No Show Ponies - Café Venue - Friday the 13th

No Show Ponies - Café Venue - Friday the 13th - 4/13/01

Pulling up to Melanie's house, Shannon's mom honked the horn and out came Melanie…much different than usual! Melanie strolled into the car wearing a tie dye dress, black boa, black heels, sunglasses, and hot pink fishnets with her leather jacket slung over her shoulder. "Oh my god!" was the only response that Shannon's mom had. After getting her reaction, Melanie then explained to Shannon's mom that she was wearing this for a deviance project for school. We needed more gas in the car, so we pulled up to a gas station and Shannon's mom was accompanied by Melanie to pay for the gas. They came back into the car telling Shannon about the amusing reactions Melanie got. Here's her deviance paper, so you can read the reactions before, during, and after Café Venue.

We arrived at the street o' Café Venue and Shannon's mom beeped the horn as we drove by Deuce Gibb's (Martini Bros. lead singer) hair salon. Some guy peeked out of the window…eep! A few seconds later we spotted Café Venue, but it took a while to actually get out of the car, because Shannon's mom had parking difficulties. Parallel parking on a slope, uh oh! At first, her mom didn't know if she was allowed to park there even, but she went for it anyway. The lad who works at Café Venue (David), was watching her trying to park. She attempted to roll down the window to ask if it was definitely okay to park there, but the window got stuck. After a minute or two, David came out to tell her how much room she had in the back. Suddenly a few other older men poked their heads out and watched the parking madness. Finalllllly after much embarrassment, the car was shut off and we hopped out.

We decided to stop by Deuce's salon on the corner, before we went into the Café Venue. Shannon's mom waltzed in the salon when we stood outside, too shy to go in. During this time, a sleazy rapist-like man walked by eyeing Melanie up and down and saying "Lookin' good!" As he went around the corner, we could still hear him saying "Lookin' gooooood" to himself. Ick. Shannon's mom then came out and told us that someone who worked there told her Deuce was on vacation. So, we walked into the Café Venue and Shannon saw her e-mailing pal, Logan. Everyone introduced each other, and we went to the next room to meet Logan's jolly mom, Terry. After that, we all sat around the table in front of where No Show Ponies would be performing in about twenty minutes. Melanie was definitely getting weird looks from the other people there. Alex, Logan's youngest sister, said she was a little shocked to see Melanie dressed like that. Gwen (Logan's other sis) told Alex to look at herself and not be a hypocrite hee hee. We all sat around and chatted for a bit before the No Show Ponies began their performance.

The lead singer & rhythm guitarist, Ben Brown was such the little rockstar in his gold, shimmery shirt and dark sunglasses. Shall we introduce the band? There are 3 other lads in the band: Jeff Brown (guitar & vocals), Jason Shover (bass), & the little drummer boy, Jordan Shover. That's right, two sets of brothers…such a happy little family! The place was full of people (more people our age than we were used to) and everyone seemed to be having a grand time. They blasted out tons of originals and some covers, like "Cant Hardly Wait" by The Replacements and "Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison. "Record Store", "Working Things Through", "Felicia & Those Northern Girls", & "Girl from Another Town" were just a few among the set list. Towards the end of the set, a crazy dancin' fellow in a Guns N' Roses shirt pulled Melanie out of her seat, with camera still in hand, and started to dance. Melanie’s boas fell off her one shoulder and she decided it was time to stop the madness and sit down. Gwen was up dancing, then the crazy dancing guy decided to dance with her. But they decided that they should pull Melanie up to dance again too. Gwen, Logan, Alex, & their mom all joined in dancing. Soon the dance floor got a little bit busier, but Shannon made sure to hide from dancing. After a song or two, the first set ended and we all stood around talking.

We chatted a bit with Jeff and Ben and said hi to their mommy too! They both said they liked Melanie’s outfit and Ben asked to borrow Melanie’s boas for the next set (but he never came back for them). Melanie also stood by the jukebox for a photo and some girls ewwed at her. lol

The second set started up and there were a lot more people dancing. Shannon managed to avoiding dancing for a bit before she was finally pulled to her feet, she soon ran back to her seat, though. The No Show Ponies continued playing their awesome songs, and there were loads of dancing fans. Jordan & Jason's brother, Justin was the guy in the Guns N' Roses shirt who was dancing with Melanie earlier and contined to during the second set. Now he had been dancing in front of Shannon and she decided she'd rather frolic over towards Melanie and everyone instead of having Justin's amusing bum-shakage in her face.

After a few more songs, the show was over and a lot of happy listeners cleared out. We posed for a few pictures and Logan and the rest of the gang got a picture with the band. Then this adorable guy came up to Melanie who she had noticed earlier. He said that he loved her tights in his amazing English accent. Melanie replied as he walked off, “I love your accent!” Shannon shouted something like "You know you're just using a fake accent because us girls cant resist it." He cast her back a look, but later Shannon’s mom stopped him and asked where he was from. He told us England and we were like, do you know Travis? Then the No Show Ponies sound guy came over to talk about Travis too. He said he has hung out with them before in Philly (where we went together). We chatted a bit more with the English lad then let him go back to whatever he was gonna do. Don’t worry, Shannon apologized to him about her sarcastic comment and he said he thought he would be alright hehe. He actually helped them out by packing up some equipment. Ben came back and Shannon sort of threw the boas on him and he posed for an adorable picture. Such the ham. Check out http://bandaid502.tripod.com for some fun pictures from that night. Ben & Jeff's parents were there and their mom had us pose with them for a picture. After that, we stayed around and talked for a bit with each other and we (Logan, Gwen, Alex, their mom Terry, Shannon's mom, & ourselves) all decided to go out to eat and bond at Eat'N Park (which was a lot of fun!). As we walked out the door we all said bye to the English guy, but Melanie said something like, “Bye English guy who I don’t know your name!” He told us his name was Daniel as we all filed out of the door.

Everyone at Café Venue was crazy nice. David (the main man o' Café Venue), Ben, Jeff, Jordan, Jason, Justin (very entertaining), Chile (cool roadie-esque friend of theirs), Daniel, and Mr. & Mrs. Brown are among the very cool people that were there. Thanks for the Kodak moments.