Whoa, Portland. You made me enjoy the 4th of July more than I think I have since becoming an adult. (Whatever that even means). For those of you who weren’t with us at Rontom’s this past Sunday night, here is a bit of what happened:
After a set by Snow Bud & The Flower People, The Hugs (pictured above) performed all their hits. Those boys are awesome. I’m bringing them to California on tour with me next week so you can see for yourselves.
Then, as you can see from the photo above, I played a set with The Gentry. We got the kids dancing at Rontom’s which I heard from some of their staff is not something that just happens all the time. Ummm….Yeah. It was fucking rad.
The dancing continued after our set with the 1776 working the crowd into some sort of 1960’s rock and roll frenzy by the time they were through. It was a really good night. Thanks to 1776 for inviting us to be on the bill. We had a great time.
Oh, wow. I’m not even really sure where to start when it comes to summing up our adventure this past weekend performing at The Cuff’s annual block party on Capitol Hill for Seattle’s Pride Festival. From all accounts it was wild times in the Emerald City from the moment we arrived until the moment we left.
Late on Saturday night after we checked in and freshened up at the hotel we mobbed it up to The Cuff where we were welcomed and given the V.I.P. treatment for the duration of the evening. Needless to say, The Gentry was feelin’ the “everything’s free” part. I was glad they were there to enjoy the open bar perks that my dry ass hasn’t been taking people up on since I quit drinking in 2008. It was a really nice to have them taking such good care of us. There was not a time where I did not have a bitters and soda in my hand. Those guys were ON IT!!! The Cuff rules.
We got to sleep in on Sunday morning, then went for our sound check around noon. I was relieved to see that the stage was tented and that David from DA Sound was a total pro. The Cuff, sticking to their strategy of totally pampering us, had trailers for the entertainers to hang out in while the festival was going on. I shared mine with Frenchie Davis (from “American Idol” & Broadway) & Shannon and may I just take a moment to say that FRENCHIE DAVIS IS SO GREAT!!!!!!! I love it when I meet genuine people in this fake fucking industry. Check us out in our trailer below!!!
I opened the party with The Gentry at 4pm. Chi Chi LaRue hosted the event and did her part to get the crowd going before we took the stage. There were over 6,000 people there! It was insane. Derrick Barry (from “America’s Got Talent“) did his Britney Spears/Lady Gaga impersonation just after us, followed by Frenchie OWNING the crowd, and Shannon doing her thing to wrap things up. Here we are playing “Come Home” at the very beginning of the party and “Feed Me To The Wolves” toward the end of my set. (It sounds like shit because our camera was behind the stage this time and only picked up on the drums and some of our stage monitors…but you get the idea.)
After we finished playing we had our driver (that’s right…The Cuff hired us our own limo driver for the weekend) take us back to the hotel so we could change clothes and get the trucks for all of our gear. When we arrived back, Chi Chi LaRue was just wrapping up an on-stage “Tastiest Ass” contest where she had pulled 10 random strangers from the crowd and had one volunteer eat all of their asses, then decide whose was the tastiest. However this may sound to you, believe me…it’s nothing like being there was.
My poor keyboard player who had been designated the guy who gets to stay with the gear while we went to the hotel was there for the whole event. Upon my return, he said “When they said ‘Tastiest Ass Contest’ I thought they were just going to vote on who had the best-looking ass but all 10 of those folks lined up, pulled their pants and underwear down, and that dude in the green shirt right there actually ATE their asses.” I’ve expressed my appreciation for my bandmates before, but those heterosexual Gentry boys sure have open minds and are super good sports! ha ha ha — I bring them to perform at parties and places they would probably not otherwise be attending, but they are all 3 so fucking cool that they can just hang out wherever. Bravo, straight people who are impossible to shock!!!
From there, our booking agents overdosed everyone in our trailer with magic pot brownies and I was left all by myself in Seattle to fend for myself. It was fun, actually. I went to Dick’s drive thru and ate cheeseburgers with Steve, then hit the town solo in pursuit of my Portland friends (who I never found but later learned had pulled a Gentry and passed out after the show ended). I went back to The Cuff and had a few more free soda waters before going back to the hotel and spending some quality time packing up for my exit from the lap of luxury. It’s always hard to say goodbye to cable and wall-mounted HD flatscreen televisions to watch it on.
Thanks again to The Cuff for having us play this year’s event. We had a blast. Any of you who haven’t ever been to Seattle Gay Pride, you should go. Not only is everyone attractive in Seattle, but the hot dog vendors on the street smear cream cheese on their buns before they put their giant wiener in it. Come to think of it, that last sentence pretty much sums up my trip.
Well, people…we did it again! Last Saturday night was the biggest Blow Pony ever. Thanks so much for coming out, y’all! My favorite part of the night was when Beth Ditto & Nathan “Brace Paine” Howdeshell (from Gossip) were dancing front and center during “Come Home”. Oh my God. Portland is my favorite.
For those of you who weren’t there (and for those of you who were, but couldn’t get past security to get upstairs for my set) below is a bit of what went down on stage with me and The Gentry.
Here are our opening 2 songs, “Smoke Rings” and “Bottom Your Way To The Top”. This was so fun.
…we went from there into “Come Home”…
…and “Write It On My Left Arm” (with a little bit of me preaching to the queers beforehand about telling all the gay hating fuckwads who think we should burn in hell for being ourselves to go screw)…
Big thanks to Airick and the Pony crew for having us play their Pride party and to Kaj-Anne Pepper, Jer Ber Jones, Christeene and all the resident Blow Pony DJs for being so cool and making things awesome with us! We had a great night.
