I arrived in San Francisco at 1pm on the day of the show after a hellishly long plane flight. I got to the place I was staying, and had about two hours to kill until my friend Jeff picked me up for the show. I was so excited! It had been nearly a month since I'd seen MTX, which may not seem like very long, but after seeing them nearly everyday a month seems like quite a while.It was about an hour and a half drive to the show, plus 20 or so minutes of getting lost time. I got out of the car and saw Keith standing near the club. I waved to him, and he looked at me really funny. I went over to talk to him and he said, "Hey!!! What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be in Detroit or something? How'd you get here?" I explained how I was here for the summer, and talked to him for a few minutes.
I went inside and saw Frank talking to a couple people. I talked to him for a little bit and told him all about what had happened with the car. Everybody else was hanging out on the patio in back, so we went back there so I could say hi to everyone. They had just gotten these super nice buttons of the cover of Love is Dead, so I got one of those. I stayed out there for a while, then went back out front. Frank and Joel were by the van, so I went over there. Joel was looking through his mail, and got some old pictures of them from Colorado or somewhere. They must have been from '96 or so, because it was from when Jym had long hair. It was pretty funny.
Then it was Jym, Robert and I by the van, and this burnout guy came over to talk to Jym. He asked if he could do an interview with him. Jym agreed, and the kid left for a little while, then came back. There were only about 5 questions that he asked, and they were of course some of the most over-asked questions. #1-What are your influences? #2-What do you think of the scene? #3-Do you think that a lot of people are "selling out"? #4-What do you think of hardcore? #5-What do you think of straight edge? It was pretty entertaining. Jym was sort of struggling to come up with stuff to say, after all, what do you say to questions like that? Anyway, the guy seemed nice enough and was really excited about having gotten to do the interview. Later on he did the same interview with Joel, but added a sixth question, "Did you know that Mr. T has cancer?" Haha.
The Knockoffs started playing after a little while, and Jym went inside to hear them. I went over to where Joel and some other people were standing near the door. We stayed outside for a long time, until after the second band finished playing. I discovered something very shocking and interesting while we were talking: Joel used to have long hair! Really long hair! At one point it was down to the middle of his back. I never would've guessed! I can't wait to see pictures, because I just can't imagine it. According to him, he looked like one of the Hanson brothers (that is, like a girl).
We went inside, because I wanted to be inside to see the Teen Idols. I went back to the patio and talked to Paige, and pretty soon Joel came back to make the setlist. He agreed to play Parasite without me even asking which was pretty amazing, but on the other hand, he refused to play Someone Who Cares. Hmph. It was still a great set though with some of my other favorites such as Whistlebait, Swallow Everything, Another Yesterday, etc.
When he finished writing the set list I went inside to see the Teen Idols. They were fabulous as always! This one kid was trying to start a circle pit which I thought was pretty amusing. No one at all joined in, so it was just him running in a circle around a couple people who got stuck in the middle.
I went back to the merch table, and stayed there until a little before it was time for MTX to play. I went up to weasel my way into a good spot, and was pretty successful. At first I was behind a few people, but that quickly changed. By the second or third song I was only behind one person, but they were really short, so it didn't make a difference.
The set was wonderful, of course. The crowd wasn't very active, but there were at least some people singing along. During a break early on, Frank told the story about how Joel threw up on stage there once. Joel was sort of embarrassed, and spent the rest of the show trying to come up with something embarressing about Frank to get back at him. His first attempt was to announce how Frank has a gambling addiction. The whole crowd just stood there. In another break he said that he once had to carry Frank back to the hotel from a bar in New York. Oooooohhhh. Finally, he said, "Frank sleeps with his shoes on!" This still didn't get quite the reaction he was hoping for. Frank replied, "That's not the worst thing I do with my shoes on!"
After they played, I wondered around for a bit, then went and talked to Frank and Joel. I found Jeff (who I lost after we came inside) and talked to for a while. Then I went back to the merch table to talk to Paige. I stayed back there while she packed up the boxes and helped her count what was left. I went back to the main room, and carried a few things out to the van. Joel was outside so I went over by him. He was talking to a couple girls, one of whom I'd met at a previous San Francisco show. Frank came over and she said something about her friend being their, "#1 fan." I was stunned and said, "Uh..I beg to differ with you about that." She was like, "Oh yeah! Well, you're from Detroit, right? She can be the west coast number 1 fan." Then I said something about how I'm in the process of relocating here, so she'd have to settle for number 2 fan.
Frank pulled out a pair of sunglasses that this girl in the crowd had given him. They were so funny! They were child's glasses so they were way too small. They were orange and star shaped. It looked really silly. I went and got Jeff so that he could take a picture of him. It was great, Frank was holding a case of beer and a Gatorade and wearing the glasses.
Shortly after that MTX were ready to leave. I said goodbye to everyone, and then Jeff and I left. It wasn't too long a drive back since there wasn't any traffic. What a great first night in CA.