So Long

After 10 years, thousands and thousands of miles, hundreds and hundreds of shows, the good times of PLUMP are coming to an end. We want to say thank you very much for everyone who has seen us, spoken kind words to us, cheered us on, etc. We really do appreciate it and there are lots of great memories.

In particular, we would like to thank the following: Last Concert Cafe in Houston, Rola and Revolution in Bryan, Dan Electros and Bob in Houston, Mark Shannon and Bungalow Studios, Sandy Weinmann and KPFT, Zapatos Cantina, Dave and Luna Cafe and wonderful staff in Lake Charles, Gary Hartman and Tapir Productions, Vibe Committee, Drop Trio and Ian Varley, the Free Radicals, Wes and Peach Truck Republic from Fort Worth, BAGG and Congratulations from Denton, Wishfoundnation in College Station, Funkotron from San Marcos, Lonne Martinec, Ashes of Babylon in Lake Charles/Austin, Spank in San Marcos, jambase.com, breakfastontour.com, chron.com, Del Feo in San Antonio, the Triplecrown in San Marcos, Linda Leseman, the Rhythm Room in Houston, Strawberry Jam in College Station, Clay Brasher for poster art, the Vortex in Beaumont, John Fulbright in Beaumont, St. Jubilee, Sterrett Street Studios, Sugar Free All-Stars from Norman, Francisco Studios, Andrew Rice, Toast Williams, David Flores, Jody McCormick, James Yarbrough, Klusoz and Texas Cafe in Lubbock, Omar Afra and Free Press Houston, Ryan Scroggins and the Trenchtown Texans, SummerFest and Westheimer Block Parties, HPMA's (though we could never win one of those suckers), the LCC Watermelon Festival, Mrs. Matranga (Josh's mom) for several absolutely delicious meals, Jaybo O'Donague, Bryan and Sara Williams, our trailer, two ford explorers (one green and one blue) and one very nice van, our PA, James and a wonderful website design at http://www.plumpsounds.com/, Relix magazine, Jabarvy from Austin, Rockin' Robin in Houston, Winston Rice for major help in resolving the totaled van issue after the elk incident, Charles Bishop, Dr. John, the Rebirth Brass Band, Jason Price and Warehouse Live, Buccee's, Rudy's BBQ in College Station, the Petro Station in Beaumont, the gas station in Navasota with some of the worst coffee anywhere, Josie's Tacos in Lubbock, Biba's One's a Meal, Guadalupana, Tepatitlan 2000, 11th Street Cafe, Dickey's overalls, the los el diablos con hell del fuego, Lone Star Beer, the concept of the tallboy, Anytown USA, Horsehead Theatre Company, the Brewery Tap, the hot dog stand outside the Brewery Tap during Faultlines, anyone who let us sleep on their floor or puke in their toilet, and most of all to our family and friends who provided us support over the years.

PLUMP
Al, Josh, Jason, and Doug

Nominate PLUMP for the 2011 Houston Press Music Awards

Well, the 2011 Houston Press Music Award nomination process has come. Please see the below link:

http://polls.houstonpress.com/polls/hou/musicawards2011/

We encourage you to nominate anyone, but we would remiss if we didn't implore/encourage you to vote for PLUMP in the following categories:

BEST FUNK/R&B/SOUL - PLUMP
BEST GUITARIST - AL BEAR (PLUMP)
BEST BASS PLAYER - JOSH MATRANGA (PLUMP)
BEST MISCELLANEOUS INSTRUMENTALIST - JASON JACKSON (PLUMP)
BEST DRUMMER - DOUG PAYNE (PLUMP)
BEST MALE VOCALIST - JASON JACKSON/DOUGPAYNE (PLUMP)
BEST ROCK - PLUMP

SAT SEP 24 2011 at ZAPATOS

Frankly, a lot has happened since our last show. Al got married and had a kid. Doug (me) got married. Josh had shoulder surgery. Jason Jackson did not appear to have any life-affecting events (that I know of - but you never know with that guy). Due to the life-affecting events referred to above, PLUMP decided that it would probably be a good idea to take a few months off. Because of Josh's shoulder surgery (and the fact that he was physically unable to hold a bass), we didn't even get together to practice for a few months, which has never really happened before. Finally, in August I think, we got back together to start practicing again. It was funny - we felt like we were playing in a PLUMP cover band. We knew the songs, but they weren't quite up to their original snuff. Fortunately, the PLUMP cover band era lasted only a week or two, as we did indeed come back into our own. We enjoyed getting to know the songs again. And we were very excited about our first show in 5 months.

