Jason Sebastian is the digital camera toting Knob lover who is friends with Andy. Andy is the guitarist for the Symptoms and he also books gigs for US Beer Company. I emailed Andy 10 minutes after Jason told me we could get a show from him. Dan from Arena Venus also had emailed me a few days previous and asked if we could get a gig in Chicago for them. Well it all worked fucking perfectly, I talked to Andy and got both bands on the bill.
So the ride wasn’t too bad and suprisingly neither was the parking. Loaded in and saw the stage in back of the room with the bar. Then I was told that we weren’t playing there, but ‘downstairs’. Checked out the scene down there and it was pretty bad ass: nice stage with drum riser, crazy blacklights and blacklight paint and glitter and shit on the walls, very nice. So it was decided that Arena Venus would play first and we would play second, followed by Silverback and Andy’s band, the Symptoms.
So I went upstairs to get a beer. I saw that they had a bunch of good shit on tap and I asked for whatever kind of Goose Island they had. I was told by the kind of hot and cordial bartender that they were out. She then told me how they had had a huge show the weekend before (which doesn’t make sense since this was Thursday) and the place got cleaned out. More then half the kegs were empty and they had hardly anything in bottles. I started drinking a slightly below average beer called Spaten. (My owly other choice was Bud Light or MGD, neither of which I will fucking touch). Ross and Andrew showed up and we started drinking. Me and Ross then tried a Dinkle Acher which was flat and dark as Coca Cola, wasn’t very good.
Bill Knobs showed up (making 3/5ths of the Powerknobs as Courtney of Arena Venus pointed out) and Arena Venus took the stage after many delays. They fucking rocked and played all the 3 songs I knew including my favorite ‘Red Violet’. I stood and watched them and closed my eyes and listened very carefully to all the insturments, it was awesome.
So at some point we took the stage. We had laid out the set list the week before but once we got there I was really not hyped about playing the opening song ‘Not Fun’. We went into it anyways and I was blanking out on the lyrics and music a bit for some reason. Rob hit a rim on a fill and I’m thinking that this song sucks dick. Then Hilger stops playing. For a second, I thought he was going to stop the song or something cause it sucked. As I sang and played, I looked at him from the corner of my eye and tried to figure out what the fuck he was doing. I saw him take off his bass and remove the strap. Then I thought that his straplocks gave out or something. Turns out he broke a string. I can’t remember that happening ever before, worse yet that it broke like 8 bars into the 1st song. Very odd. Me and Rob continued to play and Hilger eventually jumped back in. We then went into the 5 min. + insturmental ‘Empty Rantings of an Old Silly Man’, it seemed like it took hours but was fun to play. We played ‘Escape from the Island’ by Kiss for Kiss fan #1 and Hilgers co-worker Dave and it was one of the smoother songs in the set I thought. (sorry about the shitty pic Dave, it was way too dark in there. Come to another show and I promise to take a better one!)
I was sweating and not feeling well, I took a shot of Jagermeister which playing and I was not feeling too hot. I don’t know if I was just thrashing too hard or what. My chest hurt and I couldn’t catch my breath. We kept jamming and eventually just started picking songs and taking requests outside the set list. We closed with the ‘King of the Hill’ theme and people seemed to like that one. I went off stage and gave away a ton more stickers and some CDs. Hilger and Rob were tossing out T-shirts and everywhere I looked, someone was wearing one.
I hung out till the end, the other bands were good and full of nice people. The only thing that kept this show from being totally awesome was the lack of good beer. It was a blast though as every show is.
Oh yeah, and while The Symptoms were playing, Hilger told me to take a pic of this chicks ass. So I did. Better watch out when the Bigbossman has the camera shootin’, cause I’ll make ya famous!!
Low Profile live at US Beer Co in Chicago
Friday May 22nd, 2003
w/ Arena Venus, Silverback and the Symptoms
Great show all around. Besides the lack in choice for beers. I figured, US Beer Co…..u know, many choices in beers. Nope.
I was drinkin shitty Bud Light from the tap and the then they ran outta that and my last beer was a Budweiser. Fucking garbage.
