THAT'S HOW YOU SPELL L-O-V-E

When I first read about the WE Fest in Jersey Beat back in the 90's I swore one year I'd actually go. It sounded like a blast and every memorial day I would kick myself for missing out. Needless to say, fate turned in my favor and I joined a band and had some vacation time so with that I applied for a slot and was accepted. I was going to WE Fest. Finally! We Fest is a 5-7 day festival for underground bands that takes place every year over memorial day weekend in Willmington, North Carolina. It's mainly an excuse to drink and party and see some great bands. This year, even as a first timer, proved no exception.

Friday was bad. We had played a 'meh' gig at Trash Bar the night before and didn't get home until about 3am. So I was up at 7 and lugging my drum stuff and clothes bag with me on a really crowded subway. Work never ended and I had to run up to my school during lunch. Ugh. Anyhow the work day finally ended and I was ready to start partying. Stephanie surprised me by meeting me after work and journeying with me to Penn Station to meet up with the other guys. It was great to see her one last time before she went to Florida for a few weeks. We got to Princeton, ate some Hoagie Haven and passed out.

Saturday we were on the road by 11am. We found out that the AC in the car wasn't working. We figured we'd just deal with it. I also found out that Phil could drive the car some too so I wouldn't have to do both 9 hour drives by myself. Thank Christ! Trip down was fairly smooth. We rolled into Willmington around 8 and up to the Greentree Inn. I walked in to get the room keys.

"I'm sorry we don't have you listed."

"That's impossible. I called at 3 and said we would be late and they said the room was ready!"

"Well our policy is that if you don't give us a credit card number we only hold rooms until 6."

"I would have happily given you a credit card number but no one ever asked for one and I even told the guy that we would be here 7 or later so you think he would have told me that they were going to give our room away after 6!!!???!"

"Well that's universal policy. You should have known."

"FUCK YOU!"

So I stormed out of there to inform the rest of the band who after spending nine hours in a cramped, sweaty jeep were none too pleased to learn we may not have a place to sleep this weekend. We decided to head to the club to see if Jim Testa or Kenyata Sullivan, the festival organizer, knew of any places that would have vacancies. We were immediately inundated with offers of floors to sleep on and right away I knew that the "family" feeling Jim always talked about when he mentioned WE Fest was true. We opted to get some food and call around anyway. We went to a local hot dog place and the kind guy working the counter leant us his phonebook. So Frank and I set out calling hotels while Phil picked our spirits up a bit by telling us we had nice write ups in the free weeklies. Kenyata had really gone above and beyond in terms of promotion for the fest. After calling about 50 places and being greeted with "Sure don't" when asked if they had any vacancies for Memorial Day weekend we finally found one at a place called the Sea Breeze Motel. The guy working the counter was very sympathetic to our plight and bent over backwards the entire time we were there to accomodate us. Cheers to them. We loaded our stuff in the hotel and went back to the club Soapbox to catch the last couple WE Fest bands of the night. I finally got to see Jim drunk after knowing him for about ten years. That ruled. Afterwards we gave him a ride to the beach house he was staying in which was only three blocks from the hotel we were in. That also ruled. We then crashed out.

Sunday morning I had to wake up at 8:30am to move the car. Whoever designed Wrightsville Beach didn't make nearly enough parking. Car got moved and I went back to bed for a few hours. We got up around noon, got some Waffle House breakfast then got our swimsuits on and went to the beach. The water was great and put all of us in good moods. Afterwards we changed and Frank, Ed and myself went out to see X-Men 3 while Phil stayed in the hotel to do some work. X3 kind of ruled despite everyone telling me it sucked. Yeah they marginallized a whole mess of characters stories but it served the point of the film just fine. I was entertained. Afterwards we dropped Frank back at the hotel because he wasn't feeling well and the rest of us headed back to the Soapbox to check out more bands. We really wanted to see Sparks Fly From a Kiss because 1.) they rule and 2.) I've known their keyboardist since he was 10 years old on account of his brother Dan being a good friend of mine. They did indeed rule.

Monday we got up early, checked out of the hotel and drove our stuff over to Jim's beach house where we would be crashing that night. Jim and his guests ruled and were awesome people. Because the rest of my band our haters, only Jim and myself went on the Dawson's Creek walking tour of downtown Willmington. Jim was a great tour guide because in addition to the printed walking tour we had he also filled me in on both historical events that had happened there (Willmington is an ancient trading port) and WE Fest history. I saw the wall Pacey bought Joey (picture of me in front of said wall forthcoming), the lot where the Icehouse used to be, Leery's Fresh Fish and Screenplay Video. Fuck yeah! We also went into this one market that has autographs of all the famous people who have passed through over the years on it's wall and in addtion to people like Josh Jackson and James Earl Jones...right smack in the middle was Joe Don Baker's autograph. Fuck yeah indeed! Afterwards I swam for a bit in the ocean again, got a bit of dinner and changed into my duds four our set that night. Two bands ended up cancelling so the final night of WE Fest was to be a three band night with us as the last band at 11:30. We iniitally went into this whole festival on the grounds that it was primarily going to be a vacation. We had little to no expectations for the gig and with our initial timeslot of 1am on Memorial Day Monday we had little reason to expect anything but. However, we probably played one of our best shows ever. The Soapbox has both a stage and a floor soundman. Plus the stage is HUGE so there was tons of room to maneuver. I'll admit there was a bit of pressure on us to 'bring it' as both the closer of the fest and for Jim who went out on a limb to get us on WE Fest in the first place sight unseen and I think we more than brought it. The crowd stayed, seemed really into it, bought LOTS of merch afterwards and we now have a bunch of contacts for future shows in the south! We even brought Jim on stage to close with a "goth'd" out version of the WE Fest song which he wrote and sang. We did it flawlessly without ever rehearsing. We drove home in insanely high spirits and celebrated with some beers on the beach. We crashed three of us to one king sized bed and Phil on the floor.

Tuesday we got up very early, had a bit of breakfast, said goodbye to everyone in the house and headed off. At this point having no AC in the car kind of sucked. The weather stayed at a constant 97 degress all the way up to NJ. We had the windows rolled down but were blasted with nothing but hot air. Getting stuck in Baltimore traffic didn't help either. We got to Princeton around 10pm. Frank had eaten some bad Wendy's so he puked as soon as we got in the door. We then headed right back out to the Princeton Junction train station to catch the 11pm train to the city. I jumped in a cab, got stuck on the 59th st bridge and was home at 1am. Now I'm at work and we have band practice later. It never ends.

Humungeous props to Jim, Kenyata and everyone we met this weekend. I can't believe I waited so long to go to WE Fest but now I'm fairly sure it will be a yearly tradition. At least for myself.