Saturday August 28th, 1999 at 1236 Louisianna in Lawrence, KS
The Believe It Or Nots & The Tangents

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I grabbed Sigue Sigue Sputnik's Flaunt It and hopped into the car thinking I was running late. I drove like hell to make it to Lawrence by 8pm only to find I was terribly early. Mike said he was going to let the bands around 9:00 since no one had shown yet so I ran over to Dairy Queen to grab some fried mushrooms.

Over the next two and half hours bands drifted in followed by friends and then random people off the street carrying their own cups - it had been a while since I was at a college party, but this show was exhibiting all the signs.

The Tangents set up in the living room and started playing to an empty room. They played like 4 or 5 loose garage rock tunes as well as covering Sly Stone, Pavement & The Talking Heads. There were some great ideas in their songs, and the guys seemed to be pretty good players (a few nice leads from the guitar, some nice slap bass) but the band and songs just needed more time.

As the band ended a couple guys came up and nabbed the mics asking if they could freestyle. The guitarist went back to the drumkit and started playing a simple beat while the guys started to rap. However after 20 or so seconds Mike came running in telling me to cut the mics (I had sort of taken on the duties of sound guy) because the cops were here. Bah, warning from the cops.

Mike and a roommate closed the windows, nailed up sleeping bags over the windows and even pushed furniture up against the windows. The place started heating up immediately.

The rappers convinced Greg Franklin to play a beat for them but one of the guys chickened leaving Colonel D to go at it alone. He was pretty fluid and got some grrls up front dancing and waving their hands. Alright pump up the crowd!

The Believe It Or Nots packed the room with about 50 or so folks who were definitely there to see them. I heard people yelling out requests before the band had even set up their gear - that's always a good sign. The band played most of the new CD, some older songs, a few so old that Mikey had to read the lyrics from a cheat sheet and a couple of covers including Don't Stop Believing & Like A Prayer.

It was obvious the band was feeling at home (in fact many of them lived in this house last year) and were playing for the same friends they've played to a hundred times before. Everyone knew this was the last time they'd see the band like this so the band took advantage of that fact and played a very long set despite the warning from the cops.

After their show I helped pack up the gear, grabbed the guitar I loaned Mikey and loaded up the cars. By 2am most of the crowd left for home (or for another party) and I wasn't too far behind them on my way back to Kansas City. I'm sure Mike is still picking up beer cans from his yard.