of called ALL, so the place kind of feels like home. After some sightseeing and a short nap, we made our way to the show. I was under the impression that the show started at 8 so we arrived at 7:30 then waited outside until 8:30 for the doors to open. Stephen Egerton nodded his head at me while we were waiting outside though, so that made it ALL worth it.

Slorder was the first band to play. They are an instrumental three piece consisting of Stephen Egerton on guitar, Bryan Gorder on bass, and Jay Clements on drums. Let me just say they were brilliant. It had been too long since I had seen Stephen play, and he does not disappoint. They really need to release something soon. At least tide us over until that pending ALL instrumental album is released.
Here is a picture of me rocking out in my new Slorder shirt.

After Slorder played for 15 minutes or so, Scott Reynolds walked onto the stage and said "now we are 40Engine." Here is a video of them playing "Sunny Disposition" 40Engine Consists of Scott and Stephen and picks up where Percolator left off. This was one of the highlights of the evening for me for Scott Reynolds is my favorite musician of ALL time, and I haven't seen him perform since The Pavers played Stockage 2. They also have to release an album, or at least put a new song up on their Myspace page.

40Engine played a handful of songs, and then Stephen's like "Bill, Karl do you want to come up here?" I proceeded to shit ALL over my pants and scream like a little girl. They played Frog, Cyclops, No Traffic, Dot, and Educated Idiot. No offense to Chad (he is awesome), but Scott era ALL was my favorite, and I really wish they would tour again. I would rather see that than another Descendents tour to be honest. Although, I wouldn't mind it if the Descendents did tour again. In fact, They should really just tour together and then I could die happy.

Scott Reynolds and The Steaming Beast Played next. Here they are performing a song with a really long title. I don't want to spend a lot of time reviewing them because I will be posting a review of the album "Adventure Boy" once the postman delivers it. I will say that they were awesome. It is Scott Reynolds after ALL.

Drag The River was the reason we drove 14 hours to Colorado. Here is the song that inspired the title for the post. I guess Drag the River broke up last summer, but I am really not sure exactly. ALL I do know is the last time we tried to see them they were opening for Rocky Votolato in Chicago. We were a little late and arrived just in time to see Chad play bass for a couple Rocky songs. I found out later that this turned out to be just a Chad solo show which I'm kind of pissed that I missed, but thats beside the point. I really didn't know if Drag the River was ever going to play again so we had to go. I enjoy seeing them in Fort Collins because they have so much more energy. I'm used to seeing them playing in bars in front of 20 or so people, so to see them in a packed house was worth the trip. They are really good and I hope that that wasn't the last time I would see them. Chad and Jon ended with "Death of the Life of the Party" seen in the video above, and afterward tears welled up inside, and I died a little.

We didn't hang around after the show because we had to be back on the road in 4 hours, so I could get to work by 3 AM Monday morning. I wish I could have stayed longer and talked to some of the guys, but I'm sure there will be another Stockage at some point. In summation I had a blast and would do it again in a heartbeat. ALL an ALL, the show was great, the bands were awesome, and I recommend picking up any, well ALL of their albums. None of them will disappoint. I almost forgot, I also got a speeding ticket in Iowa on the way back. I was doing 75 in a 65 that I thought was a 70, but when your so tired you can barley keep your eyes focused and tend to miss speed limit postings. I hate cops.

Later.