Monday, August 03, 2009

In which I buzz up a band


Julie Stone and I spent the day at the Vans Warped Tour's St. Louis show, running an Operation Politically Homeless booth on behalf of the Libertarian Party. We got the opportunity to do that through the efforts of Jeff Orrok of the Colorado LP, Austin Petersen at LPHQ and Alexander McCobin of Students for Liberty, btw, so thanks to them.

Anyway, the nature of the tour is that there are a whole bunch of stages and a whole bunch of bands rotating through those stages. And the nature of an OPH booth is that it isn't possible to wander too far. Two volunteers, so at most one of us could take a little break at any given time. Which is the long way of saying that I didn't see anything like all of the bands who played. But of the bands I saw, the one which particularly impressed me was New Medicine, out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. I was able to wander over and watch part of their set, and could hear the whole thing from our booth nearby even when I couldn't watch.

To top it off, they came past our booth while loading out their gear, and when I talked with them their bassist said he's an Ayn Rand fan and really likes the Libertarian Party. A couple of them took buttons and such.

It's probably a little silly for an old guy like me to put in the good word for a new, young band. Then again, I was getting my ass stomped in the mosh pit at the Palladium, working the door, the floor and the bar at clubs, and occasionally doing the "short tour roadie" bit with local bands when most of the Vans Warped Tour musicians were still gleams in their daddies' eyes, so maybe I know good show when I see it. And I think they gave damn good show.

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