31st
BACK ON MEMORY LANE!!! You know when I said I would be spreading this out I really didn’t think I would be spreading it out this long. At this point I basically put one of these up when I want to procrastinate from doing actual work. So keep that in mind. The longer the entry. the more I don’t want to write some hilarious ha-ha sketch I am supposed to write.
So this is a poster from the second to last Orchid show ever. We had done a final 5 week tour with The Red Scare and Lightning Bolt when I graduated college right before I moved to New York. And Orchid had recorded our last lp. But with 3 of the members in New York and Will still in Amhearst/Northampton area and Panthers starting up, Orchid was on its final leg. So when Combat Wounded Veteran, one of our brother bands(we had done a split 6 inch that I was not a part of. And Orchid had toured with Combat before I was in the band) said they were planning a weekend of what would be their final shows we figured this was the time to go out.
Combat held a special place in my heart anyways. They were one of my favorite bands of that era. And I loved those dudes especially Chris Norris. And one of my strongest memories from the first Orchid tour I went on was hanging out at the Combat house. I spent a lot of time staring at a VHS only “Suspiria” poster that they had hanging up (that i fell in love with and spent many moons looking for, finally getting one off Ebay a year ago which i am currently staring at.) And sitting listening to Norris and Jay Green pour over the Blackest Heart media catalog, talking about how their was an edition of “Dr. Butcher M.D” out. Also the first place I think I heard Fabio Frizzi. So a big time. and again awesome dudes.
So yeah all in all the actual Philly show I don’t remember much. I know Sean “He slapped Steve Aoki in the face” Agnew set it up at the church. I honestly don’t remember Atom And his Package playing but I also thought that An Albatross also played. You would think it being the second to last show for Orchid(we played one more show at a tiny room in Cambridge MA the next day where we ended up having to play two separate shows because so many people came out). But you would think I would have stronger memories about the set itself. My strongest memory is that Stefan from Philly kept throwing his glasses at us while we played. Which I thought was both the weirdest thing you could do while you saw a band and also at that moment the most annoying thing ever. I do remember Combat Wounded Veteran destroying that night. And when they started off with the first song off of the “Duck Down For The Torso” 10” i had to fight every urge to destroy everything in the church.
In retrospect, i think Combat was awesome that night but that overwhelming desire to destroy everything might have been coming from another place, seeing as my entire world and a giant chapter of my life was closing. Ahhhhhhhh memories
