Friday, May 4, 2001 - Buchanon Park in Lancaster - Negative Space

Friday, March 4, 2001
Buchanon Park in Lancaster
Negative Space
www.negativespacerocks.com

Thanks to Josh’s directions, we turned onto Race St. and drove by the stage where Negative Space was setting up. It was obviously a festival with scary unstable-looking rides, cotton candy, and icky lemonade. (We discovered the lemonade wasn’t so great after we bought it.) Anyway, back to arriving. We hopped out of the car and crossed the streets to enter the fair grounds from behind the stage. As we stood asking each other where to go, apparently Mark waved at us. Shannon’s mom and dad informed us of that fact after we missed it. (Sorry we missed that! * wave *) Leaving us standing on the grassy area in front of the tall stage, Shannon’s parents left us to do whatever we wanted. We walked around once in a small area and then decided to go ahead and sit our bums down on the grass in front of the stage.

We chatted about Melanie’s boyish cargo shorts and how she was actually cargoing stuff. The shorts served their function well because Melanie did not need to bring a purse. We also spotted Mitch of Julian Fist who was hanging out in his Negative Space tee with his girlfriend.

The first set began while it was still light out. The guy on the side of the stage in his smiley face shirt didn’t ditty bop or anything! We did the little head nod thing as we sat. The people behind us further were standing by a white tent and were apparently having fun because the band said they looked rowdy.

Some teenagers in front of us gestured at us to stand up when Negative Space yelled at everyone to hop up and dance. The teenagers, mostly consisting of guys with their pants falling down and sunglasses on as the sun went down, began to throw their bodies around and flail about without a beat. Not our style at all. It reminded us of the boys at CD Stock.

We eventually stood to take some photos and moved toward the front. Melanie gave her hat to Shannon’s parents and Shannon’s dad told us to eat something. Since Shannon’s camera battery was low, she had some problems taking pictures. A woman who looked vaguely familiar approached Shannon and asked her if she ran out of film because she knew we had when we were at MMC. Actually we hadn’t ran out at MMC, but wow. Someone knew who we were? What was that about? Is she reading this now? And she was offering us film. Film costs money. And she offered to just give us some. Thank you! That was generous of you!

They played "Anthem" and "Untitled" which are two great originals of theirs. Check out Anthem at www.farmclub.com and vote for these lads! The set ended so people could watch the skydiver land in the park. We saw him go by in the air, but we heard that he jumped from a plane. There was smoke trailing behind the skydiver and he had an American flag with him. We didn’t care enough to watch him land.

Mark came over to say thanks for coming as Shannon and I were beginning to decide where was the cooler location? Lancaster, or where we lived? We didn’t know how to respond to a thanks-for-coming comment. Shannon said thanks for performing. For Negative Space, you don’t have to do something to entice us to come. Negative Space is enough to go out! We didn’t go on any of the rides or play any of the games. We were there only for them. Mark had been mentioning the Chameleon on stage and asked us if we were going. Putting on sad faces, we said no. He said they were playing only one set, but would be able to mingle afterward. Melanie said we were getting the good deal then cause they were doing three sets at Buchanon Park. Since we had nothing of interest to say, Mark went on to mingle with others.

Mitch came up to us to said hello and ask if we were staying for the whole time. We told him we were and he said he would be back then because he was going to the bathroom. When he came back, we did not have much to say except hi. He asked us if we were going to the Chameleon show the following day and we said we were seeing Pete, Jeff, & Ron of the Badlees. He asked what we thought of The Cellarbirds, and Melanie hadn't seen them, so Shannon talked with him about what she thought of them, as well as Echotown.

For the second set, we stood and there was more of a crowd. Lot’s of little children jumped around in front of us and there was one woman who had next to no teeth and carried fried chicken and fries with her. She rolled up her sleeves of her tee shirt and did some form of raise-the-roof. She picked up the child she was with and held her up toward the stage at arms’ length. Shannon commented that she was sacrificing her child to the band and Melanie thought that was funny. We both laughed as the woman bounced and held the child outward. She also did some way-up-high-way-down-low thing. It seemed as if she was going to toss the child in the air, but she never let go of her in the air. Just smiled and shook her.

They played some song about jumping this set that we honestly don’t know the name of (we feel stupid) as a request from a teenage guy during the first set. They also played "I Wanna be Sedated", "She Makes Me", "Song 2" (Hoorah to Blur!!!), as well as some Green Day tunes.

When they finished the second set we turned around to find Shannon’s parents with Mitch and his girlfriend (sorry, we don’t know your name!). We went over to demand smoothies from them. Shannon’s mom told us that she hadn’t seen any around.

To have a decent spot for the last set, we frolicked over to the place where all the children were before. We stood right next to the stage right speakers. By this time it was dark and the lights looked good. We bopped about and took pictures again, but this time we were surrounded by girls clad in signed and unsigned Negative Space tees and tanks. Oh yes, we must not forget the one girl with her black and red trimmed thong.

Ahh, and we were just happily enjoying the show when Josh has to announce that Shannon and Melanie, who do great things for the music scene, were there. He asked, where are they? and then pointed to us. Melanie did a nervous scared smile and lowered her head, not looking around much. Shannon did the same, except she took a few steps toward the speaker. She was trying to hide. That was all nice of you, but we did not expect that to happen! Everyone was looking at us! That was weird. Afterward, we wondered if any people were watching us or looking at us since we had been pointed out. As if we are not already self-conscious enough lol. So the Negative Spacers know who we are? Are they reading this article?

When they were all done, we walked back by Mitch and his girlfriend to look for Shannon’s parents. Not to be found, Shannon apologized to them for her father’s ramblings (sorry again). Once we spotted them, we decided to look around for some kind of beverage. Settling for lemonade, which was icky like we mentioned earlier, we ran into Sean (drummer boy). He shook our hands and said hi. We told him they did a grand job entertaining tonight, but didn’t find the chance to tell him how cool his hair looked! It was long, thick chunks of spiked hair. And paired with the orange tinted glasses (sort of like Kyle's of Julian Fist!), he was such the rock star. We then bid him good-bye as he ran off to the port-a-potties. Not too many yards away, we walked into the dark and barely could see Josh. He gave us wee sweaty hugs. Everyone there wanted autographs. He thanked us for coming out and did we mention his hug was sweaty? It was.

Sadly we weren’t able to make it to see them and many other bands at the Chameleon Club’s Unsung Hero Big Ticket Showcase, but we did see Pete, Jeff, and Ron at the Ground Round. Shannon had an embarrassing moment there where Jeff sang a special song for her, lol. * Happy (early) Birthday Shannon *