Swithchyard Festival

The Switchyard Festival was last weekend at The Continental, one of our favourite bars and a place I've DJ'd at for the last year. Being an outdoor street fest, I couldn't do my visuals but I did shoot video that included our friend Arunas introducing Airiel with a poem as Thax Douglas has been known to do with bands for years. It went well and the boys rocked out and lots of beer was consumed. Highlights included catching up with friends in The 1900's, who played a great show as well before The Stills.
Next time I write here it will be about our first west coast tour. Plans are being finalized right now and I'm trying not to freak out as the date gets closer and I'm trying to get everything done.

the show

We were all anticipating this show for months. Hell, since we first played with A Place to Bury Strangers we wanted to play Chicago with them. Last Thursday it happened. It was an awesome show, full of fog, strobe lights, guitar pedals, and faces being melted off by three killer bands. La Scala opened with a great set. Such a good band who mix Gang of Four, Bloc Party, and European influences, not to mention good taste. A song in French? Sure! Why? Because the singer fucking knows French. That's why. APTBS filled darkroom with fog, one lightbulb triggered from a drum pad and blew people away. I smiled pretty much the whole time. i think the rest of Airiel did too. We played a fun set. We had to kick out the jams and keep the energy up after APTBS and we did. The boys rocked hard. Jeremy smiled as Chris screeched the opening of "You Kids Should Know Better". I threw down the rainbow shit visual attack and almost knocked my mixer off the table. The preview camera screen i use definitely fell off the DVD Players onto the cords. I want to look into a midi drum trigger to beat that up instead of the mixer. Oh and I also found a broken drum stick that either belongs to Josh from La Scala or Jay from APTBS.
We took the after party to The Continental and to Julius and Jocelyn's place after that where everybody but me crashed for the night. Friday took us to the Cubs game, which was awesome and then to Superdawg for Chicago style hot dogs. We saw a hit and run car accident that bent the back wheel of a VW Beetle in so far it couldn't move. People suck. It was raining too. I hope the SUV that did it got into a worse accident after that. Jerk. We hung out at my house the rest of the night drinking and playing a PS2 tournament of FIFA Soccer 2001. I think John-o won. Or Jay. I'm not sure. It was late. Everybody left Saturday morning for Toronto, Chris went home, and I went to work. I'm sure I speak for everybody else when I say I can't wait for APTBS to come back to Chicago. Next stop....Tijuana!
To see the pictures I took, click here