Unfortunately, (and fortunately) I found out I was being sent to London for work for the two weeks immediately preceding the show. I returned from London on Friday September 23. I don't know about other bands, but PLUMP practices a lot (we need it). So, we were kind of bummed that we weren't going to get to practice for the two weeks immediately prior to the show - especially since it was our first show back and we wanted to rock in the old epic fashion. So, we decided to practice prior to leaving for College Station. We all met at my house at 4 pm, loaded up, drove to the practice room, and started playing. I had even taken the time to make a set list, so we could run specifically through the songs we planned to play this evening. As always, we spent a little bit too much time practicing, and it was about 6:30 pm before we started moving out to hit the road. At this point, there was one goal in sight - Rudy's BBQ in College Station. We love it, we had been thinking about it for weeks, and we were literally starving.

PLUMP always tries to incorporate within the time required to get our act together to leave to include a buffer what what we like to call "Al forgot something". Bless his heart, there is a lot going on in Al's head, and because of this, sometimes (often times) he forgets something and needs to go home to get it. Al got to the practice room without his leslie cabinet pedal, and he needed to go get it if we were gonna use the leslie. We wanted the leslie. Luckily, his house is not necessarily out of the way if one were to travel from our practice studio to College Station, so we drove to Al's house, looked admiringly at his new puppy, waited for him to get the pedal, Al got back in the car, and we drove off. We got about a 1/4 mile down the road, and Al remembered he needed the cable to connect the ipad to the PA (so we can play music through the PA between bands during the show). So, we drove back to Al's house, looked at Al's puppy again, Al got the cable, and we headed out.

Frankly, we were all nervous, because time was getting short before the time we needed to be at Zapatos, and we really wanted to eat at Rudy's. Luckily, my car was full of gas, so we didn't need to stop for gas or anything. We drove as quick as we could to College Station.

It is important to note here that there was a very big and important college football game being played on this day. Texas A&M has climbed out of mediocrity and are ranked (today) #8 in the country. Texas A&M played Oklahoma State University (who is ranked #7). I don't usually root for the A&M Aggies unless PLUMP happens to be playing in College Station on game day. If PLUMP is playing on game day, then I want them to win--so that hordes of people will be out in the evening feeling good - flush from a day of victory and plenty of drink. Alas, on the drive we learned that A&M lost 30-29. The game ended about 7 pm. We arrived at Rudy's at 8:35 pm, which is pushing the envelope fully and completely if we wish to eat and get to Zapatos in enough time to set up.

We are starving. Rudy's doesn't look too crowded, but we pull up in our normal parking place - directly behind an empty bus. The bus is empty, and all of the buses passengers are standing in line for BBQ. The line goes all the way to the door - it look like an hour before we would get our food. Oh Depression. Oh Despair. Oh heartbreak. We were inconsolable. I don't know how we summoned the strength to get back in the car to drive to Zapatos. We noticed that every eatery was chock full of patrons. All 80,000 people from the game had distributed to every restaurant in College Station.

We got to Zapatos, unloaded all our equipment, and got set-up. Zapatos is not a restaurant, but they do serve a huge pile of nachos served on what appears to be a garbage can lid. Jason set about trying to order us some nachos, and came back with the report that the kitchen ran out of nachos 15 minutes previous. Thankfully, a nearby Freebirds was open, Jason and I walked over, purchased burritos for the band, and we were in a survivable shape.

Even though A&M had lost, there were a ton of people out and about, and people seemed to be in remarkably good spirits. Zapatos was packed to the gills. We had the band Footpie (from Houston) with us, and they played well.

Before the show, I had to take a piss - really badly. I went back to the restrooms at Zapatos, and there was a line of about 3 people for the men's room - and no people at all for the women's room. Some dude goes in the men's room. After a while, the next person in line said - "this guy is taking way to long, so I am going into the ladies". The guy in the ladies' room finished before the guy in the men's room, as did the person in line right in front of me. So, after that guy got out of the ladies room, I hit the ladies room as well. (God only kows what that chap was doing in the men's room for so long - I imagine it was one of two things.) While relieving myself, a girl tried to open the door (thank god it was locked) and then announces "Is someone in there?" I chose not to respnd, instead occupied myself with finishing up a lovely piss, and rushed out without looking back - though I did manage to hear some guy says "That girl had a beard!"

