NP: Travis, The Invisible Band

Last night was a particularly interesting night to be playing at a sports bar. With an average of one TV per patron, I must have seen the Ron Artest melee at least two hundred times. Wow. I'm still in shock. I know he wanted to take time off to promote his record, but that seems like an awfully odd way to go about getting it. If he is allowed to play another game this season, I'll be disappointed.

From a purely NBA-centric perspective, this could certainly make the Eastern Conference much more interesting, depending on how many players are gone for how long.

The other key moment from the evening was while I was loading out my gear. Some guy is standing in the little weather-protected entrance, talking on his cell phone very heatedly. I overhead him telling someone, an a drunken quasi-rage "I'm outside the bar, because if I go inside, I'm going to FUCK. SHIT. UP." It was all I could do to not bust out laughing.

So violence is the rule of the evening, complete with some very drunk college football fans mixing it up about two songs into my first set. There was a slight chance one of them was going to trip and fall into me, but it didn't happen. Other than that, the show was mostly uneventful, with most of the focus on the festivities in the big room. I felt like I was in good voice, though, and I rallied a bit at the end with a small group of people who weren't enjoying the other half of the party. They claimed I saved their evening, which made me feel really good, and they asked if I play Joe's often. I told them they should tell the bartender how much they liked me, and I just might.