Top Shelf Stories
In a world that often shuns the uncomfortable, we embrace it with open arms—and open laughs. Our candid narratives around our stories assure you that awkwardness is a shared human experience. Tune in, enjoy the ride, and maybe learn a thing or two.
Top Shelf Stories
Umphrey's McGee and Party Vibes
We dive into Chris's epic weekend house party that evolved into a 24-hour rager, complete with barbecue, fire pits, and an Umphrey's McGee concert adventure.
• Chris hosted an all-day party that transformed from a pre-concert gathering to a sunrise after-party
• The crew traveled to the Riverside Theater via city bus, where Chris befriended and smuggled a stranger named Isaac into the concert
• Tony experienced his first Umphrey's McGee show and shares his honest impressions as a first-timer
• The group reminisces about the dangers of flipping through CD binders while driving compared to today's voice-activated music
• Party highlights included outdoor fire pits, projector setups, and guests partying until sunrise despite the time change
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Top Shelf Stories with J, chris and Tony.
Speaker 2:Howdy, what's up everybody. Thanks for tuning in this week. I am your main host, tony. I'm here with my co-host, chris and our tech guy jay that's why I don't get to talk anymore, and uh I thought we turned off this mic can you hear us from behind the glass, sergey I'm giving you a thumbs up right now all right, today's episode is brought to you by radio shack. Radio shack, that's where we get all our tech gear.
Speaker 3:Yeah have you ever seen a radio shack open?
Speaker 2:nothing lately. I think they're done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're probably online radio shack was like the only place you could go and buy one of those tape decks that plugged into your cd walkman for the car oh yeah I know you're talking about, or like the cassette tape with the wire. Yeah, yeah, the wires I bought one of these things called an rf modulator.
Speaker 2:Once you ever hear one of them yeah, it's the one you plug into your cigarette lighter. It's for when your car doesn't even have a radio tape deck.
Speaker 1:It just had a radio.
Speaker 2:Like 88.2 AM or some shit, hell yeah.
Speaker 1:I had one of those once while I was waiting in line with a bunch of cars. It was in a line that was going to last for hours. We weren't going to move. So everyone was kind of hanging out outside their cars and I just went up and down the 10 cars behind me, 10 cars in front of me, and told them all to turn to the radio station.
Speaker 2:So all the cars were playing the same music and it turned into a party in the street pretty legit dude, you know everybody talks about how dangerous texting and driving is, but if you think back to the day when we started driving, flipping through 300 cds, in a gigantic book, while holding this 15 second anti-skip protection disc and walkman you had.
Speaker 1:The binder is sitting on your lap, but resting against the steering wheel of your car doing 70 miles an hour, as you're flipping discs, not this one, not this one trying to find life after death.
Speaker 2:Biggie's album and you're just going through.
Speaker 1:Oh keras one tupac but not the edited one that your friend left in the fucking sleeves all seven bootleg wu-tang clan cds you got like yeah, it was worse when it was all burn cds and they all didn't even have names on them. They were just like stickers or a way you wrote something and you're like is this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you had to put them in a portable cd player hope that your little cassette player with the cord is fucking working and then find the right track. Dude, it could take up to 10 minutes to get a song to play. Yeah, now, when you're in your car, all you gotta do is say, okay, google play justin bieber, whatever the fuck you're into, yeah you're not wrong your android does that respond?
Speaker 3:or when you say that, does that respond to that, not mine. What is I? Got it turned off?
Speaker 1:mine does, I don't need nobody's. I was gonna say what if it mine?
Speaker 2:does. I don't need nobody's, I was gonna say what if it? Started playing. I don't need nobody listening to what the fuck I got to say yeah, you got he's got tape and everyone would record their voices for other people to listen to.
Speaker 1:That's ridiculous towards.
Speaker 3:Like my voice is magical, it is, it is, it is worth something, so anyway uh, I had quite the weekend.
Speaker 2:It was uh, let me hear, it was uh, it was a very interesting time. So one of my best friends in the whole world invited me and my other best friend to a gigantic party, and I mean this party going to last from like noon to noon, like it was come and go as you please, it was like 24 hours. The invite even said like dude, stay at my house, you can sleep on my hardwood floor. I got a basement couch down there. You fucking have it. You can have my kid's bedroom, I don't care. Anywhere you want to stay over. Man, where was your kid? And uh, uh, so I went to it. But my other friend decided that he had better shit to do. Like nothing, like nothing. He probably sat at home watching old modern family reruns. I don't know, I don't know what the fuck he does sounds. He's lame as fuck idiot he's good on tech oh, fucking idiot.
Speaker 2:So anyway, my brother chris invited me to his house and it was an exciting it was a rager, I was so excited for this party I had I wouldn't go as far to say right like would I picture rager well, it turned into it by the end of the night it's slightly different from what it was, but it was exactly like I hoped and imagined.
Speaker 1:Yep in my head I uh, this concert was coming and I knew it was coming. And then I was gonna have some people over because I was like, hey, guys, if we're all coming, you might as well meet at my house rally out. And then dan, my friend dan was like we should get ld's barbecue. And that's when it all changed. He's like I got I got 50 bucks on it. I'm like, all right, this is in, I'm in. Then I just invited everyone I ever met at concerts that I knew was coming to this. Not everyone, but I'll be honest, I only got like I had a near 80% success rate of people I invited to the people that came.
