this past weekend at the Pickwick Pub

So we drive up to Poughkeepsie, New York to play with our friends No Remission, Left In Ruins, and Assault (F.Y.C.) J.R. and I drive up together while Bobby and Scotty took their own cars. We get there around 7:30 and start having some drinks with some of the other bands who are already there. Scott arrives and we unload the trailer and have more drinks. After a pizza dinner, we find out that Bobby is going to be late to the show. People are already filling the bar and are getting a little antsy. Before we even play one note a guy walks up to us and asks to buy a shirt because he loves the BEER RUN on the back. This was already turning out to be a good experience.

After a couple of more drinks, J.R. is feeling the buzz and sets up his guitar and starts warming up. He plays some old school Metallica and Black Sabbath tracks and the people start yelling. I jump on the drums and Luigi, the lead singer of Left In Ruins, grabs a bass and we start to play any and every cover song we know. Metallica, Ozzy, Pantera. The crowd is going nuts. People are taking turns jumping on the mic to sing whatever parts of the songs they knew. We were having way too much fun.

Bobby finally shows up and we crush our set. The fans are going crazy and we loved every minute of it. Definitely a fun show to play. Afterwards we go outside and start mingling and selling t-shirts. A couple of people buy some shirts before a guy walks up to us and saids "I'll take a shot in the nuts if you give me a free shirt." Everyone starts getting in on it, taking bets and egging people on to do it. This girl raises her hand and offers to do it. Turns out shes a dancer and a martial artist. She's stretching her leg right in front of me and her leg seriously went straight into the air. I was like "holy shit!" Everyone starts to call foul, however. She has flip flops on and everyone saids that its not going to hurt. This dude then raises his hand and saids "she can use my steel toed boots!" Everyone starts to go nuts.

She laces up the boot and starts warming up. Everyone is chanting. This dude assumes the position and, while the kick was not full force, it still obliterated him. He's on the floor for a good 20 minutes and he was coughing the rest of the night. We decided to give him two shirts for each of his testicles.

We go back inside and No Remission is picking up where we left off, destroying the stage. Left In Ruins keeps it going, always a pleasure to see those guys, and Assault finishes up the night in true metal fashion.

More drinking, more partying. J.R. tells me to get some sleep because I'm driving us home. at 2AM i jump in the passenger seat, lower it, and take a nap. He wakes me up at 4AM. The bar is closing. The owner and the bartender are leaving with everyone and the party is over. I'm still a little groggy and A LOT hungover, but i managed to keep it together enough to get us back into Jersey. We stop at a MCdonalds and J.R., having recovered enough, drove the rest of the way home. We unpack the trailer and i realize its 6:30AM. I have to be at work at 7AM. J.R. throws me the spare keys to the car and tells me to go to work. I drive to work on two hours sleep, take two aspirin, and get through the workday. I drive back to J.R.'s to return the car and then he drives me home.

Insane insane fucking weekend with a lot of booze, a lot of cool people. A lot of new memories were made and a lot of metal was had. We're definitely coming back to Pickwick in the future.