October 13 2006: Fancy Trash – The Shire, Syracuse NY

First date of the Fancy Trash fall tour, but Ben (my housemate, your favorite drummer) had a statistics exam in Amherst at 5pm. So the band went ahead to set up and Ben talked me into giving him a ride there after his exam by promising a cheap motel room and some free drinks and the use of his car and gas and toll money. And I’d never been to Syracuse and didn’t have anything really going on otherwise and Whitney said she’d come along, so that’s what happened.

And oh was it worth it! The Shire was about as shitty a place to play a show (or, really, drink a beer) as they come. It was on a street that Josh (bassist) accurately described as “Route 9 with strip clubs.” There was the Adult Club down the street, Paradise Found in the other direction, and the Liquor Square (a place the size of a grocery store) right next door. And Chuck E. Cheese right across the street. But the last two lights on the sign were burnt out so it actually read Chuck E. Chee. Classy neighborhood, to be sure.

And so the bar was as could be expected. And by the time we arrived we’d just missed happy hour (5 to 9), during which a full-size pitcher of Keystone Light cost exactly one dollar. Goddamn.

And there was exactly nobody there who wasn’t a holdover from said happy hour – Whitney and I at times comprised 67% of the audience, the other person being the guy who booked the show. And then sometimes this guy in a Mets tshirt decided he was just drunk enough to justify some solo cutting-of-the-proverbial-rug in front of (and sometimes on) the stage, something made all the more amusing because he was the only person who ever got within fifteen feet of the band, much less looked like they were enjoying the music (Whitney and I were sitting in the back, tapping our feet and enjoying cheap libations). And all this in front of a big window, through which the lights of the Chuck E. Chee shined strong and bright. We took some photos but this was one of those things you probably have to have spent half your life studying photography before you can really accurately capture the moment on film. Oh how I wish I hadn’t ABSOLUTELY WASTED MY LIFE by not studying photography, if only for that one shot.

So, long story short, we had a great time. And Fancy Trash played really well, and I salute them for it. If I were them I’d have stopped about 5 songs in and just gone home.