Speaker 3:That's good, that's hard yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I was even at the end. I'm like I I gotta stop, like I gotta stop going further wide and like the person that couldn't come. One of them lives in nashville.
Speaker 3:Four of them lived in iowa well, they don't want to go, so they were gonna come, but what two of them were anyways.
Speaker 1:So then this party became a party dude and then we got food and then I was like we gotta buy. I gotta buy some beer, some sodas. Well, if I'm gonna have this many people, they're probably gonna be outside. I gotta set up an outside living room with a fire. Then I was like, well, they're gonna do that, might as well put people in the garage. So I set up the fucking projector, made a playlist on youtube. People said they were gonna bring cookies, people cookies. People were saying I'm going to bring this. Then I'm like, well, how am I going to move these people? Awesome, we can take my bus that I take to shows. So I got everyone decided. I put on the fucking invite. What did I say? Transportation will be provided. Provided. Join the adventure.
Speaker 3:What.
Speaker 1:City bus and it turns out, yeah, it's the city bus. There's a bus that runs by my house, it's the Blue Mound Connect 1, and it goes from nearly my house straight down Blue Mound to nearly the venue.
Speaker 3:What if someone else in your neighborhood had the same idea and the bus was totally, completely packed?
Speaker 1:You'd have to wait for the second bus Every 15 minutes.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, all right.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I'll let you keep going here, let me set the scene. Set the scene so, as you might have heard on previous episodes about what time I typically get to parties, I was told this party's gonna start 1 pm, so I'm like, perfect, I'll be there at four my first guest was uh, dan, but he brought the food and that was at about 12 30, and then I think the next one was evan and, uh, kellen, kellen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, kellen and Kellen. They showed up pretty early because he had to leave and then it was kind of from there, everyone kind of started showing up, but yeah, 4 o'clock, so I trickle in. How many people were there, do you think when you got there? Probably 20. Really, you did get there kind of late.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was about 20. It was the perfect amount.
Speaker 1:I'll let you know at one o'clock.
Speaker 2:Everything was set up and uh, I turned a corner into his driveway and I looked down the driveway and I pictured exactly what I imagined. Or I seen exactly what I pictured nice. I seen an outdoor fire going and 20 white people standing around holding beers in front of them, nodding their heads while they talk exactly what I pictured sounds uh, it was still daylight so nobody could see the projector that was running the music, but it was there.
Speaker 2:Yep um great spread of food. First off, did you tell your mom I was coming? No, did she know I?
Speaker 1:didn't know you were coming until the fucking day before anyways Right right? No, I don't know if I told her.
Speaker 2:I didn't know, because your mom pulled up about half hour after I got there. She came in, gave me a huge hug and told me that she brought peanut butter bars for me. Nice, does she just bring peanut butter bars to all your events, hoping that I'm going to be there? Maybe, or did she like slightly embellish the truth?
Speaker 1:to me. I think she embellished the truth. Dude, I felt so special.
Speaker 3:Really quick, Tony, really quick. The last time we talked about this, you had plans. What happened with those plans?
Speaker 2:Weeks were confused and she thought it was the spring break weekend, so you didn't have plans.
Speaker 3:Then you didn't have plans.
Speaker 2:We did have plans, but it wasn't out of town plans. She thought I was referring to the weekend where taking the kids and going with other couples to Chicago to go to that. What were your plans that?
Speaker 3:you had for this week, past weekend, that you had to break. I had to go. No, the dates were screwed up. I know, but I'm saying you said you still had plans.
Speaker 2:We had plans during the day we had to go over to our campground.
Speaker 3:Oh, so you could make this both, both of those things happen.
Speaker 1:Decisions were made. Yes, jay.
Speaker 3:Yep decisions were made, yeah, but he wanted to go to the campground. To what? Check that the tires on your fucking vehicle are not flat? No, or flush the toilets.
Speaker 2:What the fuck did you have to do? One of our true friends was buying a place up there and they wanted help looking over it, so me and my other friend were going there to help them look at the trailer and find out if it was a good purchase or a bad purchase, which is great because your dad for the other friend didn't show up, so, um, but yeah, I had to help out another friend.
Speaker 2:So, uh, I go to chris's and we hang out and I get there sun's out, it's gorgeous, you know, it's like it's like slightly sweatshirt weather, but that all changed very rapidly as the sun went down. Yes, as the sun went down, it got outright cold, and chris is a he's a man of preparation. He had two fire pits going along with an outdoor heater very near the fire pit, and I stood in the middle of those two, yeah, and that's how I gained my warmth I also had the entire basement room that we made, or my wife made, heated down there tv on down there same playlist, yeah no, I banged my wife on that couch nice I don't think you were the only one to get lucky on that couch
Speaker 1:that night, but then also the whole first floor of the house. So people just didn't want to go inside. They didn't want to I did spend some time inside, I think. Okay, there was a lot of people. There was the food attraction, the outdoor fire attraction, like people were kind of spread out, you know, but yeah, it was a great little party everyone had I oh, everyone ate, I think I did.
Speaker 3:Uh, we know I had.
