Let me tell ya about the air con: it's got ONE BUTTON!

So, yesterday began with an early morning balloon expedition which took us to the distant land of Milton, and I was dog tired by the end of it (I may have caught a bit more sleep the night before, but this guy called my cell phone at 1:10 in the morning. It went a little something like this:

Caller: (extremely haggard voice) Hey, man... what up?
Ian: (totally tired) Um... nothing, man.
Caller: Hey... who is this?
Ian. This is Ian, but uh... you called me. Who's this?
Caller: Josh, man. What are you doin'?
Ian: (mildly irritated) Uh, well, I was sleeping...
Caller: Oh, okay, man, cool. Just wanted to see what was up.
Ian: (bewildered) Yeah... all right...
Caller: Peace, man.
Ian: Later...

I live in a Josh-less universe. What is the meaning of this?!).
But that's neither here nor there. After ballooning, I took a brief nap before I had to get ready to go to Jesus Christ Superstar. But then, as luck would have it, I saw Jordan online, and in utilizing my stealth skills as a Level 15 Secret Ninja, passed the burden of seeing the show to him. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh yeah.
So, I hung around for a while and then went to practice at the Salvation Army a little early. We ran through our set and decided to use our newest song, bringing our live song total to 6. Jon got to use his parents' 15-seater van, so we loaded up all of our gear, and me, Zach, Eric, Jon, Ryan Bushaw, Jenny G. and Tim all got to ride in style to the Frontline. We listened to Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me for a while, and Bushaw and I traded back and forth virtually every line from Ghostbusters. Good times.
So we got there, and we set up, and we were all super-pumped about finally playing to hardcore kids, but we ended up playing first. As was expected, there wasn't much dancing since all the kids were saving their energy for the last 2 bands of the evening (there were 5). To make matters worse, we couldn't mic my amp or the drum kit, so our sound wasn't as thick as it should've been. To top it off, the mics for me, Eric and Zach's vox were inaudible. We made a strong performance, and we nailed all of our songs, but you couldn't hear anything, and the lack of movement from the crowd was the capper for me. I felt really down about the whole thing for a while.
Afterward, we stopped by McDonald's for a bite to eat, and they screwed up my order twice. I was going to let it stand, but Jenny G. insisted on taking charge and making it right. I don't know; I'm too timid for the most part to take care of situations like that. I feel like I'm being a jerk, although I know that I'm not. I'm trying to get over it.
So we went back to the Frontline and hung out for a while, and then the 2nd to last band set up. Kids started pouring in for them, including one with a Killswitch Engage shirt. Ugh. Anyway, they're called Your Heart Engraved (which is a terrible name), and they're super-talented, and, like... 12 or something. No, they're sophomores in high school, but you look at them in the face and they look like they're maybe pressing 13. Their mics worked perfectly, and they mic'd their amps and their drums and their keyboards, and everything was louder than crap, and they killed. The kids went nuts, and there was a sea of kids hardcore dancing. Jon joined the fray several times, but my favorite move of his had to be his tripod-to-headstand maneuver. Basically, I was kind of bitter about how well they went over in comparison to us, but I realized that it was really dumb of me to be that petty, and to be bitter because they were successful, so I'm over that. But I also couldn't shake the fact that I just wasn't that impressed with them. I mean, not in way of their ability, they're really good players, but their songs sound like on enormous breakdown, which I think is my main beef with hardcore. They also had a lot of Meshuggah-esque noise patterns and a lot of wheedly-wheedly high-register guitar riffs.
The thing is, I'm a metalhead, and I just don't see their music as being that extreme. I'm sure I'm wrong in comparing metal and hardcore because they're two different genres, but I know that hardcore has appropriated so much from the metal world. In ages long past, hardcore meant Minor Threat, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Youth of Today, Dead Kennedys and 7 Seconds. Then, at some point in time, metallic breakdowns were introduced, as well as hoarse, vaguely metal vocals, but it was still considered hardcore. I think the jury's still out as to whether or not it's for better or worse. And although I realize the two genres are seperate, I know that "hardcore" is where it is today in its... I don't know, "evolution" because of metal's influence upon it.
It might sound like I'm ragging on hardcore, or on hardcore kids, but I'm not really. I don't have any problem with hardcore kids, or their music. It's just not really my style of music, because I kind of view it as a... red-headed stepchild, if you will. It's just not as pure to me, you know? That's my deal. So, I'm not ripping on it, I'm sure there's some I can get into, but it's not quite my bag. That's all I really mean. But they were really nice kids, so I don't mean to be hard on them. Just trying to be the voice of reason. Just kidding.
I'm sorry if this was overly long; I have a hard time being concise sometimes. But thanks for listening to me ramble, folks. It's always a hoot.

Love, Ian