The sun finally arrived in Seattle.  On Friday, May 29th, I was laying on my couch, most likely in my drawls, and staring, head tilted, at my computer screen.  Neck sweat was accumulating under my beard; grimy and thick, like it was mixed with fruit pectin.  Nothing was happening, and it was the nicest day of the year.  I was still procrastinating about filling out my unemployment paper work when I received an email from our writer, Onsen, telling me about a free show at UW, only a few hours later.  Generally, I wouldn’t be too interested, however, the headliners were supposed to be Built To Spill.

I was skeptical at first, but it seemed to look legit.  The lineup would start with a local band, Smile Brigade, who would be followed by Ra Ra Riot and then, BTS.  I sent a text about the show to anyone that I thought would be interested, jumped in the shower, charged up my camera, and headed out with my girlfriend.  The bus never showed up and, about 45 minutes later, we finally reached Seattle’s University District.  After eating a giant gyro, I headed in to the Upper Playground to talk to the manager, Jen, and let her know about the free event.  No one that I informed about the show had heard anything about it and I was beginning to to wonder if this thing was even really going down.  If it was, I didn’t have any idea about what the set up would be.  There was a possibility that the performance was solely open to UW students and faculty.  If that was true, it also meant that there would be a very likely possibility that I was going to be jumping a fence and/or being chased by security.  I smoke too much and can’t run as fast, but I was set on getting in.  I saw MOS DEF at the UW‘s HUB building 10 years ago and got into to that one by transferring a UV stamp off of some random girls wrist. Read the rest of this entry →