We had a raucous set. Actually,for the first couple songs, we didn't get much crowd response (people seemed more intent on talking amongst themselves). Then we started playing "Edge off the Edge" - this starting getting people moving and watching intently. Then our friend James from the band Strawberry Jam and a bunch of his friends came in, and they were really into it, which inspired the crowd to get really into it - and Edge off the Edge is a long and completely rocking song - so the tide turned clearly in our favor, and I would say for the next 1.5 hours the large crowd was in the palm of our hands. We totally rocked. This was our first show probably in about 5 months, and sure we made a couple mistakes, but we totally had it on this night.

After the show, it took us a while to pack up the PA (we were out of practice), so we started the drive back to Houston at about 3:45 am. We were tired - I was driving and was jet-lagged from flying back from London the previous day. Then, we had a Eureka moment. We hooked up the iphone to the speakers, accessed youtube, and listened to Will Ferrell outtakes from "East Bound and Down" and "Anchorman". This was genius, as the time flew and we were laughing the whole way home. I thoroughly recommend this course of action as the best tool to keep yourself awake while driving in the dark in the wee wee wee hours of the morning!

"I can feel it in my PLUMS!! My PLUMS!!"

FRI APR 8 at Last Concert Cafe

Tonight, we had the good fortune of getting to open for Papa Grows Funk. I have known about these guys for about 10 years - as they are an incredibly funky band from New Orleans, featuring John Gros on organ (who has probably played with everybody over the years) and June Yamagishi on guitar. I believe this was their first time to come to the Cafe, though I could be wrong. When I had seen that PGF was coming to town, I immediately contacted Gary Hartman and asked if we could open, and was quite pleased when he agreed.

Really nice crowd at the Cafe tonight--way more people than I figured came to see PGF (and us)A lot of friends came out, which is always pleasant to the eye.

We arrived at the Cafe at about 7 pm--and I believe Josh and I got there about 5 minutes after the sound man had quit. So, we arrived amidst some confusion as to trying to find a new sound man, or to rely on the "apprentice" guy, who had helped set-up the PA, but who had very little actual soundman experience. The problem was - this was quite a robust PA, with all kinds of bells and whistles. Plus, PGF has a big organ with a spinning leslie speaker, not to mention that they have 6 guys, which means PGF was a relatively difficult band to mix sound for anyway. The verdict was that the apprentice would mix the sound.

The other slight bit of uncomfortableness was that because PGF's front man plays the organ, and because the organ was very very heavy and planted on the middle of the stage, and because PGF, understandably, was not comfortable having a band of slack-jawed yokels (PLUMP) use their equipment and/or drumset, PLUMP was relegated to fitting ourselves and our equipment on about 1/3 of the real estate of the stage (on the left side). So, we were kind of smushed together. And we had an apprentice soundman. BUT, we rocked. Our philosophy is, we are gonna just wail, and "damn the torpedoes" regarding any problems we might have with the PA. PLUMP won this round. The apprentice did a marvelous job (I guess) because we sounded good to ourselves, and the crowd loved us. We played a really good 50 minute set, playing all of our new songs.

After we were done, it literally took PGF almost an hour to get started because they were having PA monitor issues. Heck, we probably had the same issues, but we either did not notice them or didn't let it bother us. The crowd didn't seem to understand the hold-up, because apparently the sound was real good when we played - so that made us feel good.

Finally PGF got going, and they quickly proved that they are all bad asses. Excellent organ solos, excellent guitar solos, excellent sax solos. Those guys are a New Orleans institution - and they showed it. The crowd was really dancing. And Papa John Gros is just the nicest dude in the world. He came and talked to us prior to the show, and just seemed like the coolest cat. Good weather, good music, and good food. Sound problems notwithstanding, tonight was awesome.

April 1 at Zapatos

PLUMP loves playing over at Zapatos in College Station. I would say that the place is always pretty darn crowded. After around 12:30 am, people start getting quite inebriated. There is something about being at Zapatos and being drunk and watching PLUMP play some funky music that makes certain Aggies feel like they need to stand on the stage. I have some theories regarding this phenomenon, but we (the scientific community) may never truly discover the answer explaining why.

