The Awkward Romance

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2004-04-05 17:13:22 (UTC)

(Eli) Lime 2004 – we made the finals, woadie.

Yeah, we made Lime Finals, only two rock bands are in, The
Awkward Romance and Solafide… the grand prize is pretty
sweet, recording time at Ardent Studios and a Gibson Les
Paul.. and some merch… etc.

Cool stuff. Here’s the extended version:

So, this is the trip from my perspective. Stu was talking
about getting on here and putting his.. so hopefully, I
won’t cramp his style too much with this one. We signed
up on this “band showcase” called Lime 2004 without much
knowledge, and with zero experience in this sort of
thing. We were really excited to be doing it, and we left
on Friday at 5:00 am …. Well, that’s the beginning of the
story. So, I had like 4 hours of sleep for 3 nights in a
row, and I started out driving. After about an hour, we
located a QT, got some breakfast…. I can happily
recommend everything that QT has to offer except for the
breakfast burrito, which I regrettably chose as my
breakfast… Everyone else got better stuff, and Seth took
over for a while.. I was going to stay in the front and
stay awake, but that didn’t work out. So, Stu got up
front and entertained Seth so he wouldn’t go to sleep …
while Andrew and I slept for hours…. We woke up when we
stopped at a Parade – and they had a small Arcade in the
back… (get it??) .. (Parade’s actually the name of a gas
station) … and got some more snacks. Next stop, lunch…
Apparently the only fast food places in Mississippi that
take debit cards are Popeye’s chicken. And this was a
terrible thing for our stomachs. Apparently, we must have
ordered the “happy surprise” chicken.. (and the surprise
must have been laxative) .. anyway, before this gets
disgusting, let’s just say that the bathrooms were
physically and verbally abused until and after we got to
Lime…. At any rate, we got there early, like at 1.. but
we didn’t check in til 3… so we checked in to the hotel,
and went and got fireworks. (these will play a big story
later on)… so, next we went back… and got some cookies..
and Seth fell down repeatedly on his skateboard…
repeatedly. We met one of the students at the school who
considered Incubus his biggest influence. Moving on, we
met the lead singer of the band who won the whole thing
last year, cause they were headlining that night. After
that, we went and got our super-sweet package that we were
so hyped about. And then went and hung out while we
were “oriented” … and then cleared up some questions about
stage setup and about other stuff. We got to check out
the stage.. Here are some things to remember: All the
bands used the same amps, to keep things fair. You could
use your own guitar, but not your amp… drummers had to use
the house kit… but the stage crew modified it
accordingly. The amps we were forced to use were for me:
a 1961 marshall half-stack. I was truly disgusted beyond
words. I mean, that’s just appalling... Anyway, Seth used
a different, massive, incredible amp.. I want to say a
Bogner, but I can’t remember what it was called.. it was
awesome too. After that stuff, we had classes for like 3
hours. And not to be mean, but I’ve already learned
everything that they were teaching in the classes, from
studying it myself. There was, however, a new perspective
to it, and they brought out some really fresh ideas. Good
stuff. After that was Pizza. Which we didn’t eat, save
til later.

We went back and got our guitars, and tuned them up.. and
went back in, and figured out that we were playing last in
the competition… so we put our guitars down, and just
kinda chilled out… all the bands that played on the night
were amazing, and we were really glad to meet most of
them, some of them we just didn’t get a chance to meet..
spooky dawn, www.spookydawn.com … from Georgia, no less.
Their influences musically (in our opinion): Staind, and
Nickelback .. and most of the night we hung out with a
band from Illinois called Solafide ..
www.solafiderock.com - influences include: Bleach,
Switchfoot, etc. So, we watched all the bands play, and
everyone was really really good. We were thinking there
was no way we could possibly defeat any of them, and we
really wouldn’t want to, anyway, cause they were awesome.
Solafide went on right before we did, and were really
amazing. They blew us away… awesome music, and awesome
performance.. great stuff. Plus, we had been hanging out
all night, and we knew they were great guys… And then it
was the moment of truth. Stu and I had a
misunderstanding, and he had accidentally brought two
sticks… and he should have probably had more.. so he
borrowed two sticks from Solafide’s drummer.. and that
ended up saving our night. Thanks man… so we got up
there, and you have 20 minutes from when the first
person’s foot touches the stage. So, we got up there, and
played Blue Sunday, Little Cloud Dog, which was when Stu’s
headset flew about 5 feet in the air, and he stood up… and
he ended up breaking two drumsticks… and then we played
Stargazer vs. Shoegazer… next was our last song, Arcade
Parade … overall, Arcade Parade and Blue Sunday were the
best, and we had issues beyond physical and mental control
on the other two songs.. Well, we were like, hey, it’s
cool. I mean, we had fun, and that’s what matters. And
we saw Solafide’s scores, and they were higher than ours..
and we were like, “oh well, if they make it in, they
deserved it anyway.. only two bands can make it in, and
there’s still a whole night of bands to play and get
scores… “

Then we went back to the room, slept, bathed, got up and
drove home.. (in some order like that) on the way home, we
went to a pizza hut in Mississippi that didn’t have a
buffet, so we split three pizzas.. and when we got done
eating, we went outside, and Seth decided to throw some
firecrackers on the ground. Well, he did that, and then
we got in the van, and crossed back over the interstate to
get some gas.. we were all cool… so then, we go to get
back on the interstate, and a police officer gets behind
us. We weren’t freaking.. but you know how you
are.. ‘Drive perfect drive perfect drive perfect aah! He
turned on his lights!!” … so, he turns on his lights… and
tells us that he pulled us over for not having a tag..
which we cleared up.. and for using fireworks… which we
didn’t know were illegal in Mississippi. He checked my
license, and let us off with a warning. Thank you kind
sir.. and so we carried on… and we made it home pretty
early.. like 7 or 8…. And Jeremiah had grilled out for
Michelle’s b-day.. we ate some steak and all was good. No
more run-ins with the law for us. (haha, a little inside,
I know)

So, at about 3 in the morning, I check my email to see
what’s up.. and we got an email from this guy.. and it
said we were in the finals. We were in disbelief… so we
immediately did what everyone does when they’re told they
made the finals.. We assumed it was a prank. .. but come
today, we find out we’re actually in the finals. So,
that’s the best news we’ve had in a day or so. Actually,
since last week when we found out that Seth isn’t legally
retarded. Word.




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