We had a really wonderful weekend, and we wanted to tell you about it.
On Friday afternoon, we were at Jill’s house rehearsing a few tunes and relaxing before we had to start thinking about getting down to Chapel Street for our show there later that evening. Matt decided to start loading our sound equipment (speakers, cables, PA, etc.) into the car when he realized… uh, it’s not here at the house.
You see, we played a Thanksgiving-eve show in Philadelphia and were heading out of town immediately after the show to visit family, so friends of ours from Philly let us store our equipment in their basement so we didn’t have to schlep our sound system up to New England… and then we forgot it was up there because we’re super-geniuses. So up to Philly we went to grab our sound equipment. Thank Elvis that traffic was kind– totally fortuitous considering it was a Friday afternoon during the holiday season.
So anyhoo, we made it back to DE with almost two hours to spare, so we still had time to brush our teefs and look marginally presentable for the show.
The show was really fun– we played for about 25 minutes, from 7:50 – 8:15, as a pre-game show for Chapel Street Players’ production of The Santaland Diaries. We love playing for theater crowds– they tend to get our dork-rock humor, and they’re kind and generous with the applause. Everyone’s pal Kevin Regan was there to shoot video of the plays, and he was kind enough to record our set, too. Here’s a video of us doing Total Eclipse of the Heart from that night (Thanks, Kevin!):
Anyway, the rest of the night went just as nicely and dorkily, and we were treated to seeing Seasons Greetings and The Santaland Diaries. Afterwards we headed out for dinner (sooo hungry!) and drinks, and our night ended with a high-five of rockitude.
Our set list from Chapel Street Players went thusly:
No Myth
Defend0r (an HB! original)
Fairy Tale of New York
Hole in Your Pants (an HB! original)
Heaven on Their Minds
Total Eclipse of the Heart
Do They Know it’s Christmas (featuring Andrew Mitchell as Bono)
Saturday we met for brunch at a local haunt around 1:30pm (that’s when rockstars eat breakfast!), and afterwards Joe Trainor came over to the ol’ HB! rehearsal space and we ran through “She’s Right On Time” by Billy Joel, which Joe was going to sing with us at our Film Brothers gig that evening.
We loaded into Film Brothers around 5:30-ish, met our opening band Fish Castle (we love them!), did a sound check, and hung out until the show started. Fish Castle played a lovely set– they’re an acoustic folk duo and they play probably 10 different instruments between the two of them– and that’s just for an hour-long set. I wonder how many instruments they’d play if they had a whole two-hour show to fill?
We took the stage right after Fish Castle, and played for a little over an hour. The audience helped us write a spontaneous holiday song (though I couldn’t come up with anything to rhyme with “gift”– argh! — but in hindsight I should have thought of “stiffed”), we debuted a few new songs, and had a generally warm, happy night. After we packed up the car we headed next door to Extreme Pizza where we enjoyed noshes and beverages and a jolly time was had by all.
Here’s our set list from the night:
Wastepaper Basket Fire
Defend0r (an HB! original)
Major Tom
Eye in the Sky
She’s Right on Time (featuring Joe Trainor)
An Easy Mistake (an HB! original)
Merry Christmas from the Family (featuring Cyril Everett on dobro)
Hole in Your Pants (an HB! original)
Gravity (an HB! original)
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Take the Lead
“spontaneous holiday song”
Here I Go Again
Kiss Off
Total Eclipse of the Heart
Thanks to everyone who came out to support us for those shows; it was great to see everyone especially during this nutty-crazy time of year.
Here’s to some happy, relaxing, rocking holidays coming up!
Rock on,
HB!