Is it a situation where the music is so funky that the rhythm really gets these people and they need to stand on the stage? (perhaps this is the true message of the Gloria Estafan song, and she also had trouble with people on stage) Maybe it's because some people get so drunk that they don't realize what they are doing? Perchance because the stage at Zapatos is elevated by only 4 inches above the ground. Perhaps some people like to be seen standing on the stage where the action is. There's a chance someone has a dire need to see what its like to be 4 inches taller than everyone, and said desire simply will not be quenched unless this can be accomplished while the band is playing. Whatever the reason, this happens all the time at Zapatos. Much much much more often than at any other venue at which PLUMP has ever played. PLUMP has gone so far as to employ a regular strategy of building a wall of our amp cases and monitors and carrying cases around the front of the stage in order to deter people from joining us on stage mid-riff. The wall has worked in the past. However, tonight some crafty (and drunk) show-goer employed devious strategem to penetrate our elaborate bulwarks and was able to gain access to the stage. Said inebriate focused his attention on poor Josh, as he proceeded to stand directly in front of Josh, directly behind Josh, and even trying to high-five Josh--all while Josh is trying to play a song.

Believe it or not, drunk people getting on stage while we are playing kind of freaks us out. For one--we are very much occupied trying to play somewhat difficult music. Number two--very drunk people have a tendency to be incapable of "reason", and there is always a very good chance that they can be aggresive. So, we try to immediately gesture and ask/yell at people to get off the stage (this is mid-song mind you) so they we can play music in a somewhat less nervous state. I am happy to report that Josh's fan left the stage, and to our relief did not return. But, we all had to remark--classic Zapatos.

Tonight we debuted a song we recently recorded called the Brain. The Brain has a slow/funky groove, and the song has a tendency to alternate between 4/4 and 5/4 time. The song also has a jam I really love. Anyway, I would place this song as ranking "more complex than most" on a scales of difficultness of PLUMP songs and remembering all the parts - and as such playing a song the first time makes it even tougher. We rocked the Brain. This is definitely my favorite PLUMP song right now, so I was really pleased woth said performance, and pleased with the fact that the audience really dug it.

In addition to being the city with the highest proportion of audience members that simply must at all costs climb onto the stage, College Station also appears to be the city with the highest proportion of police cars out and about after 3:00 am. I swear, if you have ever beento NYC and have seen that 40% of the cars on the city streets are taxis, and then you apply that same percentage to College Station police cars that was was warranted for NYC taxis, then you will have an idea of what we see and navigate through every time we leave College Station. Truly amazing. We made it to Navasota (20 miles outside of College Station) and I purchased a cup of the worst coffee in the world, and then I made Jason Jackson drive so I could truly enjoy said terrible coffee.

March 26 2011 at LUNA in LAKE CHARLES

We have headed east in I-10 many, many, many times for gigs. PLUMP always likes playing over at LUNA in Lake Charles, and in some ways even the drive out that way is soothing - if for no other reason than its familiarity. Every time we are driving through Beaumont, I always make a comment about the Babe Didrikson Zaharias museum. If I remember my sports history correctly (I could take a minute to look her up on wikipedia right now, but I won't), Babe Didrickson Zaharias (BDZ)was the best female athlete for the first half of the 20th century. I think she dominated the pentathalon or decathalon, or whatever that multi-event "thon" that has become an afterthought in this day and age, but in the decades past was the definer of "best athlete in the world". (OK, I just went to wikipedia, and I am happy to report that I was pretty much on point regarding my BDZ fact knowledge. BDZ was a champion in track and field, golf, basketball and was an expert diver and bowler. BDZ also claimed to have won first prize in a Texas State Fair for sewing - not a joke. The site also says she was quite proficient at pocket billiars - but not a champion.) But I digress. The reason I bring up the BDZ museum in Beaumont is that the museum looks like it is about the same size as my living room. The museum is circular, and from the highway looks like about 25 feet in diameter. If the BDZ museum holds one of BDZ's prized javelins, my guess is that the javelin barely fits. PLUMP has never stopped at the BDZ museum on the way to Lake Charles because (a) the museum is probably closed by early evening on Friday/Saturday nights; and (b) we don't have time. Although, I really think (b) is not a valid excuse, because by the size of the building we could probably see the whole BDZ museum inside of 10 minutes. (If curious, go check out BDZ's wikipedia page, as I am pleased to report that a picture of said museum is on the page!!!)



I have written about about LUNA and the staff and food and beer many times. LUNA always seems to improve on their venue everytime we come to Lake Charles. This streak continues, as they informed me that Dave (owner of LUNA) recently purchased the music venue across the street, so in the near future the bands will play over there. We have played said venue (for the life of me I can't remember the name) a couple times - an inside venue - and with Dave and staff running it I am sure the venue will be AWESOME. Hopefully they will still provide us with a cooler of Miller High Life.



