Minor Speculum

Friday 04/02: The Day After My Birthday, A Night To Remember

By Larry

The Dillinger Escape Plan was in Chi-town with Animals as Leaders, Iwrestledabearonce, and Darkest Hour @ Reggie’s. We arrived in Chicago promptly at 6:15 PM. At that point, the four of us: Chad, Cory, I and Matt, were all very, very drunk. What a fucking threat to be on the streets of Chicago. Picture the four of us prancing/prowling around like a couple of wicked wolf-men with the strength of ten-thousand night foxes, drunk as snakes on Canada House and Diet Coke, primal bloodlust in our eyes… Excuse me, I’m getting ahead of myself. To begin:

@ Carroll Avenue 4:35 PM:
In the station parking lot a young Cuban boy approached us. His name was Patrick Somethinguez. Clothed in the cherriest of Converge shirts, this Vermont-ian, Political Science major from the University of Notre Dame, recognized immediately that we… we were not unlike one another: middle-class, semi-intellectual metal-heads. At that moment our Wolf-Pack grew by one: Patrick was one of us, and we were never gonna let him forget it. We forced ourselves on him via Facebook and later (approx. 2:00 AM) left him notes scribbled on paper bags, pinned under his windshield wipers before we left; which reminds me, I need to buy some of those. Together, we proceeded to board.

Later on the Train:

“Mom, Dad… this is Bay.”
We met Bay on the South Shore train on the way to Chicago from Michigan City. We fed him whisky. He fed us LIFE!! Look at how fucking cool he is: he posed for that picture. He knew we were making fun of him and he did it anyway. He told us we got a pass in the South Side, if we ever needed help we just needed to say his name because he knew EVERYBODY on the South Side and they knew him. He also gave us his number just in case. He told Matt that he (Matt) was his (Bay’s) “Man”. Chad (pictured: back of head, arms & hands) got jealous of Matt and forced Bay to also make him his “Man”. You’d think Chad’s petulant, self-entitled attitude would prompt a defensive reaction in Bay, perhaps even enrage him, but Bay didn’t even give no fuck, he made Chad his “Man” too. He said we were the coolest white-boys he ever met and even invited us to dine on pig feets with him and his wife that very night. He wanted to feed Chad carats in his nose and ears. He woulda done it too, except we were getting off at a different stop. I’m not sure if Bay has been on the internet before, it’s hard to Google him.

Cut to: Museum Campus/11th St.
We get off the train with Patrick in tow and fucking IMMEDIATELY three more dudes joins us: young, impressionable and sober, ready to follow us to hell and back. (Wolf-Pack count now at 8!) Olive Branch-ian cigarettes were passed out and lit. Ceremoniously, lighters had to be shared. Eight scrappy, flaming mouthed youths; if we got to fellin murderous, it would take the entire CPD to take us down. The venue was a mile point two away. People cleared the way where we walked. We stopped at a gyro place to use the bathroom and satisfy our alcohol induced hunger. There was a man there, sweeping, guess who the fuck he knew? MOTHER-FUCKING BAY!! I asked him, first thing. He replied, “That asshole?” NO SHIT!!

@ Reggie’s:
First of all, Reggie’s is the shit. There are three parts to it: Reggie’s Rock Club, where we saw the show, specifically; Reggie’s Music Joint, the adjoining bar; and Record Breakers, a music store that sells CD’s, DVD’s, Vinyls & T’s. This place is my new heaven. We didn’t go into the Music Joint Bar but they have Arrogant Bastard Ale aged in Oak Casks. They have brews from Bell’s, Founder’s, Stone and several other noted breweries. For a moment there we lost Patrick, but then we found him again.

Animals as Leaders played, but eight and seven-string shredder Tosin Abasi’s Fractal Audio Axe-FX Ultra ($2,299.95) did not have enough power going to it (only 206v) and so they only did two songs before it died. This was the only mar on an otherwise perfect night. We talked to Tosin after the show and told him we were sorry but we really liked his music and that we had seen him before at South Bend at Elva’s Fiesta Club and… the conversation got interrupted when he had to accept a call on his iPhone. I shook his hand (OMG!).

For the Iwabo portion of the evening, Cory and I record shopped, ergo we didn’t watch them. But they probably played this song. I bought this ($25):

Darkest Hour played. I know nothing about them, except the singer kept telling us to “get the fuck up” and stuff like that. I don’t like being told what to do at concerts, I paid to make you do stuff bands! Chad and I stood next to a midget, while double-fisting PBR. I gave Underage Nate, Patrick’s friend from Vermont, who attends the University of Chicago, a 16 oz Pabst Blue Ribbon ($2). Some bitch didn’t know who Christopher Walken was.

DEP TIME BITCH!!
We decided to leave half-way through the Dillinger show to catch the 11:06 PM Central Time train back home otherwise we would have to wait until like 12:51 AM Central Time. Dillinger opened with “Fix Your Face” off of Ire Works, then “Panasonic Youth” from Miss Machine – both two megaton blasters. Here is the rest of the setlist. It was during “Mouths of Ghosts” I started to think, “This is too good, we should stay for the whole set.” Meanwhile Chad said to himself, “If we’re gonna leave early, we might as well get kicked out.” So he staged dived three times, against Reggie’s rules, and got thrown out by a large man in a black shirt. Now out on the street, this is when we talked to Tosin. Another mile point two back to Museum/11th and we were on our way home. This is what we missed (actual video from the show):

Tags: Animals As Leaders Chicago Dillinger Escape Plan Larry Story

Apr 09, 2010 • Music