Weekend Update aka Landis Shat His Panel

We arrived at Sound of Music on Friday at 5pm for something called "sound check," which we were previously unfamiliar with, but have come to appreciate and even love. After setting up our equipment and playing through a couple of "numbers", we all departed to Christine's house for some wonderful avocado hummus and butternut squash lasagna. Upon our return to Sound of Music, we witnessed the first live Ringfinger performance. After some technical issues, things smoothed out and the crowd seemed to have fallen under the RingFing spell by the end of the set. Then we played. We were in a good mood, and the crowd was great and relatively large (not individually, but as a whole). We didn't sell many CD-R's, but several people asked if we could e-mail them once the vinyl is finished. We certainly will do this. And I will certainly post it here.

Saturday we woke up and headed to Harrisonburg. There, Landis spoke on a panel about independent publishing. He can be seen above making a completely natural and unintentional talking face during said panel. After Dan took this photograph, he showed it to Elise, John, and Jay who attempted unsuccessfully to stifle laughter for the next 30 minutes. We then headed over to the Artful Dodger and caught a lively set from our friends the Invisible Hand, followed by Whatever Brains (who John recognized from the Jackpot in Raleigh), followed by a band that Jon Bray said sounded like 2002. The Iron City Lager was flowing and good times were had by all. Finally, we headed over to Court Square Theater, loaded in, and played a disappointingly low-energy set for a disappointingly low-energy crowd. We were appropriately and slighly harshly taken to task here by a grumpy blogger. To you, sir, we apologize and hope that you can find it in your heart to give us another chance. We loaded out, sold a couple of t-shirts, and hit the highway so as not to have to look this gentleman in the face. More photos of the happy times during the day can be found here. Like a phoenix, we will rise from the ashes of MACRoCk 2009 and set stages across this great land on fire with our gamboge Decemberists-go-garage wings.