Speaker 1:We know that, tony I had left over a few ribs, uh, a whole chicken. I had a whole chicken which I was fine with. I ripped it apart yesterday and put it all bags in the freezer. It all in bags in the freezer. Put all the bones in the freezer.
Speaker 2:I guaranteed Michelle, that you were going to come to the podcast with leftover barbecue today.
Speaker 1:I was close to it. Like I said, I froze the chicken for soups later. I'm pretty excited about it also. But yeah, all the brisket was gone, all the pork was gone, cooked some pizzas on the back end.
Speaker 2:But you know I got to mosey around.
Speaker 3:I got to talk to Chris's mom, chris's wife, you know.
Speaker 2:You got to go into a separate room with Chris's wife. I met a couple of his close and personal friends. You know, almost like melding two worlds together.
Speaker 1:Dude, there was like eight worlds there. That's what was so awesome. So I had podcast guy there. I had party bus Steve and his wife, who have run party buses to fish every year for like a decade and they always have a gathering at their house and then you get on the bus and go and I was excited to have them to one of my parties. You know, return that favor. I had guys guys from umphreys mostly, but like one was from chicago and one group. All these people didn't know each other but knew each other kinda, so it was really cool to fucking melt Then like Dan from high school forever ago.
Speaker 2:Is that long hair Dan?
Speaker 1:Yeah, long hair, dan. Okay, he's been my buddy since.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know there were at least two Dans and I'm assuming by the amount of Caucasian.
Speaker 1:Both of them have long hair.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Dan Ojeda is the photographer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cameraman Dan I figured by the amount of whites there.
Speaker 3:There were several dans, not just yeah, what's with you in color man? I don't see color I don't know, man.
Speaker 1:I do only have pretty much white friends, though it's a fact, I did make a new friend, so so, tony, yeah, we to get there.
Speaker 2:So we're hanging out at the party and I hear a familiar voice a voice I hear every week peek his head out of the door and yell 20-minute warning. Everybody talked about it. They're like well, what's in?
Speaker 1:20 minutes. What's?
Speaker 2:in 20 minutes 20-minute warning.
Speaker 1:You got to warn people otherwise they don't know how to go.
Speaker 2:Five minutes later, 15-minute warning Almost to the second, I'm shocked.
Speaker 1:I was not. I don't remember this. This is the point. I don't. Yeah, start things.
Speaker 2:Start forgetting and then, 20 minutes later, five minute warning we made the bus you gotta give people these warnings like that who are you talking structured? Uh, because we had to leave the party had to end at seven o'clock.
Speaker 2:We had to start moving towards our nest, next destination and I had to prep people so five minutes later, on the dot I'm talking about chris chris walks back out and he's like everybody start walking. Right now we gotta go to the bus and and thank god there was a bus, because at no point should most of those people have been driving anywhere. I needed that to be a fact and, uh, I parked about a block away from chris's due to the heavy road, the heavy road parking from all the guests at the party. And when you show up three hours late, you know you're gonna have to park away. How far away did make it.
Speaker 1:I was hoping we would make it. All the way up the road I did see people across the street and up the other side I was up the side street, how far? Uh, four cars, okay four cars so first or second driveway are only there yep, okay.
Speaker 2:So everybody's funneling out now and walking. Chris is walking, he's leading the pack and he's walking backwards and I'm I'm face to face with him and we're about 10 feet apart and I'm kind of at the beginning of it. I'm walking to my car, I'm not walking to the bus, but we're I'm kind of in a big group and chris is walking backwards holding a beer with a top shelf stories podcast koozie on it sounds right and he's almost in tears and he goes. This is the best day of my life hell yeah, and he's trying to take pictures of people walking to the they're extremely blurry.
Speaker 2:I've seen those pictures and uh uh, they take the bus down there and I had to drive. I knew I was going to have to leave a little early, but I heard rumblings of Chris making a lifelong friend on that bus ride.
Speaker 1:He's not a lifelong friend. He did subscribe to the podcast, but I never grabbed his phone number, so I can only meet up with him once again. So I'm on the bus. The bus is a city bus, it's the Connect One runs down Blue Mountain. It's a beautiful situation for me. It's $2 a rider and just like every other bus, but it doesn't stop very often and it flies down the fucking road. So we're on the bus and I showed Jay a video and you can tell everyone's on there and, like Tony said, all my compadres are Caucasian.
Speaker 3:I don't think completely, but maybe the first thing I said when I saw the video.
Speaker 1:There was one guy on the bus. There was two guys on the bus. There was two guys on the bus when we all loaded on and there was 15 of us maybe 20 of us getting on the bus. Two guys on the bus, one of them, my friend chris. He lives in tosa. He rode a bus from tosa to there and perfectly timed it. Wow, so that when, that, when we got on cause I told them what bus we were taking.
Speaker 1:It's crazy and, as Tony just said, I made sure to get everyone out on time to get on this bus, cause if we would have missed it we would have been 15 minutes delayed and we didn't.
Speaker 1:We had 15. We didn't have a half hour for sure, yeah, and I wanted to make sure this was a smooth experience for everybody. And I wanted to make sure this was a smooth experience for everybody. So I don't know if you heard that, tony, one of the guys on the bus was my friend. The other guy was just this guy and he's just sitting there and I was like I got to know what this motherfucker thinks With all these people hopping on this bus. He probably takes, because you could tell he was like in work clothes, he was in a big Carhartt jacket, winter hat.
