12/13: The Depot in Butte, Americah (F**k Yeah!)

We’ve always enjoyed playing in Butte. From our first show at the Silver Dollar to our Knievel Days riff-raff in the summer of 2007, the Buttians have always made us feel welcome through their insane eagerness to party and get down with their bad Buttian selves.

Saturday, December 13th was our first time in Butte since April and our inaugural performance at the Depot. Man, does that place have some character. It’s big, the staff is hospitable, and the walls of the green room are covered with signatures from bands that have played there before, such as our good, good buddies Blackhawk, Keith Anderson, and Blue Jack. On top of that, they already had some bitching Christmas decorations up to complement our unorthodox, seizure-inducing Christmas light show. (As you’ll hear us say in the podcast, it’s as close to the Nine Inch Nails display show as we’re ever going to get.)

All four of us wore our best Christmas suits. Levi was sporting a Santa hat with a women’s red turtleneck; John a red shirt underneath his sports jacket, topping it off with–you guess it–a Santa hat; I wore my blue Christmas vest that Michelle Wolfe is particularly fond of with a hat that said “Santa’s Helper” across the front; and Josh went the extra mile and came out in head-to-toe in an emaciated Santa suit. You be your ass we were frickin’ jolly. Frick. Many of the other folks in the crowd brought their jolly, as well. There were plenty of cheesy Christmas sweaters, sweater vests, vest sweaters, pajama bottoms, who’s-its, what’s-its, and whatnots. You could definitely feel the spirit of Christmahanakwanzika in the air. You could smell it, too. It smelled like candy canes!

Highlights:

–Look at the pictures of our stage. Enough said.

–Holy balls, was it cold out. I’m surprised one of us didn’t die or lose any fingers or toes. That would have sucked, especially as a bassist.

–Saturday was the first Butte show I can remember us playing where the bar didn’t run out of beer. That’s not a bad thing at all; I just think the bar was well prepared for the madness.

And I lost the only copy of the setlist, so you’re all going to have to use your imagination. I will tell you this much: we did play “The Clintons Christmas Shuffle” and “Santa Clause is Coming to Town.” They were Christmas-a-riffic and Ho-Ho-Hawesome, respectively.