hellziggy

On Thursday last week Mike posted that Sunspot was going to be playing at Kathy's Pub in Rochester on Friday. Super short notice because they had just been asked to play the day before. Well, Rochester is less than 2 hours from the Cities, so there was really only one appropriate response: Roadtrip!
I put the call out on LJ & Facebook, and I texted the usual suspects who I knew already loved Sunspot.
By Friday we had 7 of us who wanted to go down and a minivan that conveniently also seated 7.

We reached Rochester at about 8:30 and while looking for somewhere to eat we saw a restaurant called The Canadian Honker. How can you resist that? They had good food, and really good onion rings.

Tom & Rick's high school buddy Pete and his wife Paula came down to the restaurant to visit with us for a little while before they had to get home to the babysitter.

Sufficiently fueled up we headed further into town to find Kathy's Pub. We got there as the first band was finishing up loading out and Sunspot was setting up. After much greeting and hugging we settled in at the front tables while the band got ready to rock.

The music was as awesome as ever. They were alternating original songs and covers for most of the night. I think the bar had asked them to do covers as well as original stuff. Towards the end of the night though they started asking for requests and so they did more of their own stuff. Most of my favorites got played: Neanderthal, Tunguska, Heidegger Paradox, Mr. Foff. They'd mentioned on Facebook that they'd be doing a couple sets and would take requests so I made sure to mention that Wendy should bring her violin so I could request Pretend. We got an accoustic version of that right at the beginning of the third set. Yay! None of the folks who came down with me had heard that one before because they usually don't play it during short sets.

They probably played at least 3 hours worth of music and it was a great time. We got to spend some time talking to Mike, Wendy & Ben between the sets and after the show. They are always just so much fun and super awesome people.

We need to get our scientists to work inventing transporters so I can make it to more of the shows since they're always on the other side of Wisconsin!

I also had a Canon 5D Mark II with me to shoot with, but I honestly have not even had a chance to look at all the pictures yet. Hope I got some good ones!

hellbob says I should definitely go to the Phoenix Comicon!

\0/

He's going to go too if we can manage it. It will depend on how I get there and how much it costs.

Do any of you guys want to go too? :)

One option we were considering was road tripping down.
It is a 28-29 hour drive according to the Google Maps. It is between 1700 & 1800 miles depending on which route you take. If road-tripping I'm leaning towards the route through Denver as I've already taken the other route once, and I've never ever ever been in the Rocky Mountains.

This option is really only feasible if there are a few of us heading down. To minimize time needed off work, it would be nice to drive straight through to only lose just over one day to travel. That means multiple drivers. Plus, depending on start time it would also have the advantage of driving through the not-so-scenic Iowa & Nebraska in the dark. You could even go with if you're not Minneapolis people as long as you live somewhere close to that blue line.

Option #2 is flying. This option minimizes the possibility of Rick being able to go. Right now, round trips to Phoenix are running between $280 and $330, give or take a few fees. Southwest, who we love, is not the cheapest. They do, however, have a $20 leeway built in since they won't charge for my checked bag. (for ex., I consider a $320 United flight and a $300 SWA flight to be the same price). If flying is the decided method of travel, I still have over 3 months to keep an eye out for a sale, or possibly a really good air/hotel combo special.

If flying, there's no travel savings for multiple people going, like there would be driving. But either way, if any of y'all wanna go we could split hotel room costs. If it is just me I will take spellwight up on her generous offer of crashing at her place before she has a chance to think twice about it. (DON'T tell her I snore!) ;) But I won't even think about imposing if I'm more than just me.

So yeah, definitely going. Don't know how I'm getting there. \0/

Home from a good weekend.

Went to Eau Claire yesterday to see Sunspot. They rocked, as usual.
Came home today and headed up to Jen & Paul's to celebrate dad's 75th birthday.

Very tired now.

I decided early this week that I would go to Sunspot's CD/DVD release party in Madison if I could get out of work early on Friday. Things were relatively slow, so I took off at 1:00 and hit the road! I stopped to pick up Wyatt, we drove to his friend Danielle's house, and took her car the rest of the way to Madison. At this point there were no concrete plans of where we would all be sleeping. We hit town right as the party was starting at 7:00. There was lots of awesome food provided by Wendy's parents. And there was lots of free beer provided by the Point Brewery. Now y'all know I like dark beer, but given the choice between free beer and dark beer, guess which one wins?
At 8:30 Sunspot took the stage and rocked the hell out of it for two hours! They're usually playing with other bands when they come to Minneapolis so this was the first time I got to see such a long set from them. It was just fucking awesome!!!
The set list:
2012
Sweet Relief
More Than My Degree
Path of Most Resistance
Square Root of All Evil
Uncanny Valley
Tunguska
Dig Your Grave
Trashy Hot
Hypnogogic
Grand Guignol
No Place Like Home
Pretend
Mr. Foff
Scott Bakula
Eat Out My Heart
Neanderthal
Summer Day
Change the World

The band doing a Jagermeister shot on stage:



This was the only picture I took of Moose all night:


After the set there was more hanging out and drinking at the club. Then about Midnight we had a plan. Wyatt, Danielle and I headed a couple blocks down to a bar called the Red Shed while the band loaded up the van. Now that I was paying for beer I switched to Newcastle, and we found a booth to hang out and wait for everyone. Probably about a dozen people ended up there.
How adorable of a couple are Ben & Allison?


When it was discovered that I'd never Jagermeister someone bought me a shot of it. That is some nasty stuff!
Yeah, we got a little drunk:




Bars in Madison must close at about 2am, because it was around 2:20 or so that we headed to Ian's for pizza. OMG! This place has macaroni & cheese pizza. The most awesome thing ever! Especially after a night of beer.

I think it was about 3:00 or 3:30 when we left there. Wyatt was good to drive, so he got me, Danielle and Mike back to Mike's house where I was given a pillow & blanket and crashed out on a nice comfy couch. Gotta love a band that gets you drunk *and* gives you a safe place to sleep!

I was not feeling so good the next day though. I choose to blame that one shot of Jager! We were eventually all alive enough to head back into town, stopping to pick up Wendy & Terrance so everyone could get back to their cars. Then it was back on the highway and home for us.

All in all, it was a hell of a lot of fun!