Speaker 3:You showed me that video and the first thing I saw was this one black guy looking down.
Speaker 2:You just said you don't see color.
Speaker 3:That time I did because there was like a sea of white people.
Speaker 1:So here I am. I'm like you know what? I'm going to go see what this guy thinks of this. I'm like what do you think, man? Have you ever seen all this? I don't know how exactly I said the first thing but then he was nice, his name was isaac, we were talking for a little bit. I'm like, what are you doing tonight, dude? He's like I'm just on my way home from work. I'm like, how do you think about maybe changing that and coming to a concert with?
Speaker 1:us he's like I don't know man and I said I'll tell you what I do. This sometimes, in fact a lot of times, when I'm on the way to an Humphrey show in an Uber bus ride, walking through the street going to the store before the show, I always invite people.
Speaker 3:Are you serious?
Speaker 1:I mean you're going to put their tickets. Hey Isaac, I'll buy you a ticket. You want to go to the show?
Speaker 3:And he's like yeah, oh, my God and I was like awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, this is my crew. Try to recognize a couple of these fuckers, maybe by what kind of hat they're wearing or whatever, because they'll all know you from the bus and the fact that he's the only black guy at this entire concert.
Speaker 2:Well, I think he probably may be Except for a few of the security security I give him the details.
Speaker 1:I'm like it's at the Riverside Theater. The bus that we're getting off gets off right there. We're going to walk in there. I have to go to the box office to get my ticket. Everyone else has it on their phone, so just follow me. Remember those people follow me.
Speaker 1:That's actually kind of crazy. I was shocked that he did it because he was in his work clothes. He said that his exit would have been about three stops prior, so it wasn't like far from him, from his house or wherever he was going. Anyways, I was like Isaac, you're with me. But here's the scoop. I told him before we got on, you know, past his stop. I said dude, I have a pit ticket. They don't have any of those for sale, so you're going to be in a different area. So I'm, I'm getting you this ticket to the show, but you don't even have to hang out with me after. You can, but you don't have to. You can do whatever the fuck you want. You know, I'm just getting you in the door. Um, yeah, he, uh.
Speaker 1:We got in and I told him I was like I'll sneak in by where we're going, but you just got to kind of follow my lead. Well, they didn't even have floor tickets, they only had balconies. So he was on a completely different floor of the building than us. I'm like don't worry, dude, come with me, go get my wristband, got mine. I'm like give me your ticket. He gives the guy a ticket. The guy goes Give him my ticket, isaac.
Speaker 1:So Isaac goes back through the line again and remind you he's a black guy and there's like eight black guys in the whole building of 1,500 people. So he goes and tries it and the guy goes no, this ticket's just used, it's got the scratch on it. I'm like, all right, never mind that, let's try plan B. Plan B I said Isaac, take this pill. I know these people at the venue. I go to a lot of shows here. That's dave working the door there. I'm going to make eye contact with him, shake his hand. You walk behind me pretending like you're gonna show your wristband, like you already got one, and walk in and as soon as you walk past me I'll say bye to dave, put my arm around. You will walk down the aisle.
Speaker 3:My god, you did all this for a stranger.
Speaker 1:He does it. He's like dude, that was fucking awesome. How did you do that? I said it's all about doing what you do. You look at the people in the eye. They couldn't look at you. He was looking at me and I told you what to do. You acted as if you had your thing. Always act as you want to come and go. We got to go past these other people now into the pit. They're a little stricter and I don't know who they are.
Speaker 3:They normally work for the actual security team. It already seemed like it was hard to even get past that part.
Speaker 1:We're going to do the exact same thing, man, except for this time I'm going to have my arm around you to start, because we got to get tight here. So we just fucking went right through Same situation. Hung to get tight here, so he just fucking went right through same situation, hung out for a while and then I didn't see him until set break. I was outside and I was like dude, what happened to you, man? He's like they wouldn't let me back in there. I'm like you gotta try, dude. And I didn't think he made it back in. But then one of my friends told me that he did. She saw him set break was hanging out with him a little bit you're're like you need to diversify.
Speaker 3:You need to diversify your friendship. I need to get a little darker friends here. I try.
Speaker 1:Anyway. So that was my bus ride. Got everybody down there good. Tony's ride in was good. How was the show? Tony, you had never been to see Humphreys McGee and. I've gone 134 times or whatever, and you guys always make fun of me for let me hear your honesty, tony, and don't fucking lie so here's, here's the deal.
Speaker 3:It's not my, I don't want to hear a deal off it. He doesn't have to fluff I don't want to hear you. There's no deal. I don't want to deal.
Speaker 2:Here's the deal no I don't want to deal. I agreed to go to this show because it's important to my friend. Okay, I've never heard this band's music. I didn't know what it was gonna be. I I didn't know what to expect. I had no expectation, except for it was a show at the riverside that I blindly agreed to go see or chris playing uh songs for you every time you cut his hair and you just don't listen. He doesn't play that.
Speaker 3:No, I don't play it. Well, you've played it in the podcast several times. I've heard it several times, so I just decided not to listen. Probably.
Speaker 1:It can be basically background music.
