The winds of shit were not blowing in our favor at all, so many things went awry. First off, let me say that the members of Esclavo are Mindless sans Faiza on vocals. Apparently they weren't asked to play the show as Esclavo but were on the flyer and begrudgingly played anyway. Esclavo had a flat tire on the way to the show and were almost 2 hours late, it didn't help that the streets and alleys around 6th street were closed off due to some bogus ass festival going on this weekend. so we carried all their equipment to the venue from a block away. Both Mindless and Esclavo's sets got pushed to last due to the flat. Sat thru about 3 hours of bad bands to eventually tear shit up to Mindless. There was some technical problems relating to Faiza's mic during the set which led to an unpleasant exchange between the band and the people who work at Hoek's. Anyway, Esclavo played last. They got thru two songs and in the middle of the third it started raining...then fucking pouring. The stage at Hoek's is outside so I think you can guess where this is going. Following the downpour, there were more disputes with the people at the venue. At one point I thought it was going to come to blows. They moved on from it and we again had to move the band's equipment a block down the street, in the rain this time.
Even after the shit-storm passed over us, I still feel the night wasn't all that bad. Sure there were some very unfortunate circumstances surrounding the bands' performances, all in all though I was very glad to bond with my friends through all of this. The post-show 2am Denny's hangout and 80 mile drive thru the storm were sobering. More nights should be like this.
