It was a frightfully eventful Halloween weekend for Darlingside. The band’s new lineup had its first indoor gig on Friday night (October 30) at Harris’ place of employment, Amherst Coffee.  Limited somewhat in our noisemaking ability due to Sam’s absence, we went with an amplified but drumless sound. We’re hoping that by slooooowly unrolling the full band sound, it’ll be all the more exciting when the full band actually kicks in. We shared the bill at Amherst Coffee with three great local acts– Matt and Kate Lorenz (of Rusty Belle), The Fine and Dandy Trio, and Living Faux. Between stepping on each other’s toes, cables, and stompboxes, we had a chance to enjoy some great music over the course of the evening, from bluegrass to folk to heavy blues-rock (complimentary earplugs were passed out).

After smoothing out some feedback and mixing issues over the course of our first song, we settled right in and got down to business. The business of rock. The six-song set seemed to fly by. Surround, Older, Oh My Sweet Carolina, The Catbird Seat, All That Wrong, In the Morning. See how fast that flew by? It was a great thing indeed just to get our music out there into the world after all our labor and care. In that way, we all felt like proud mothers (minus the ugly gowns). Some of us did dress up — Auyon as the cop guy from the Village People, Harris as a college graduate with a fauxhawk (or Biff from Back to the Future), and Dave as the shittiest mailbox on the block (our block, our mailbox). I prepared a joke about being dressed as “The Beatles,” but then I forgot to make the joke.

Harris helped pick up the bantering slack by relating to the audience a spellbinding narrative about Dave’s sleep cycles, and Auyon made the obligatory racial jokes that only he is allowed to make in a public setting. It’s always hard to tell, but it did seem like the audience was psyched about our music. We’ve been told to always leave them wanting more, so we declined the request for an encore. Also, we didn’t want to peeve the management and the next band by going overslot. Also, we only know those six songs. We’re getting on that seventh song, though. Watch out next time, Amherst.

We were honored by weekend visits from Kimmie Ulmer and James Trotta. One of them brought us amazing pie and carved us a Catbird pumpkin, and the other brought us Mo’s (40 oz. malt liquor plus wine coolers). Who brought which? You be the judge.

Catbird Pumpkin and Mo’s

Greg Schultz (of Socialist and Purple Valley Entertainment) also made a brief appearance, long enough to use the shower and make us jealous of his newly acquired guitar. We realized at some point that we only have visitors who are from Williams. But we also have a ton of visitors. We realized that we like that.