Speaker 3:You don't remember me asking Chris, when is the singing start?
Speaker 2:I go to the show I I walk in and it's as advertised it is a convention of the caucasians.
Speaker 1:It is exactly like what do you say about 70 percent male? It may be 80 probably of all the jam bands they call them jam bands. This one's a little heavier, a little more aggressive ish than most jam bands will. I mean they got two lead guitars. For Christ's sake, Double kick drum drummer.
Speaker 3:Do they move around a lot? Do they jump around a lot during shows?
Speaker 1:Not a ton, no Okay so that's a solid. No, well, I mean, the one guitarist likes to dance while he plays a little bit. But when you say dance, I mean like what? It's not his hips, or yeah, move forward backwards. Yeah, pretty much okay. But uh, what I was saying is uh, a lot of other jam bands have like hot hippie chicks yeah, yeah, and old deadheads and stuff like fish.
Speaker 2:This is. This is 34 to 60 year males. Yeah, it's pretty much Surrounded in a sea. So we went in, they started playing and the first song they did. I kind of got like sublime vibes from them, like it was.
Speaker 3:Did you get like pop, reggae type, not shit, sort of? I shouldn't say that.
Speaker 2:That's the. It has reggae and the way that their sound is you could like. They're so instrument, heavy, very technical. You cannot. You cannot hear anything he is saying.
Speaker 1:It's very hard to hear the lyrics, lyrics, especially if you don't know them?
Speaker 2:yeah, but it was my luck that everybody in that arena knew every word okay, everyone's singing along.
Speaker 3:You can hear, you listen to everyone singing along to the music, so and I don't know if this is true.
Speaker 2:Correct me if I'm wrong, chris, but about seven minutes in to the first song, the words stop and it goes into like a half hour jam session and and then, randomly, the words just pick back up. I think it was the same song.
Speaker 1:That's very possible there are some songs that I mean they've done like four song sets where each song is like 30 minutes let me ask you this, tony because you're an observer, you see things other people don't, because you really anyway.
Speaker 3:So when that jam session was going on and you looked around at the people, where there are people just kind of like just throwing their head down, bro look around in the air and just like just hippie style you ever seen the old videos.
Speaker 2:You ever seen the old videos of the churches where the people speak in tongues? And everybody's just running up and down the aisles jumping up and down, rolling back in her head's arm.
Speaker 1:Uh, there was, there was a lot of that, hell yeah so their arms are in the air, probably 45 to 50 percent waving them like you just don't care with my finger in the air, poking it, screaming at the air, with my hand holding a.
Speaker 3:Pabst. There's some people freaking out and some people just like, yeah, just find it kind of flowing to the music. Well, here's the thing Some people punching the fucking air kicking.
Speaker 2:So there was a lot of marijuana smoke running through the crowd and and I mean a lot, yeah, and I don't even so the way that this band is with their light show and all that I don't think marijuana was the primary drug of the show either. I mean, I think this is I think this show is a little bit more geared toward acid mushrooms than it is the calming effect that my second hand marijuana high was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, a lot of people like to use these shows as an excuse or reason, and it is kind of a great example of a place to do like a mushroom or acid situation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it had very much acid vibes a lot of I don't know.
Speaker 1:A lot of people do it. I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a big thing I keep, I keep, so good, I keep seeing that the church thing in my eyes. With a bunch of hairy dippies Fucking tie-dyes on no just like someone preaching, and there's like five or six people that are insanely running around punching the air.
Speaker 2:Like, yeah, praise God, lord Jesus. That's kind of how it was because everybody there, so I feel like me and the guy from the bus were the two people that didn't know the band there.
Speaker 1:I mean there were at my party going to the show. There was at least six people that I can think of right now. That never been to the show before.
Speaker 2:So I would and I feel like I'm not being out of line here but 80 of the articles of clothing from the way stop were previous shows.
Speaker 1:Umfrey's mcgee gear I don't wear umfrey's stuff to Umphrey's shows but a lot of people do Like it's a sporting event. Like you know how you people wear a Packers jersey to a Packer game. People wear old show gear to the show.
Speaker 3:You don't wear anything from Umphrey's McGee at the show Not typically. That's crazy, because you'll wear our fucking podcast shit. Just to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true, that makes wow, I don't know it was. It was almost to the point where I felt out of place people like to show off their like it was a husband and wife who were and I use this term loosely sitting next to us. It was a husband and wife um, I sat next to them because we were on an aisle end and she was thick and her and her husband had had homemade umphreys mcgee clothes they looked fucking bad and, uh, me and my wife played a game because we got we did get there like a half hour earlier than the show started.
Speaker 2:We had some time to kind of mosey along and looking at the different types of people there. I always say I don't judge, but I secretly do, sure, and I played this game with my wife for a half hour until she was just sick of me. What do you think that guy does for?
Speaker 1:a living. I was going to ask you employed or unemployed? Was that the game?
Speaker 2:It was well, I probably assessed 20 people, but 14 of them or so I guessed Tyler's Work at a used road bicycle company restoring handlebars, the curly ram horn handlebars. No see, this is like everybody here works on bicycles for a living. What the fuck.
