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!!"