Tonight, we decided to play "Ping Key" for the first time. Whenever PLUMP debuts a song, we are always quite excited and a little bit nervous. It doesn't matter if we have played a song 100 times in the practice room (by ourselves) and know the song forwards and backwards, because as soon as we play a song in front of people for the first time, there is a pretty good chance one or more of us will second guess ourselves and hit a wrong note, or play a wrong part, and/or sing the wrong words. I would guess for most bands, as soon as you bring 1 new person into a room, a song becomes much more difficult. So, we feel more conscious about the song because the song is new. Also, as with most of songs, we are curious to see if the audience likes said song as much as we do. Audiences will exhibit signs of enjoyment by dancing, nodding their head or tapping feet in time with music, clapping and screaming when the song is over, and shaking their fist in pleasure. On the other hand, an audience may voice indifference or displeasure at a song by leaving, making zero noise/not clapping when the song is over, or shaking their fist in anger. Ping Key is a funky number, with some cool parts and an interesting guitar solo. I am proud to report that PLUMP played the songs with no major issues, and we got some cheering after the song, which made us feel real nice (and also was quite a relief).



Another roadside attraction on I-10 between Lake Charles and Houston that is difficult to not comment on while PLUMP is in the car is the Longhorn Saloon. The Longhorn Saloon is the kind of establishment that could only truly exist on the Louisiana side of the Texas-Louisiana border. The beauty of the Longhorn Saloon is its ability to function as a truck stop/diner/casino/hotel/country dancing honkytonk venue. PLUMP has passes by Longhorn Saloon to and from Lake Charles everytime we visit Lake Charles. We have only patronized the place once, which was about 2 years ago when Jody was in the band. Longhorn Saloon is only about 30 miles from Lake Charles, so it is not your typical bathroom/coffee place for PLUMP (our traditional on-the-way-back from Lake Charles is the Iron Skillet truck stop in Beaumont). Our foray into the Longhorn Saloon was due to a simple twist of fate: a 2:30 am traffic accident a few miles ahead on I-10 had caused gridlock on the freeway, and as luck would have it, we were stopped right at the turnoff for the Longhorn Saloon. PLUMP headed inside, and scurried around the maze that is the truckstop/diner/casino/hotel/country dancing honkytonk. Eventually, we settled in the sleepy diner that was at that point occupied by PLUMP and what looked like a motorcycle gang. Everyone was friendly. The LHS had some sort of breakfast special as I remember, so we all got eggs, breakfast-meat, biscuits or pancakes, etc. Then, Jason walks up, holding 1/2 of "The Bomb" (which is a large, microwaveable beef burrito), after presumably having eaten the other half. He sits down, sees the breakfast special, orders, and then proceeds to eat the other half of The Bomb. Next, two buses pull into the truckstop. Said buses seemed to have been full of a bunch of ne'er-do-wells. The bus people looked exactly like Cleetus the Slack-Jawed Yokel from the Simpsons, half of whom were hanging out of the windows of the bus smoking and laughing and french-kissing ladies and doing who knows what, and the other half of whom were streaming into the diner and gazing around like the diner was the zoo (maybe it was). The diner became extremely entertaining. I wish I could say that a fight broke out between the Cleetuses and the biker gang, but everyone was cordial. The cordiality was probably due to the food coma to which everyone was forced to submit. The breakfast special was humongous and nasty - one of those situations where you know the food is terrible, yet there is no way to prevent yourself from eating as much as you possibly can. Jason, after having eaten the burrito, ate all of his breakfast, and probably the rest of mine. At this point it was about 4 am, and we were all extremely full, sick to our stomachs, exhausted, dirty, ashamed, and entirely depressed because we still had to drive two hours back to Houston. At least the traffic jam was gone. I remember Jody (who is the best late night driver I have ever seen) stating that he had to sleep it off, so we all took a nap for about an hour in the Longhorn Saloon parking lot before heading back on the freeway. I was burping up nasty breakfast most of the next day. Damn you, Longhorn Saloon.

