HAIL, HAIL, ROCK AND ROLL!

(if you'll pardon me), that's what's going on.

thank you for last night. last night was incredible. such a great time. truly an historic moment, as joel said.

thirteen swatties, plus the four members of the van, drove up to new york city in a college van and several cars. we made it to the world-famous venue in little over two hours, thanks to enthusiastic driving from matt and a ben's great tape for kate (plus some nas from me in the holland tunnel.) we tried to get a picture of the "holla" tunnel, but no.

loaded our stuff in as the first band started (something about "day"), met the yale crew (bobby, jacob b, andj) and
jesse, went out for some food (while others opted for blimpy's, ben directed alyssa and ester and me to Karen's on Astor for soup and chili empanada) and walked back past the guy with speaker-backpack blasting techno-polka, to find Rae on a streetcorner, michelle and aijung inside. stone temple incubus, a.k.a. dec 84 (all the members were born that month) finished their set, we swapped in our drumkit and were ready to rock in fifteen.

i don't know what to say about the show except that i enjoyed it immensely, i was frustrated with myself for not playing some parts as well as i could have, and the audience really seemed to be big and enjoying itself. the set was identical to the dos show, including closing with "midnight class" which we weren't going to do then were then weren't because we didn't have the capo then did but the sound was funny but it was good anyway. it was good. i love music.

in some of the seventy or so e-mails that the band members have sent back and forth since last night, matt has alluded a few times to things that he's learning or coming to realize. these are such learning experiences, and i feel like approaching them all as experiments to discover what we really are as a band. joel and i had a long talk in the van home about different directions to take, and i want to do them all.

i just thought of something - maybe inflight should start a group blog, to conduct these discussions that we're having all the time anyway. we can all post our little manifestos and brainstorms, or whatever we want, and it could be a good variation of the 'diaries' that a lot of bands have on their websites. yeah.

thanks again. and again to everyone who came to see us last night. you made it! the big group of us and ours, after a bit of reloading and confusion, made it to veselka, a ukrainian sort-of diner est. 1954. a mixed plate of pierogi, which i shared with aij, were tasty but sort of strangely deep-fried; satisfying cole slaw and vanilla egg cream (one of my favorite discoveries of the summer.) and i got a chance to talk to those people i love so much. rae made me a birthday card of facepaint and fishing bobs, but it was giving difficulty.

pleasant van ride home, alyssa driving and singing to some of def pie '98 and R, ester sleeping on me, ben reading and joel talking about religion and rock. final unload and dropoff. and then it was over. i'll write about iceland (and assassins and stuff) soon, but first i have to write about noise.

what's the frequency kenneth
is your benzedrine uh-huh
i was brain-dead, locked out, numb
not up to speed

i thought i'd pegged you an idiot