There are so many things about Athens, Ga that I love. Emily and I were very lucky to live in that town when we did. We were both early to mid 20’s, without kids, and without cares. I mean we had cares and concerns, but those have faded with time and all I’m left with are good happy memories of a wonderful little college town that a part of me still considers home. (Sorry mom and dad, middle Georgia is home too, but Athens holds a special place in my heart.) One of the great things about Athens is that it truly is one of the music cities. Everywhere else I’ve ever lived, if you went to go watch some band you’ve never heard of, you would hear covers of songs you knew well. Not in Athens. In Athens, you would pay $5 or $10 to go see a show, and it was probably a band you’ve never heard of, but that band played their original music. It was great. You never knew what you were going to get. Some shows you payed for weren’t worth the $5, the guitarist might be terrible, or drunk, or both, or the singer couldn’t carry a tune, or maybe the drummer just didn’t show up. But, some of those $5 shows were the best shows I’ve ever been too. I’m going to tell you about some of the more memorable concerts Emily and I saw in Athens.
1) This first story won’t be long, but it was memorable. Emily and I went to a heavy metal show at the recommendation of one of my friends. My friend was really into heavy metal and said that this band (I’ve forgotten the band’s name, so I’ll call them “The Band”) was the best in Athens. Emily and I had a free night and a couple of bucks, so we went to the show. It was fun and weird being in a crowd where you were definitely the oddball. We did not fit in with the heavy metal crowd, but we were having a great time, and then finally The Band took the stage. The first thing I (and I’m sure everyone else) noticed when the lights went down and the show began was that “The Band” used several flood lights at the back of the stage that showed through the band and into the crowd. The flood lights created a harsh contrast of bright light and black silhouettes. The concert itself was what a typical heavy metal concert is. A lot of screaming into the microphone, loud and fast guitar, and insanely hard driving drums. I enjoyed it, I think Emily hated it. It isn’t my favorite style of music, but I got into it. The music was primal and raw, the rage and energy from the band and crowd was palpable. And then there was the beer spraying. The Band would shake up beers and spray them into the crowd. To me, it was fun. And then the lead singer decided to crowd surf. There was no communication, no delivering of intention; the lead singer just spun his guitar onto his back and fell into the crowd. He stiffened up his body and fell like a board into whoever was at the edge of the stage. The people down there did what people do when caught of guard, they got out of the way. The lead singer smacked his head on the concert floor. The music stopped at once and the lights came up. A lesser man (or a more sober man) would have stayed down, but not this guy. The lead singer got to his feet, blood coming down his forehead, pulled his guitar around, and started playing again. It took the rest of the band a few seconds to get back on the same page, but within a minute, the band was going hard, the crowd had pushed this guy back on stage, the lights had gone back down, and the show was on
2) One of the great music venues in Athens is The 40 Watt. It was a great place to see a show, there was a big stage and plenty of room for the crowd. I saw a lot of my favorite bands there. One unique things that The 40 Watt did was host a show called Garage-a-Trois. For Garage-a-Trois, three musicians from three different bands would come together and form their own band. These new bands would put on a short 1-3 song show, and, of course, there would be a lot of interesting blending of genres. Because of how diverse Athens’ music scene is, it was common for a pop singer to be paired with a metal guitarist and a punk drummer. And that is exactly what happened for this particular story.
Emily and I went to Garage-a-Trois for two years (possibly the only two years the show was put on). Some of the acts were really good, you could tell that the band members took the challenge seriously and put on a good to great show. Some of the bands would lean into the silliness of the whole thing, one band made up of three very large guys did a ten minute jam session in which each member took a turn dancing their heart out (the song was rightfully called “The Dance.”) And, some of the acts really didn’t seem to care a whole lot. I enjoyed all three types of acts, obviously the first two kinds were super enjoyable, but there was also something interesting in watching people fail. I’m not sure what it says about our society that we enjoy watching others fail, but there is a ton of “fail” video content; so it is something a lot of us like to see. This one poorly matched band did not fall into any of the three normal groups; they did not try really hard and put on a great show, they didn’t embrace the absurdity, and they didn’t just fail. Instead, they seemed to really hate each other. I made up the bands whole back story in my mind, which I won’t bore you with, but it boils down to this; a pop singer does not mesh well with a metal guitarist and a punk drummer. While not the same thing, the metal and punk genres of music are a lot closer to each other than they are to pop, and the pop singer never had a chance with his bandmates.
This Garage-a-Trois band managed to slug through their first song, which was a weird crooning song mixed with some harsh electric guitar. The second song, however, is where the wheels really came off. The singer did the usual count the speed of the song, “1…2…1.2.3.4!” and the song started. But the drummer must not have been happy with the pacing, because he started speeding up. The guitarist seemed fine with it, he sped up as well, but the singer couldn’t handle it, and soon he was yelling the words of the song as quickly as he could. After a few really dirty looks back at the drummer, the singer went back to the drum set and took a stick out of the drummers hand. The drummer didn’t miss a beat, drummers come prepared, he produced another stick out of a bag and drove the pace faster. This was the last straw for the singer, he ran back to the drum set and kicked a hole in the bass drum. To which, the drummer promptly leapt over the rest of the set tackling the singer. Wrestling ensued. It might have gotten ugly, but The 40 Watt stage hands were quick to rush the stage. The show ended with 3-4 stage hands holding two grown men apart because they couldn’t play together and this metal guitarist doing his best impression of John Entwistle, and just kept playing the song while chaos broke out around him. For those who may not know, John Entwistle was the bassist for The Who. He was the guy how would keep the song going as long as possible while Pete Townsend and Keith Moon destroyed their instrument around him.
3) The last concert I’m going to tell you about was at Caledonia Lounge. For everything that The 40 Watt is, Caledonia is the opposite. Caledonia Lounge in tiny (though I bet they prefer intimate). If I had to guess, the Fire Marshall would only want 30-40 people in this small space. There was no place to sit except for three stools at the tiny bar, the lounge part of the name really was a joke. But for how small Caledonia Lounge is, Emily and I saw a lot of great bands there; some of my fondest concert memories happened at Caledonia. The particular show I’m telling you about was a Halloween show. There were several bands that played, but I only really remember one of them, and I don’t even remember them because they were great or super entertaining. I remember this Halloween show because of what Emily did.
Emily was in vet school (I don’t remember what year) and because of that she was constantly tired. Emily would put in long days at school and then longer nights studying. I would try to break her a way from the books from time to time. All work and no play, you know. It was hard to pry Emily away, she wanted (and still wants) to be the best veterinarian she could be, but I was able to convince her to go to this concert on Halloween. It was Halloween after all, we had to go on the town for all the people watching if nothing else. So, Emily and I go to Caledonia and we see a few shows. The acts were good, but I could tell Emily was starting to fade. Emily decided to stick it out for one more show, and this all female punk band takes the stage. I can’t say the band was good; what I can say is the band was loud and fast and fun. Emily and I were in the midst of the crowd, jumping and dancing. We were having a great time. One song ended, and I left Emily to go to the bar for a minute to get a PBR (the college kids’ beer of choice) and when I came back, I couldn’t find Emily in the crowd. I looked for her, pushing past people almost in a panic. And then I found her. She was sitting on some random instrument case with her body and head resting very comfortably on the bass drum case. Emily had fallen asleep in this tiny venue while a punk show was raging all around her. Needless to say, we didn’t stay much longer, but I also don’t know anyone else to fall asleep in quite so crazy a place.
I’m thinking about doing a blog where I answer some of your questions soon, so, if you have something you’d like to know, leave the question in the comments. I hope you liked this installment of Tony Takeover, and as always thanks for reading.