So I got there first, parked illegally to run in and unload. I met the soundman who right away commented on my Fight shirt. He showed me a tattoo that JJ, the bassist in Fight, did for him. Props on that one dude. This guy was pretty cool all around. Then he tells me that we r not playing on the stage in the main bar. We r playing on the basement stage. So I just start loading in.
Williams and Rob arrive. Dave Evert, from my work shows up. We all carry our shit downstairs. All the bands r there and hanging out, drinking and whatnot. Bill, Ross and Andrew from the Powerknobs show up to support Low Profile and the 708. Jessica shows up. Thanks everyone for the support. Arena Venus r set up and do soundcheck. Then we chill a long time later and they start their set.
They fucking rock! We played with them at the Mutiny originally and they didn’t have all the original members. But tonight, they did and they were great. This band is just awesome. I can break down each member and rave about them and their talent and stage presence and besides that, they r wonderful and very nice people off stage. Courtney made a comment that they r too softcore compared to us but hey, we like to mix up our sets and who we play with. She must have gotten that thought from the Bossman yelling “Fuck Yeah” and “Into the Pit” in front of the stage the whole time. It was pretty funny. But they were great and it was a privelege to play with them again. We hooked em up with stickers, cd’s and tshirts and told them to sticker up Madison for us. We were up next. So we do a lil soundcheck. The stage is pretty awesome but I was blinded the whole time. Damn lights!
I bust out my Gibson Nikki bass and break my fucking A string within 30 seconds of the song. I really ripped on it and felt it break underneath my fingers and it felt good. At first, I was like “FUCK!” but then I realized my band kicks ass and they will jam the rest of the song till I get my back up axe ready. So I calmly put the Gibson in its case and grab the Ibanez and set it up. I jump in at a pretty decent time in the song and finish the song very out of tune. So I tune her up and go on with the set which was something like this:
Not Fun
Empty Rantings of an Old Silly Man
1-2-3-4
Escape From the Island (originally by Kiss)
What I Failed To Mention
All the Wrong Reasons
Kata
Breakin The Law (originally by Judas Priest)
Hot Mom
King of the Hill
Great set. It was a lot of fun. I don’t think we’ve ever played What I Failed To Mention live. It was a lot of fun and I think people dug it. Why wouldn’t they? I introduced it as a song about a one night stand I had. They all cheered for that one. I was surprised. 1-2-3-4 was a lot of fun too. We need to play those more often. Those r probably the 4 most “punk” songs we have. Kinda poppy and happy in a way. But I like em. Our rendition of King of the Hill was receive well too and people cheered wildly during the stalls part. We thrashed around and got wild on stage. I was jumping off the lil risers on the stage and on one jump, banged my head on a rafter pipe. It kinda knocked me silly and I stumbled but continued to play. The show must go on mutha fuckas!
And props to the soundman. On the line “U don’t know what its like” in Breakin the Law, he knew it was coming and he added some reverb type effect on the vocals and made it sound awesome.
So we r all sweaty and done with our set. Movin our shit outta the way for the Silverbacks to set up. They were great. Jason, the bassist, played an awesome Rickenbacker and the guitarist played a real nice SG. They rocked for sure. Very melodic bass and guitars, right into some noisy changes. I dug these guys a lot. And Jason played with his mic all up high and pointing down like Lemmy from Motorhead so I was yelling “the ACE OF SPADES” at him. They were great. Andy’s band the Symptoms played last. They were 3 piece and the bassist was a lil of a surprise to us. It was my buddy from the Prodigal Son who waved in front of the camera before I was going to snap a pic. Not the best of ways to make friends with me.
Anyways, fuck him. I shut him out and watched Andy and the drummer rock hardcore. And they were awesome. I dug this band and Andy is a true personality and a cool guy to have in the scene. I’d luv to play out with u guys again sometime. Set us up another show at US Beer asap. They ended with Night Train by Guns N Roses and Andy and the bassist switched instruments and Jason from Silverback sang. Pretty awesome.
So we loaded our shit out. So I hope Arena Venus got home safely and hope to set up another show with u guys sometime in the future. And I gotta say hey to Stella cuz I told her I would. And I’ll give a nice Marlon impression to end this mutha fucka:
“Stelllllllaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!”
-ERIK
