Last night was an amazing show. Alex, if you read this, I hope that this fact keeps you up at night, fretting about how you missed one of the best damned ilyAIMY shows there ever was.
Meredith brought her crue for her almost-birthday to the New Deal Cafe to watch us perform last night. Brian is on the left and bought a necklace from Heather.
A hugely full house. Overflowing actually… even in the big room at the New Deal Cafe we were way over fire-code and out of seats. We opened the doors and people spilled out on to the sidewalks.
Some more of the crowd at the New Deal Cafe. Twee!
I wish I knew what the secret was. With that kind of massive crowd we couldn’t help but give our all in response. (new band motto “If you’re gotta bring it… Bring EVERYTHING!!!”) Not that we could keep doing that at the New Deal – quarters were far too tight and we can’t go to a venue PLANNING to get them in trouble with their legal capacity thingie… but I wish I could guarantee all those people would come to another show at another venue and translate that into a steady gig at a place slightly larger.
Scrap that. I just a slightly bigger New Deal. I got one. Filled it. Want a bigger one.
Watching Tinsmith was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, I had a lot of running back and forth to do – I got to run sound, I got to talk to Richard about booking and contact and our future shows at the New Deal, I got to flirt (ah, my hard Life), I got to work the room – I didn’t get to just sit and watch Tinsmith (the fact that there were no chairs left to sit and do this IN is a moo point).
I think their set was probably the perfect length – just as people started to get antsy and started asking me when ilyAIMY was going on, I heard Rowan say “well, we’re going to play one more song”. Switch over, ilyAIMY takes the stage – ah, poetry in motion.
We played well. As always, there were bugs and problems – and I NEVER feel like we’re loud enough and Rowan always thinks we’re too loud. During “No Place is Home” I was so distracted by the sheer fantasticness of us that I forgot to sing. It happens. Generally I’ll be way into whatever Sharif is playing and I won’t be paying attention when the chorus comes around. During “Drown” I played the instrumental from the duo version that we play on the road while the rest of the band switched chords and swung on into the full-band version, leaving me shivering and alone… Aaand in “Speaking Louder Now”… the song was beautiful. Sharif was making Love to his piano, expressing my lost Love eloquently through his fingers. Heather’s harmonies were perfect… Rowan had JUST come in on the drums… and I broke a string. I tried to continue a capella. That was horrible. I tried to continue on bass. That was worse. Finally we had to end the song, which was very, very sad.
And yes. All the problems were MY fault.
Sigh.
BUT ITS MY BAND!!!
Morning after… shoulders are cramped, body hurts… photoshoot. Ploo. Today Heather and I gathered at the College Perk to meet our friend Rachael and throw her in the dirt and dress her in a little girl’s dress and sprawl her hair everywhere and twine her in flowers and chains.
It was very, very nice.
Yup. Heather in a skirt as we hunt for flowers and vines for our photoshoot. A little odd. Is the last time I saw this skirt at my Father’s funeral? Not sure.
This is all stuff for the album cover. Heather and I have been tossing ideas back and forth for quite a while, and at one point looked up from our lamenting our lack of long-haired, slim-figured, light-haired friends to look at Rachael. We proceeded to beg. Her roommate Alice wanted to know what the fuss was about and then SHE got to beggin as well. Though SHE felt that SHE would be a better candidate. She told me she could wear a wig… would get extensions… that… Hell… wouldn’t it be hotter if there were TWO young women in chains on the cover? Sigh. I told her that yes, it would be hotter, but that it wasn’t reeeeally what we were looking for.
In any case, I backed the Saturn into a tree to angle the headlights right, climbed up the outside stairs of the College Perk, balanced my tripod on two milkcrates and a railing to get the angle right, and we went at it.
It’s been a long time since I photographed anyone I didn’t really know very well – and the light cascading down on Rachael – well, I think I fell a little bit in Love with her. She’s angellic in these pictures. Absolutely beautiful. You can see a bit here… IF you’re an ilyANGEL… HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Testing the wrappy qualities of chain and ivy. We hunted all over the University of Maryland campus for good photo fodder.
This band was playing at the College Perk after our photoshoot. Though I was thoroughly exhausted (this is still just the day after the New Deal Cafe show) I get pretty drawn in by them and hang out for a while. I’m not positive that the name they were going under at the time was neccessarily “2nd Story“, but that’s what the card said – at first I was really taken in by Meagan’s Taylor bass – beautiful, beautiful instrument… and then I was taken in by Geoff’s immense pedal board. I stuck around for a while and just really enjoyed their smooooooth playing. It was the perfect end to a very long, long weekend. Eventually it was time to drive “home” and pack for Philadelphia.
