“I don’t want to. Go away,” Harris muttered at me. He began puttering around with his belongings, feigning productivity.

“Harris, I like the shirt. Don’t get me wrong. You look good in flannel, it’s just—”

“I look great in flannel,” Harris corrected.

“Great in flannel,” I agreed. “But you’ve worn it to every single gig we’ve played. We should switch it up. What if you wore a bowtie? Or this vest,” I suggested as I began to pull a vest out of his closet.

“I look like a goddamn monkey when I wear a vest,” Harris said, grabbing the vest out of my hands. To eliminate all doubt, Harris slipped the vest on over his T-shirt and began to march around the room, clapping imaginary cymbals together. It soon turned into a full-blown jig set to imaginary music, replete with twirls and pirouettes. He eventually stopped to catch his breath. “A goddamn monkey,” he repeated as he flung the vest back into his closet, disgusted with himself.

It was Thursday, December 10th, two days before our big show at the Lilypad in Cambridge, MA, and we were picking outfits for the show. Dave called dibs on his ugly cardigan, a charming but unnecessary gesture. Sam was, as per usual, wearing a T-shirt that was two sizes too small. I was beaming with pride after sewing six buttons to the inside of my jeans in order to wear my dad’s old suspenders. Don said that he would “find something special,” and Harris was being difficult. We normally don’t dress each other until the night of a gig, but we were driving into Boston in waves, so emergency measures were necessary. After some further cajoling, we suited Harris up in a stylish, black V-neck with a neon green T-shirt underneath for a little extra zing. He looked fantastic.

Courtesy of Brooke Kaltsas of Truckieloo Photography

48 hours later, we met at the Lilypad, a small listening room/art gallery at Inman Square in Cambridge. We were sharing the bill with the lovely Caitlin Canty, who had arrived a few minutes before us along with Greg Schulz of Socialist fame. It was the most anticipated gig of our young band’s career, as much of Williams moves to Boston following graduation. We impressed ourselves by starting out almost on time, and things went up from there. Caitlin opened up the show. She sounded spectacular, and we had the pleasure of accompanying her on several of her tunes. She’s thinking about keeping us, which is rather exciting. After a few crossover pieces, Darlingside took the stage. We kicked our set off with a cover of Damien Rice’s Volcano before playing our brand new originals for the crowd. Everything about the night felt good. Our jokes were well-received, familiar faces filled the room and Sam had a brand new drumset that he had just purchased in Connecticut. The best part of the night for me, though, was our second-to-last song, the recently-recorded Surround. As soon as Harris and I began the intro, the crowd went nuts. We need to get more tracks recorded ASAP.

Firmly,

Auyon