Female Fronted (Fuck Yeah!) Fest with Laura Stevenson & The Cans

[Matt]

This is reeeeaally long but I love Laura Stevenson so I'm typing it all out:
[spoiler]Kay, Ima go into detail. To learn more about the fest: http://bored.knockknockrecords.com/index.php?topic=111240.0

On my way to the venue I saw Laura Stevenson walking around town with The Cans. That got me pretty pumped. Then when I got to the venue the first band was finishing up playing. Screamo band. I liked em, they were really good. The next band were a couple of hipsters who probably tried to find something to do that no one had done before. It was boring and I disliked the singer's voice. The next band were pretty good. Next a girl played folk-punk songs. She was really catchy and I digged it.

I think this was when I nervously approached Laura's table and told a can that I emailed them about interviewing them for punknews. He pointed me to Mike, who was the one I emailed. Mike was sitting next to Laura. I went over and repeated my schpiel, and he smiled and shook my hand. He told Laura "This is Matt from Punknews" which she somehow heard as "Matt Humphries" (Later she told me that should be my punk name). So I talked to them for a few minutes about the interview, which they seemed to be into. Then I told them about my radio show, which they seemed pretty interested in. They asked what school I went to, I told them. They were surprised I was still in High School. Then Laura asked me if I was a Senior, and I got another reaction by telling them I'm a sophomore. So we talked for a few more minutes. I asked them if they could play It Ceases To Be Whining If You're Still Shitting Blood, but apparently there was a no cover song policy on either the venue or the fest. I tried to say that Jeff was in their band, so it's not really a cover band, and Laura said that next time they're in town they'd definitely play it for me.

The next band had canceled, so they were holding a free jam session in the back alley. I said bye to Laura and Mike and went back there. It was pretty much a bunch of hippies making music as they went, which was fine by me (I even got to play the tambourine and fuck everyone up!). The next band was a two-piece post-hardcore band. Just a bass and drums. Really good. At this point I remembered the infamous incident of me singing Beets Untitled live and I decided to tell them about it after this band was done. So I did. They thought it was pretty funny and continued asking me about my show. Laura and Mike said they were going to get water and I started to walk away and Mike patted me on the back and said "Come'on!".

So I talked to the band for the next 10 minutes. Eventually Laura and Mike went outside, and Erica Warford started playing piano and singing. She was reeeeeeeeeeally good! Then The Firecrackers went on and made everyone super happy with their super awesome pop-punk and powerpop melodies. Because one of the bands had canceled, LS+TC were next. I sat down and watched them set up. Mike came over to me and asked me if I could tell the people in the other rooms and outside that they were about to play when they were about to play. This was difficult. I'm pretty quiet. And when I did manage to get my voice up enough to alert people of the coming awesomeness, most just nodded or looked at me like "WTF are you doing here? Why are you telling us this?" I went back to the main room and Mike looked around the room as if to say "Dude, there's no one here" and I just shrugged. Laura also said "Where'd everyone go?" before starting.

I stood up front, with about a foot between me and the all the people behind me. Apparently no one else knew these guys. So I'm standing there smiling and rocking back and forth like a crazy person to one of my favorite live bands with everyone else looking at me like I'm insane. Laura started playing a brand new song, in fact she had to tape the lyrics to her mic stand. And when she messed up she either looked at me or her band and cringed, which always made me laugh. Then she played Nervous Rex alone. About 2/3 of the way through the song she stopped and asked the guy in the back talking to leave because he was distracting her. I could tell she was trying to put "Hey asshole, you can go to any bar in Baltimore and talk to your goddamned girlfriend. You're directly in my line of sight. I'm solo. I can hear you. GTFO!" as nicely as possible. He told her he felt bad because she was really good and left. The band came back on stage and rocked out two more. It was about the time my parents told me they would come to pick me up. I went over to Laura and told her how good that was, we talked about school and shit. Then my dad called. I told him to wait 5 minutes.

I went over to Mike, who was running the merch table, first and said goodbye. I also bought their split with BTMI. Then I found Laura and said goodbye an got a hug. Then I, turning in my punx card, asked her if she could sign the split. She was more than happy to and told me that as long as my name was Matt Humphfries nothing I could do would be unpunk. She borrowed a sharpie from Mike and signed it, then I asked Mike to sign. I said goodbye again and left.



GODDAMN THAT WAS LONG BUT THIS SHOW WAS JUST TOO MUCH FUN![/spoiler]
tl;dnr: I saw a bunch of awesome bands, had a shit ton of fun and got to hang out with one of my favorite bands!

[Floyd]

How may times are you going to retell that story, matt? Also, you are 1 post away from 200.