Saturday, April 19th 2003
The Sand Bar - San Francisco, CA

The clean salt air coming off the ocean was not to be smelled tonight. Cigarette smoke was our oxygen at this little dive on the egde of San Francisco. And we sucked it in. HHhhmmmmmm........aaaaahhhhh.......But any place that I walk into, and the first thing I'm greeted with is "lemondrops for the ladies. Go get yours at the bar", is aces in my book.

The Bevelacqua boys put this one on with their buddy Drew, and it was a hoot. John and Jennifer from Kung Fu USA were there, and we all got to see their newest incarnation Revenge. Jennifer stood up and banged the drum. John gave us his crazy punked out guitar jams and all was good.

But we actually went on first. Yeah, I'm writing this out of order. So what?

Mark and I were a little juiced up, cuz Mark's parents were there so we needed to step up. We got into our usual groove, and when we looked up about 2 songs into the set, there were lots of people there. The place is really small, and the bands set up in the corner between the jukebox and the big stone fireplace. So the patrons therefore, are practically sitting on your lap while you play. Which is great. Cuz there's nothing worse than having a sea of empty between you and the nearest listener.

No sea of empty here. Just friends and beer-a-plenty. And I should note that the sea salty staff, including the excellently cool bartender, who's owned the place for who knows how long, were very cool. And they mingled with us rock n roll kids without flinching. Even a mass of regulars stuck around to hear us all play. The energy in this place was very cool.

Bringing the evening to a massive head, was the one and only Bevelacqua. These two brothers, Zach and Dennis, have brought in our boy Mike on guitar, and the three of them kicked it so hard, I want to bust out of this computer monitor and shout at all of you to GO SEE THEM PLAY!! Zack is an amazing drummer that does the double kick pedal thing REALLY well, but not in a stupid hair metal way. It's just cool. The songs are heavy and crazy, but tight and groovy. Dennis on bass lays down fantastic lines, and his voice is tortured and perfect. Mike's guitar adds a subtle glue without wanker showoff shit. Just simple chords that bring it all together. I can't say enough really. They're great.

I think we inhaled more smoke that night then a Great White concert, but we recoverd, took showers, washed clothes, and are back on the street.