I went to see Dminished Men at the High Dive tonite. I thought, they are the second band, if I get there at 10pm I should catch almost all of their set. I arrived at 10 and the cover was $12. I love Diminished Men, so I paid up, even though this is a ridiculous price for a small venue thursday night show, with little known touring band. This touring band is some hippy “jazz oddessy” band from Oklahoma. Yes, apparently Oklahoma has hippies.
Anyway – I love the Oregon County Fair as much as the next bike-commuting-uses-a-commuter-mug-organic-farmer’s-market-shopper, but these guys got some issues. The first issue, charging $12 for your out-of-town thursday night show. Next, at 10:10 some dude from the “jazz oddessy” shows up demanding to know when Diminished Men will be off the stage. WOW. So I got to hear 3 songs, and they were amazing, this time with tenor sax player, they did what sounded like a cover of the “Carnival” theme. They were great.
So then, I was chatting with Diminished Men and 45 minutes go by, and the “jazz oddessy” is goofing around and taking their sweet time getting set up. That is 30 more minutes than they should need, and 30 minutes that I should have been listening to Diminished Men. The venue was NOT packed with “jazz oddessy” fans. Anyway – I left on principal 45 minutes after they kicked the other band off stage and still hadn’t played a song.