Speaker 1:Like yeah, that's not true, though, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Chris is like I'm high on the white corporate ladder. Yeah, see.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's the thing. It's like people just turn that switch like it's drag night and they just change into this thing. My favorite game at things like that and festivals is to go to the ATM machine and grab a couple of the receipts and then bring them out and tell people I picked this up at the ATM machine how much did they take out and how much do they have left.
Speaker 1:That's my favorite game and the ones at the music festivals are like they took out twenty dollars. They have negative eighty three dollars. Oh then you'd find some of them where it's like he took out 20 bucks and he's got 14 grand in the checking, like what the fuck is this guy?
Speaker 2:yeah, so, uh, we, we went and found some seats and uh, there were seats.
Speaker 3:I thought he said it was some type of standing crowd.
Speaker 1:Can I give this set list, or should I wait for that?
Speaker 2:I want to wait for it for a second, okay that's good so so the front from the stage out to about 30 feet was just open, standing room only that's everything beyond that is a seat, but I'll tell you, nobody sits this is one of the oldest theaters in the city of milwaukee.
Speaker 1:Why is it again the riverside theater? It was once used for like presidential things. It was used for all kinds of different shit. Yeah, it's like 200 years old yeah it just recently got converted, like 60 years ago, to music. They used to do movies, silent pictures and shit there. That is yeah but uh when we're walking right. Is it beautiful?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's fucking awesome when I was walking in um I decided that, uh, I seen the merch table and I'm like I think I'm gonna get a momental for this grand occasion so I can look at it and always think about the wonderful evening I spent with my friend Chris. Right you just?
Speaker 3:want to say best, like he's like his lips went together with because I was looking at you dead in the eye.
Speaker 2:I'm earning it man, we started as farmers only but, but I go out there or I I get to the merch table and I walk right up to it like I do at things like that, and I was warned that the line actually starts back there. Yeah, someone yelled at you. So so they would let people like there was a hallway in between it and they would like wave one person over to come to the merch table at a time. And I looked at the line and it was a fucking thousand hippies that deep because people want the poster.
Speaker 1:Each show gets its own poster a lot. Not every show gets its own show poster, but when they do, they're normally by a known artist.
Speaker 2:In the poster game print a game, but yeah so people wait because they're afraid that's gonna sell out so I waited until the music started and, and they were about 30 minutes into an 80 minute instrumental, yep and I ran back out there. How?
Speaker 1:long is the show?
Speaker 2:so everybody at the show on these instrumentals, even like they're air guitaring the right chords Like these are known instrumentals. They're not like they're just up there fucking around, Like these are, like they'll play the first chord to a half hour instrumental and people be like everybody jumping in the air Like, yes, I came here to hear this.
Speaker 2:But I went out, walked right up to the merch table and I went to go get a poster and I'm like, fuck, yeah, this poster is amazing. So you waited until that long, ass. There was no line once the music started, oh, they all scattered back into the, got it, got it into the crowd and I'm like now's my time to pounce and I go up and uh, I'm like I'll take three show posters and uh, you bought three of those.
Speaker 2:Well, I was going I was gonna buy several until you find the price and then I go how much are they? And he goes 70 and I'm well, that's not bad for three or something, and he's like each. And I said put two of them back and do you negotiate.
Speaker 3:So tell the size of this poster so people don't know.
Speaker 2:understand that this could be a standard concert poster. It's 18 inches by 24.
Speaker 3:It's actually smaller than a standard. Maybe I'm wrong.
Speaker 2:It's not like the movie posters. You go get at. Walmart. It's small, it's not big 18 by 24. But it's an amazing piece of artwork.
Speaker 1:I will say you keep calling them prints, but you don't roll prints up into a. You do when you buy it at a concert, you're supposed to take it out of there right away, as soon as you can.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it doesn't fuck up like his, it's fucked up, right, all the creep stuff.
Speaker 1:But the posters, you buy them, the prints, I call them posters too. I'm just fucking around, but people get pissed, I don't give a shit.
Speaker 3:But yeah, you get them a tube and you got to carry them around.
Speaker 1:Yep, no, no, I mean I mean you can't, you can't carry them around, not not in that no, it has to be, it'd get fucked up.
Speaker 2:So we were about three hours into the show. How okay, it's not true but wait, wait, it's only three hours long okay, it shows I was then like two and a half hours into the show and chris.
Speaker 3:Before you say some before you finish.
Speaker 1:There's no openers just add no, this was because they play so long. This was an evening with umfrey's mcgee.
Speaker 3:They will have openers, but this was an evening like that show would be like eight hours long there might potentially be an opener that's like 45 minutes.
Speaker 1:There might be a. There might be a fresh, fresh opener it's 20, then an opener that's like 45 minutes. There might be a. There might be a fresh, fresh opener it's 20, then an opener that's like 45, and so then, yeah, the first hour and a half and then umfries will play one song.
Speaker 2:No, don't play this, don't play the same, it'll still be an hour they will play two set three hour shows 200 times a year.
Speaker 1:How many songs they play in a show? Four. So this time, this time, the set was started with the song called plunger, which is one of theirs. 13 days, which is one of theirs. Bottomed half, which is one of them.
Speaker 3:What do you mean? One of theirs? Then they all be one of theirs. They covered a song called jesus, etc.
Speaker 1:By wilco.
