we started playing off campus our senior year at tufts, on weekends. we’d travel to nearby schools like middlebury college and worcester polytechnic institute in my chevy nova, packing our own PA system sometimes, even if it meant driving with a pair of bongos on my lap. we were scooter’s age. the people whose floors we crashed on were scooter’s age. there was nothing weird about it.
fast forward to 2006. we’ve adopted a fourth band member who brings the mean guster age up into the solid mid-thirties. most of us are married or engaged and if our tour bus doesn’t have “star trek doors” we give our tour manager hell. we don’t play “bury me” anymore. it makes me tired. and yet we still like to be the band that will make an appearance at the campus party, keep it real, mingle with the locals, pretend we’ve never played “beirut” before, and then find our way back to the bus before it leaves for the next city. it’s one of the perks of being your spring fling band, and no one’s gonna take it away from us, no matter how old we look.
so after the show at the university of puget sound in tacoma the other night we stopped by a house kegger thrown by the student activities people. they seemed like good people. stand up people! it was a simple backyard party with a keg, a bonfire, and chill company… the perfect situation to blend into without anyone calling us out on being the creepy old guys at a college party.
this is me and joe leaving the party wrapped in u.s. postal service packaging tape:
UPS kids know how to party. (I found an engraved poker set on my lawn once.)