Rockin’ the Rivers.

Music on Main.

The Headwaters Country Jam.

Alive After Five.

Opening for Barenaked Ladies.

These are, in my humble opinion, some of the best shows we’ve ever played. (With the exception of the last one, seeing as to how I wasn’t there.) The sound was great, the crowds were stupendous, and we were so pumped up with adrenaline that by the end of each show, we had absolutely nothing left. And I mean that. We left it all on stage.

And I feel very confident in saying that you could easily, EASILY add our Saturday Christmas show at the Highsides in Livingston, U.S.A. to that list. From the get-go, we knew it was going to be a special night. Look at the pictures, for Christ’s sake! There were more flashing lights on stage than a dad-gum Pokemon cartoon and Nine Inch Nails show combined. We spent tens of minutes carefully wrapping our mic stands with holly, checking every strand of lights to make sure no bulb was burnt out, placing bows atop our amplifiers, and writing our setlist and checking it twice. Speaking of which, we probably spent about an hour writing the setlist. We wanted to make sure that it was absolutely perfect, and you know what? It was. Jesus couldn’t have written a better setlist.

The aura of our perfect stage really put us in the Christmas spirit, so much so that we decided to change the cover charge from $8 to $0. That’s right–free. We wanted to spread the joy of Christmas so much that it seemed like the only logical thing to do. Besides, you can’t put a price tag on the Christmas spirit, can you? Nope. You can’t.

And if the locals weren’t excited enough by the prospect of us bringing Christmas cheer to their little town, the free cover charge definitely propelled them from run-of-the-mill joliness to clinical Christmas insanity. Once word spread that our Christmas extravaganza was freer than something you steal from a department store without paying, literally hundreds upon hundreds of pounds worth of people poured into the venue, multiplying the size of our original crowd of Mark, Linda, and Katie Keehr by at LEAST five or six. And that’s at the bare minimum. I’m probably undershooting the actual number. Can you believe it? I almost couldn’t, and neither could those guys that I’m in a band with. It was fucking insane.

I can only hope and pray that this blog is adequate enough to give you an idea of how great we all felt at that moment, to look out in the dark venue from the stage and be able to make out a handful of shapes that looked like they were either people dancing or imbalanced coat racks, swaying side to side. It was electrifying, and that’s not just because of the thousands of volts of electricity our stage was emitting. HEH! Get it?! But seriously, folks, it was awesome. A to the W to the E to the S to the O to the M to the E.

Here’s an acronym in honor of the awesomeness that was Saturday night:

A is for how awesome Saturday night was.
W is for “Wow,” which is what we made everybody say with each brilliant performance.
E is for “everybody,” as in everybody–ourselves included–had a great fucking time at Highsides.
S is for “Santa,” because he has a birthday coming up on the 25th.
O is for when all four of us collectively said “Oh my lucky stars!” when the crowd started pouring into the venue.
M is for “magical,” because there was some kind of magic in the air.
E is for the E that comes at the end of “awesome,” which perfectly describes the greatness of our show at Highsides.

Silly me, I haven’t even mentioned anything about the performance! Oh A.J., you dumb piece of Christmas shit. Our individual performances were, of course, stellar, coalescing into what was one of our best performances in recent times. Levi and I’s grooves were so tight, we made John Paul Jones and John Bonham look like pussies; Josh ceased to be Josh and morphed into Michael Carabello, who formed Santana; and John was playing his guitar like he was Steve fucking Vai. When you’re playing for the best, you have to BE the best, right? Each and every song was an improvement on the last, so by the time we closed with “Jesus, If You Get Me Out of This One,” it was complete and utter musical perfection. At the end of the night, we looked around at each other, drenched in sweat, and knew that we were fucking rockstars and gave Highsides the show they deserved.

Highlights:

Oh, too many to name! But I’ll try.

–We exuded so much professionalism on stage that even our farts smelled professional. (Professional farts smell like the inside of a new car.)

–I’d like to personally thank each and every one of you who braved the cold and came down to see us play. As I’ve said earlier, it was an experience unlike any other. I could barely sleep that night I had such an adrenaline high.

–I know I posted something to the effect of “All female attendees get one free makeout session with yours truly,” on my Twitter page. I’m a man of my word, it can be redeemed at any time, day or night.

–Afterwards, the attendant at the gas station next to the highway was so cognizant and full of the Christmas spirit that Levi and I felt like a couple of douchebag Scrooges. He had a really long white beard. *Gasp!* Could it be? Maybe he was Santa! That would explain a lot!

Setlist:

Try to picture the best song you’ve ever seen us play in concert and multiply it by 30, with each song being better than the previous. You got it? Now, multiply the greatness factor by about 50 (don’t forget to carry the one!), and you have the tip of the iceberg. Knowing the actual brilliance of our setlist would probably make you pass out, piss your pants, and completely forget your identity.

Merry Christmas!