But boy did the travel suck… I picked up Corinna at her work around 11:15a and we got on 90 and started cruising towards NYC. I decided to drop the car off in Hoboken so it would be a bit easier for me when leaving…. So we hit the Henry Hudson pretty much on time about 3.5ish hours later (which isn’t bad given we stopped for lunch) and I followed the signs to the Lincoln Tunnel… Unfortunately for me, those signs disappeared after awhile and I got a little mixed up…. Double unfortunately for me, that left me away from the Tunnel right around the start of rush hour (if I didn’t get mixed up I would have snuck into the tunnel just before rush hour). We got into Hoboken around 6:10, and we got on the PATH… Corinna went to visit her friends on the lower east side and I continued on to 14th St. I met up with Carol and then James, running only 5 or so minutes late (I was ‘sposed to meet them at 6:30p)… So we got on the will call line and stood around catching up for like an hour or so in the rain… I also started chatting with the bouncer at the door who was a pretty freaking cool guy. When he opened the doors, I walked in first, got swiped for metal, and waited in the front for the other two members of my party… James came thru, then Carol, and when she did she had 3 VIP passes that the bouncer gave us cuz we were so damn cool….

There is something to be said about watching a show from the pit, but there is also something to be said about watching it from the VIP balcony with members of the bands and other people like Merzbow floating around. It was freaking awesome… I got an amazing view of all the bands and I didn’t have to worry about fighting my way back to where I wanted to be if I went to the bathroom… Even the VIP area got a little crowded, but nothing compared to other parts of the club. I stood up on my chair and got an awesome, unobstructed view of everything. And there was a waitress, so I didn’t have to get up for drinks. :)

Trevor Dunn’s Trio Convulsant started things off with a 30 or so minute set… I love Trevor Dunn (Bassist for Mr. Bungle and Fantomas), and it was great to see him on Upright bass with a drummer and a guitarist… There stuff was abstract at times, but it was definately enjoyable (and as Carol said, there is something very sexy about an upright bass). After that was Isis, a Boston band, who was good, although not entirely my thing… Kinda plodding with growly vocals, at first I was turned off, but by the end of their set I was digging them a bit. The first highlight of the evening was a surprise appearance by Melt Banana, a Japanese punk band with female vocals… It was awesome…

I sat down at my table for most of the Melvins set… None of the 3 of us really got the Melvins, so it made me feel a bit better that I didn’t get anything out of them… But when Tomahawk hit the stage the crowd went nuts… It was amazing watching the floor and the pits that formed from the balcony… Tomahawk played a fantastic set, way outdoing their performance on Tuesday night… Mike had some equipment troubles, but was still able to make do… The band played a Sinatra cover “Angel Eyes” (which was written and performed by some other guy, but I always remember the Sinatra version), as well as an encore, which leads me to believe that they weren’t that into the Boston crowd or something… Anyway, it was a stellar freaking time.