August 4th, 2016, Thursday, Took my car in to the shop thinking the squeaky breaks meant they were about to break (har har). Luckily they were all right. Rachel makes a very good salmon dinner with rice. This is the first day I took my wedding ring off since the wedding to clean it.
August 5th, Friday, Rachel and I went to Tarascas after work for a jumbo margarita happy hour. Woo happy hours! We enjoyed nachos and chatted about current events happening in and around our lives. The strawberry margarita was very large and very tasty. Around 7 pm the 2016 Olympics in Rio began and we watched the opening ceremony, which was, weird, but I guess the home country always does something in their style. Lots of dancing around and weird aluminum foil flags, not to mention a 100 yd catwalk. Interesting, but not interesting enough to keep me from going to the New Madrid show.
Around 8pm I headed out to the Empty Bottle to see New Madrid play. My plan was to take a couple of busses and get there just in time for the show to begin at 9pm. I wouldn't find it out until I got there, but the opening band didn't even come on until 11. I took a bus halfway there, but then couldn't find the next bus stop for the life of me, so I jumped in a cab and got to the show just before 9pm. I went inside and was literally, one of maybe 10 people in the place. I then realized that the other 9 people who were at the bar, were the musicians who would be performing. The venue was really tiny. The stage was probably no more than 20 feet from the bar, but it is a perfect setting for a smaller show. Don't have to walk too far for your drinks. Anyway, I felt a little awkward so I left for a few minutes to walk around outside. When I saw some more people lining up to get into the show, I headed back and asked some people in line if they needed tickets. I had an extra ticket since I was flying solo and got some girl who was in front of me in. I would have got the guy she was standing by in, but he said he was on the list. Oooooo. Once I got her in, she offered to buy me a beer which I took her up on.
I followed her up to the bar and she asked me what I wanted, I said I'll make it easy, just an Old Style, which were running for $2 this fine night. What should have been a short 2 minute exchange turned into a painfully awkward 10 minutes of me standing there. She honestly looked like me when I first started going to bars at the ripe age of 22, kind of just standing near the bar, but not being assertive. Then when she didn't get service she would walk over to a different section of the bar, only to have the bartender just go to the section she was at. Multiple times I almost was gonna tell her not to worry about, but I held on. I earned this $2 Old Style! While waiting awkwardly behind this girl, I tried to be nice and ask a couple of questions, but pretty much got one word answers and nothing more. Yikes!
Finally she was able to get me a beer and I said thank you and cheers'd her, as she walked 2 feet away to her friends, who were equally as uninviting and awkward. Reminded me of the classic scene from Dumb and Dumber.... "Hey guys, Big gulps huh? Welp cya later"
I went over and stood between two of the doors and drank my beer slowly while waiting for the bands to come on. 9:15, 9:30, 9:45 all passed, no sign of anyone playing yet. Wow I really got to this show too early ha. I almost considered leaving a few times, but finally around 9:55p more people started filing in to see the show. Apparently they all got the memo that the show didn't start until 10. I finished my beer and considered asking that chick for another since she owes me about 5 more to cover the ticket! But no one would want to suffer another 10 minutes of waiting for a beer, so I went up to the bar and got 2 more Old Styles. The beer I didn't pay for tasted better, it always does.
Finally at 10pm the first band came on. Luke Henry & Rabbitfoot. A chicago band who had a good crowd. I stood front row off to the left and listened to them while enjoying my drinks. They were pretty good! I polished off my 2 beers and picked up 2 more beers before the next band went on. This next band had a little more energy and put on a pretty solid show. The Tomblands are another up and coming rockband from Chicago. Here is a link to some of their music! Check em out. The crowd and ladies loved their one guitarist named Danny. He was getting the people amped up on this Friday night at Empty Bottle.
After the Tomblands left the stage, I grabbed 2 more Old Styles before New Madrid took the stage. I was front middle, along with 2 other guys. Most of the crowd, which probably topped off somewhere between 75-100 had gone back to the bar. I assume most of the fans were there to see the first two local bands. In fact, I might have been the only New Madrid fan there, but I was loving it. A little bit larger girl who smelled like she hadn't showered in a couple of days made some conversation with me while we were waiting for New Madrid to come on. She seemed pretty nice, had no idea who New Madrid was, was just there to see new music, but really could have hit the showers. Stanky. Finally New Madrid came out and they killed it. They played a lot of their new songs off of their Magnetkingmagnetqueen album. At one point I had to use the bathroom pretty bad, small bladder problems, so I did so. I was able to get back to the front row when I came back, I love small venues. Just after this the boys played my favorite jam of theirs, And She Smiles. If you didn't start playing it at the beginning of this blog, go back and do so. Straight jam. I was definitely feeling the music and despite my audio recorder not working, I was able to video nearly the entire And She Smiles song (video link to come in the future).
After they played for a little over an hour, the show ended and I went to the bathroom one more time before heading out. On my way out I ran into the lead singer, Phil. I let him know how I had seen them open up for Diamond Rugs back last year and have loved their stuff ever since. He was a pretty cool guy and sold me the latest 2 albums of theirs. Dawn Teeth Rattling, which was a record day store release and then their new album, Magnetkingmagnetqueen. I of course was the only person at the merch table, but I let Phil know I thought they could have started a little earlier, he agreed. Haha. An amazing show and I told them to come back soon, so hopefully they do. If you have never listened to New Madrid I suggest you do. I like to classify them as a psycadellic rock band out of Athens, GA. I cabbed it home and hit the hay once I made it home. Fun night.
New Madrid vinyl records I bought above. Lead singer I met setting up the stage below.
The next day, Saturday August 6th, Rachel and I got some McDonald's for lunch, then we drove down to Kankakee to see Grandma. That night we had dinner with Rachel's parents at the Bulldog Tap House in New Lenox. I think I got some sort of burger, it was good. That night we got back to the city around 11:15p, thinking maybe we would go out with some friends. Unfortunately no one was around and we are old, so we just curled up in bed and called it a night.
On Sunday August 7th, Rachel and I did a Corepower Sculpt class which kicked my butt. I almost passed out a couple of times, so just kinda laid down for parts of the class. I am so impressive! For lunch we ate a couple of sandwiches. In the afternoon we met up with Ashley and headed to the grassy beach area to soak up the rays and enjoy the beautiful weather. Water looking nice!
Sunday evening Rachel and I cooked up some zucchini boats, which remind me of pizza boats, but with zucchini as the bread. We cut up this HUGE zucchini and were able to make 2 trays full. Topped the boats with some ground chicken, sauce, cheese, onions, peppers, and more! Shout out to Beth for the idea. Shout out to mom for supplying the giant zucchini. Shout out to Rachel for cooking it! Yum.
Stay hungry my friends
Josh