A Benefit Show For...Children?

Sunday was Laura’s benefit that she’s been planning since December. Finally got to meet the infamous Thao. Interesting. She pretty much didn’t do ANYTHING and Laura and I were overseeing various merch duties the whole time. I’m pretty positive that all Thao cared about was hanging with the bands. We found out on Wednesday or Thursday that Bidwell was going to be playing at The Glasshouse on the same night. Could we possibly make it if we ditched the benefit?? We’re pretty resourceful. It was definitely in the back of my mind.

The benefit was going pretty smoothly. No major problems or anything, we were actually running a little bit early because the first band only used like half of their set time. Asked Matty what time they were playing. 8:30 or 9. A definite answer would have been helpful. About an hour or so later he told me they were playing at 9:05. This could be a possibility.

Whoaly crap this guy in my row on the plane had to get out and there was nowhere for me to go! I was not prepared for that.

Anyways… We knew it would take about 45 minutes to get from Di Piazzas to The Glasshouse. So at about 7:30 we started brainstorming how this could happen. To break even with the t-shirts we’d have to sell about 3 more and we’d be free to go, leaving the rest of the benefit in Thao’s ever-capable and responsible hands. That was sarcasm, by the way. Hey, she deserved it for being so useless the entire time and pretty much for the entire planning process. We were able to convince a few people to take the shirts off our hands, leave money and instructions with Thao [which she most certainly did not understand], and leave Long Beach at 8:15. No traffic, perfect. We were making really good time. Reallyyyy good time. But then- a minor flaw in Amanda’s directions. A couple of crucial steps were omitted and we ended up on the 60 when we should have stayed on the 57. Whoops. Knew something was wrong when we were seeing signs for Chino and Diamond Bar… Definitely too far.

Ugh now the lady next to me needed to get out. The aisle seat sucks.

Ok so definitely decided to turn around after being on the 60 for about ten minutes. Got new directions from Amanda. Back on the 57. Exit Temple. Right or left? No clue. We chose left. Wrong choice. Turn around. Left on Mission. Wow that is a LONG street. Passed the 71. Flashbacks to the drive to Upland with GNSR. It was about 9 at this point… we were pretty sure we’d miss at least the first one or two songs. Made it to The Glasshouse. Got out of the car to hear If You Wanna Stay. Ahhh run run run to the box office! CRAP. It’s closed. The guy at the door said we missed it by like 5 minutes. UGH! He asked us if we’d been waiting to see them. We lied. Our most pitiful and defeated expressions were a great success though—he ended up letting us in for FREE! FREE! Free shows are the best. After the show everyone told us that they saw us run in during the middle of their set haha. They were surprised to see us because we really didn’t think we’d make it. It was pretty spontaneous.

So I’m convinced that Bidwell is never leaving SoCal because while they were loading the trailer they said they were invited to play at The Roxy in a week. This pretty much nixed our plans to go to Palm Springs on Saturday for Racing Kites/Sparks.
1] LA is closer
2] You can’t stop the Bidwell.

Had to get home. Laura had 8:30AM class and I had to get ready for Coloradoooo.