Speaker 2:It was the first time they ever played it, so you got that gem, whappy sprayberry which is one of them, also announced that you've heard this song, but we've never played this song yeah and then they just went into it. Have you heard that?
Speaker 1:song. Yeah, then they played a song called space funk booty, but they included jump around teases from house of pain yeah, this was after the intermission, right?
Speaker 2:no, not yet this was before.
Speaker 1:Then they played 40s theme, which is a fucking fan favorite. That's one of my favorites 1940s. It have words yeah, that's the one where they talk about that barbecue sauce and that chicken wing. Throw it on the deep fire, guaranteed to set your ass on fire. All right, then they then it was set break. Did you stay in this, in this theater, and listen to the set break music?
Speaker 3:because that's a big thing people track that shit set break they play. They give you a half hour to go piss, go take a small playing no wait, it's, it's they play music on there.
Speaker 2:Okay, thank you, and it was all rap music which I thought was I went outside.
Speaker 1:I always go outside.
Speaker 2:I thought was for sure, like Isaac Just a track that the Riverside has on tap for this.
Speaker 1:There is a whole thing about set break, music in all bands like this, but then set break came back.
Speaker 2:I mean I didn't picture them playing you and that booty they will.
Speaker 1:They'll do that. They even have. They do rap, they have. They call it with the. The guy who plays the bongos that everyone jokes doesn't do anything. Andy farragh, he really does, but everyone jokes he doesn't because playing his ass off. He's actually my one of my favorites. But so he comes out as mc pumpernickel Makes sense and raps and we'll play a rap song Nice thick bread, set to All in Time, which is one of theirs, a classic, that one everyone was singing, I'm sure. Song Concessions, yeah.
Speaker 1:I've seen people crying. Then they played Layla. Yeah, they'll cry during All in Time. They will Layla. Did you catch the layla? Layla is when we left with clampton layla. Then they played 1348 with uh yyz rush teases. Then they played rock and roll, part two, slacker, 1348. Then they went on a small break for an encore. They they came out and played Party and Peeps, which is one of their songs, then finished All in Time.
Speaker 1:So they started the set too with the song played a bunch of different songs, went off for a break for a minute, came back out, played another song and then finished.
Speaker 3:So that's like 10 songs, so that averages 30 minutes.
Speaker 2:The last rock and roll of part I left at like 11.
Speaker 3:I'm wrong, I'm not 30 minutes.
Speaker 1:So I don't know when it ended Probably like I don't know, we made the bus. I wanted to make. So I don't know when it ended. So, yeah, man. Then everybody came back to my house after we took the bus home. We apparently missed the first bus, we thought. But then there was steve and, uh, his wife were still there, uh, waiting for the bus.
Speaker 1:I have another friend who lives in the neighborhood okay, a couple blocks east of me, who also takes the bus to the show steve, the guy that does the party bus for the fish shows. So we saw them. We see them on the bus home a lot, or I do, I guess. Um, and then we got back to my house, man, and fucking cranked it back up, cranked it up big time, like there was 20, still 15, at least still there. Courtney came, you know, courtney, yeah, she came with her boyfriend because she had to work all night, but she was there waiting for us. Uh, katie was asleep. My dog got dog sat by rianne and mindy. They took my dog.
Speaker 1:I was there when they took the dog and then, uh, we partied fucking hard outside and that was dark out. The projector was working. Everyone was fucking loving it. Then we were cranking the music. Fire was fucking blazing. Nick was just feeding the fire. It was colder. No one wanted to go inside again. We made a bunch of food up the pasta salad.
Speaker 2:We got eaten up a bunch of food it is kind of weird when everybody's outside for you to start. Let's take this inside, where it's 40 degrees warmer.
Speaker 1:Right, I wasn't going to make anybody do anything. But I often thought through the night. I'm like do people realize they can come in here? I went into Kate. I'm like people know they can come inside, right. So?
Speaker 2:did your mom come back to your house after? Yes?
Speaker 1:They took the bus home with us. Yeah, I think yeah.
Speaker 2:And then she went home. Or did she crash out on your basement floor?
Speaker 1:She stayed for a while. Oh yeah, I do remember Travis saying that my mom, oh, my mom telling me that her and Leslie, my aunt, who, which is her first show, yeah, Um, we're at my house after thinking like well, can we drive? She would you drive.
Speaker 1:And then Travis was like uh, girls, like, if you got to talk to each other about it, just take an Uber. And so then they took an Uber and my mom came back and got her car in the morning. But we partied so hard that I think at about three katie got up, came outside now this is three, but there was a time warp there where we lost daylight savings hour. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, during my party, which sucked because then it was 3, 30 and kate's out there and she's like I forgot to get up. We were supposed to. We're going on a cruise and she was supposed to, uh, register us at midnight.
Speaker 2:She slept the whole, the whole reason. She said, the whole reason.
Speaker 1:She wouldn't come is because she had to do this, and then she slept through the fucking alarm. Go to the show she, she bailed on me, just like you. She had the dumbest fucking excuse it was even worse.
Speaker 2:It was even worse than oh, you're gonna work for 28 hours.
Speaker 1:So we're partying hard. Kate gets up, we're still partying.
Speaker 2:She went back to bed, so you guys can still go on the cruise right, Because?
Speaker 1:she was convinced.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she got up at 3.30 and did it she was convinced that if she didn't log in exactly at midnight, we have the perfect spot.
