The Pour House, Raleigh, NC

It would make sense to me if by common law, bands were considered "broken up" if a year goes by and they haven't played a show. By the skin of our teeth, MG4 made the cut off. We're still a band. We played a show on Saturday, July 22nd at the Pour House in Raleigh with Rob Watson.

The main reason we haven't played a show since last August has been that we've been busy with other things. Still, everyone agreed after the show that it was a good time and that we played fairly well.

This particular show was deemed an "after party" for the across-the-street event: Raleigh Downtown Live. We loaded it at 5 p.m. and checked until about 7 p.m. I was surprised at how easy it was to load in even with the rather large public event across the street. Raleigh's public works has the whole parking thing pretty much down pat.

Angie Aparo was finishing up his set when we finally made it across the street. If you think you haven't heard of him, you have. He wrote Faith Hill's "Cry." It's kind of funny to hear him perform the song now-a-days. You see a lot of perplexed people looking around at each other asking themselves "Why is he playing a Faith Hill song?" Dillon Fence performed directly after Aparo. I used to play with Scott Carle in Collapsis, so it was good to see him play.

We went on at around 10:45 p.m., just as Butch Walker's show was letting out. I have never seen the Pour House that packed. It was a good night, especially for whomever owned the bar receipts.

Our set was:

Don't Fade Away
Automatic
Sour Milk
Another Day in Paradise
Walk in Circles
She Alone
Rusted Radio
Sister Havana
Gravity Affects Me
Superhero
October

I broke a string about two lines into "Sour Milk." I tried to make it through the rest of the set, but after "She Alone" I played the rest of the set on my tele (the yellow electric guitar I usually play).

Rob Watson went on shortly after we finished. Rob's set was great. If you're in the Raleigh area, I highly recommend his show.

In addition to the show being fun and fulfilling, it also served as a good warm-up gig for the Athenaeum reunion shows that are coming up at the end of August. Playing this show made me realize that I need to dial in my guitar tones a bit more before doing a band gig again.