SAT MAR 5 2011 at Zapatos

My house is the launching pad for all PLUMP road shows. The trailer is parked in my garage, and my Explorer is the only PLUMP vehicle that can both carry 4 people and some of our more fragile equipment and pull the trailer that over the years has accumulated a couple thousand pounds pa, amps, drums, et al. Actually leaving for a gig is much easier now than is was about a year and a half ago. When Jody was in the band, PLUMP travelled in style in his van to all the gigs. The van was AWESOME, and Jody was a great driver, so the road trips were killer. BUT, his van was quite tall and would not fit in my garage. The inability of the van to be garage-friendly had a negative affect on how we hooked up the trailer (i.e. we could not just back the van right to where the trailer was resting in the garage, easily place the trailer hook-up on the van's "ball", and go on our merry way). Instead, we were forced to employ a strategy in which the van was backed up to about 2 feet outside the garage, after which 3-4 of us had to drag this trailer (that was full of gear) about 5 feet to meet the parked van. We also had to lift up to fit the trailer on the "ball" as the "ball" rested kind of high on the van. The dragging of the trailer was dreaded by all, and I think its a miracle that no one permanently injured/disfigured their back from participation in this process. The hook-up of the trailer now is much easier, as my Explorer fits in the garage (like a glove), so the trailer is now attached in the safe confines of the the car-hole. So, now instead of dragging the trailer, we can spend our time before leaving for a gig standing around in the kitchen, shooting the shit, until every one has arrived.







The next step in the effort to leave my house is the shuffling of the cars, as there is nowhere to park on the street at my house. I have to drive my car and trailer out of garage/driveway, then one lucky person parks in the garage, and two people park in the driveway. Due to cigerette smoking, getting stuff out of cars, loosing keys/wallet, looking for keys wallet, locking keys in the car, staring off into space, or other similar time wasting activities, this stage of the PLUMP launch can last anywhere from 3 to 25 minutes. Luckily, no keys were lost today, so we got out of my neighborhood within a reasonable amount of time.




We have played at Zapatos many many times. If you have ever been to Northgate in College Station (where Zapatos is located) you will know that it can be quite difficult to park in the area. It is particularly difficult to park if your vehicle is connected to a trailer, making your overall vehicle parking effort a little more than twice as long as normal. Typically, the final 3 minutes of our journey to Zapatos is spent vocally musing and hoping and praying that the miniscule curb side parking right out front of Zapatos will not be completely filled, and that there will be room for both the Explorer and the trailer. This luxury happens 1 in 20 times at Zapatos. Luckily, on this night, the rock-n-roll gods smiled on us, and there was enough room for us to park right out front of Zapatos (Which is key because by being out front, our load-in walk is about 25 feet. Otherwise, the load-in walk can be 150-200 feet which totally sucks given all the terribly heavy equipment we have). Unfortunately, the rock-n-roll gods did not smile on my ability to park both the car and trailer in perfect parallel to the street. I inched forward and back a good 15 times, but each time, the trailer was extending at an angle into the street. Luckily there is a solution to this predicament: (1) unload all of your gear out of the trailer and takesaid gear into the venue for set-up; (2) find another 3-4 guys - in our case The Hooch, who were opening for us; (3) lift up the now reasonably light trailer (which can be lifted by 7-8 people) and move the trailer, while still connected to Explorer, sideways a few feet so that said trailer is now perfectly parallel to the street. Mission accomplished.



The Hooch is what I would call a pop/jam type band from San Antonio. They appear to either be in college or are just out of college, and are some very nice guys, and have a good sound. The Hooch were on the bill at our fabled gig at the Reggae Festival in San Antonio at the Reggae Bar in which the festival got cancelled due to too much noise right before PLUMP was going to play (see October 2010 blog entries). Tonight in College Station, The Hooch had a bunch of friends from the College Station area come out for the gig, and they sounded great. They have some nice "in-between-song" banter, kind of resembling a Vegas club act, which I found entertaining based on both the humor and based on the colorful blazers two of the guys were wearing. AND, their drummer even let me play on his drumkit, which saved me the time of setting up, and eventually taking down, my own personal kit. I always appreciate it when drummers can share kits, and frankly I enjoy trying out someone else's kit for a few hours. And, as nice as some drummer's kits have been over the years, I always end up prefering mine (which is a good thing, I think). PLUMP was fortunate enough to have a great crowd that was up and dancing the entire show. People were up and dancing from song number 1, which is always very good for us. The shot bar and the regular bar and the outside area were all really crowded. "Gimme Some More" and "the Trifecta" seemed to get the audience particularly riled up. AND, it was cool but comfortable outside, which is extremely important for an outdoor show in March in South Texas. This show was a keeper.