I was met by under-aged merch boy Ty the second I walked into the club. I had promised to bring him a copy of the forthcoming The Believe It Or Nots CD and I guess he had been waiting for it. So Ty saw the final artwork before the band.

After shooting the shit with the band members for a bit I hit the Tekkon II and jumped in and beat up some kid with my superior Ogre-ing skills before TBION started. I'm just so brutal, I'm thinking maybe I should be confined or have my right, right-right left punch registered as a lethal weapon.

TBION started their show off with Terra Incognito then Milkman and Cold. There were say 40 folks in the front room (quite a crowd for The Replay) and they were very attentive and even hollered out a request or two. I saw a few folks from other bands and that kind of scene unity is pretty cool so thanks to you folks, ya know who ya are.

The band played well and John was on through the set which is always a plus. The biggest problem was caused by the lack of monitors which forced Greg to pull his vocals short for fear of being off key. They finished with the extended version of Broadsword which was really the only song (save the opener) which had much energy to it. Normally Greg's hopping around like that gorilla in the Sampsonite commercial [how old am I?] but tonight it was pretty straight forward. Maybe not the best show they've ever played but musically it was right on.

Acrobat Down from Colorado were up next. The first thing that struck me about the band was the keyboard player. Now it's not unusual for a keyboard player in indie rock in 1999 but this one was a maniac. He was jumping around and going c-razy like a donkey with his hands on the keyboards while kicking his feet up in the air. He was upside down through most of the first two songs. However, after the initial novelty of the keyboard player's antics wore off, I realized I was getting pretty bored of the band.

Acrobat Down are a five piece that play it pretty close to the rock vest with sub-par vocals. However just when I was about to write the band off, the last two songs rocked my word so hard and totally floored me. Those songs were varied with emotional vocals, nice use of space and driving rhythms and ended with a total wall of sound. It was intense and divine.

I'm writing this like 2 weeks after the show (as if that wasn't obvious) so I have no idea what happened after the show, but I'm sure it involved donuts and a long tired drive back to Kansas City.