Speaker 1:No cruise on the 10th.
Speaker 3:No, we have the perfect load. Is it just you two?
Speaker 1:and my kid, yeah, kid cool so, yeah, we're partying, and I had about what must have been. After katie went back to bed, the neighbor's lights turned on and I don't know if they were getting up for work, if we got them up, but that didn't stop the party, we just kept fucking going what time did you party? Till and then eventually people started like I don't know, maybe I was the one who was like let's fucking shut this bitch down and we moved it inside. What time was that we went inside? I don't know.
Speaker 3:Four, three, probably yeah, four or five.
Speaker 1:Four or five. Nice Dan complained that he couldn't sleep because it was too bright in my house, so that tells me that he went to bed after the sun came up. He goes what do you got? No blinds. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like it was so bright in your house when I tried to go to bed. So, yeah, I got inside, blew up a bunch of air mattresses. Yeah, dude, it was a fucking party in the morning. It was brutal.
Speaker 1:Courtney cleaned up, which was awesome, nice, so, like it was, I mean, it was still a fucking mess but there was at least four bags of garbage she had all tied up and shit like that and uh, I didn't do shit yesterday or sunday and then monday I finally got my act together and cleaned it all up and shit.
Speaker 2:Went back to being an adult, all right. So overall, I give the experience a seven out of 10.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're not writing shit, no more.
Speaker 2:Tony, I would be honored if you invited me. Every time they came within 25 minutes of my house, fuck yeah.
Speaker 1:Is Madison coming? But I'm going to tell you I'm not sure you live out west Does.
Speaker 2:Madison count. That's out of town, bro, is it?
Speaker 1:From where you are.
Speaker 2:It's almost a horse apiece that's getting a hotel at that point it's about the same.
Speaker 3:He's still like an hour and 40.
Speaker 1:Does Chicago count.
Speaker 3:Chicago's way out Fuck.
Speaker 2:Chicago's closer than Madison, isn't it? I don't Chicago, for should I actually need to go to Chicago for that? Being said I'm in Chicago all day tomorrow.
Speaker 1:I was pretty happy. You called I think it was Monday, we talked and you were like if they came to town again, I'd go. And then you said if they travel, I don't know why you would travel necessarily, or I'm not going to travel, or something you said and I was like, well, it's not not always the travel, it's at the party and the people that you go with. Right, tony Cause, most half the people that were there I met traveling to fucking shows you still have not said.
Speaker 3:You're rating shit now, so you have not rated the band.
Speaker 2:I gave the experience a 7 out of 10.
Speaker 3:No, rate the band.
Speaker 2:Rate the band Well. Considering I couldn't hear any lyrics and I don't know anything they do, I'm going to give the band a six.
Speaker 1:Here's what I got to do for you.
Speaker 2:But I'm going to give the party.
Speaker 1:So what I always need to do and it's always very helpful for shows I've been to to give a re-listen.
Speaker 1:So I'll get you the fucking ability to listen to the show where you'll be able to hear the soundboard quality lyrics, not the guy next to you, not the too loud drums, not the nothing, it's fucking prime sound. You'll hear the lyrics. You'll hear the little chings and the changs. You'll catch the drift of why they were going with the jam and why it changed and when it changed, and you might appreciate it more some just don't umphreys is hard to get, it is real quick.
Speaker 2:It's organized chaos, I agree. I agree, we we were telling our 12 year old about the show. We left out all the mushrooms and acid. But we told him about the show and he goes what? What kind of music was it?
Speaker 1:It's impossible to categorize.
Speaker 2:And there's no answer to that right.
Speaker 1:Do you know what I say? When people say what kind of music do they play, I immediately change it to what kind of music do you like? And whatever they say, I say they play that Because they can do it all. They have country songs.
Speaker 2:So we played a couple of their songs I thought it was trash. And no, it was actually. I like that. I like the alexa version of studio stuff it was. It was all covers. Oh and listen, dude, this this is the craziest shit ever. They'll play the music from one song and sing the words to a different song.
Speaker 1:Dude, I went to a concert.
Speaker 2:Different genres, it's mashups bro. Bro, it is listening to two different radio stations at the same time.
Speaker 1:I forget what that album's called, but they used to do concerts, especially around Halloween, and they used to do them in Milwaukee where they they did mashups and we would mash up costumes. I was dr house party once. My brother was silent bob barker like dude massive massive, silent that album's called zonkey, where they they put on the album.
Speaker 1:Then, after all these halloween mashup shows they used to do, they put on an album of all those tracks and they called it zonkey. It's a donkey and a zebra, I don't. It was pretty fucking cool. All right, you like that shit. See they, they musicianship for the masses, what they call it. They do a lot anyways. Anyways, I'm fucking glad you came, tony. I hope you had fun. I'm so glad you came, Tony, Gotta get you next time bro.
Speaker 2:One day, there you go.
Speaker 3:That's his polite way of saying don't even fucking ask me Shut up, tony, I never would not want someone to ask me to do something, never.
Speaker 2:You just have the ability of not showing up to it.
Speaker 3:Shut up. This is your enjoyment of top show stories with your host, tony, with the most uh, chris foot the stories and jn tech. Let's see you next time.
