Last night I saved up all my energy to make it down to the Melody Inn for Punk Rock Night. Mike’s band, Hate the Drake, was having their CD release party. I practiced red light photography all afternoon, so I wouldn’t suck as much as their last show. I’m pretty happy with my shots. Check them all out here.

Hate the Drake put on a solid show. It’s not often I enjoy a hardcore punk show :) The act that followed, Jason Webley, was supposed to be filming a music video that evening, but they were missing a video camera haha. I *almost* brought mine too! This guy was just as adorable as Mike claimed and his accordian, fedora, and trench coat just added to the charm. I didn’t quite understand how he was a Punk Rock Night founder, but his show was good times, full of ethnic-sounding accordion group drinking songs.

Nate & his g/f are gonna be so bummed they left early. I spent most of his show back with Rick & Mitch. Rick’s a lot taller than me so I had him take some photos. He took the one in this post. It was an interesting night. The punks in their garb were out in force. There was a girl who was my 6’ slightly less attractive twin. She was sooo wasted. She walked up and stared at me. I didn’t know what to do but stare back. She finally said “Hi! How are you?” I was like “Fine…I don’t know you right???” She said “No!”, laughed and turned away and kept walking. WTF

Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band joined Webley on stage. I have no photos of that, because photos wouldn’t do it justice. They were recording a live track of “Two Bottles of Wine”, the song that was meant to be the music video.

Well, Mike returned just in time for Webley’s attempt to move us up a couple rungs on the ladder of ecstacy. He had us all point our finger in the air and stare at it as we spun ‘round and ‘round while he counted…from 8 to 9 to 14 to 7 to 12. It was hilarious!

After we finished spinning and were feeling pretty silly, he said to put your arm around the person next to you, especially the beautiful ladies. Well, his little spinning exercise did the trick, because my 100% sober ass says “I’m a beautiful lady!” and puts my arm around Mike. But then, the guy on my right says “Yes, you are” in a non-creepy way (since I think his g/f was on his other side) and that was kinda awesome. So this entire crowd, with a mix of punk posers (like myself) and those dressing the part, all have their arms around each other and are swaying back and forth shouting “Drink UP!” on cue and feeling merry & irish & wonderful. I stand by the claim I made as we left that it was the happiest 5 minutes of my life. At the end of the song, I really felt like I’d just had a round a beer with all my friends. Pretty damn amazing.

Really glad I made it down there. Very memorable night.

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