This will be the third time this week I am up past 2AM. Oddly, I haven’t really felt the lack of sleep – to the contrary, I almost feel like I have more energy. Odd.

So “Operation: Harass Dan Burke” is over before it began. He actually returned the first message I left last night, and immediately went into how bad, financially, Monday night was. Blah blah blah. Quite obviously, we’re not getting paid, and that’s actually okay – the lessons learned from that one evening are far more valuable. He offered us another show next week with a couple acts I’ve never heard of, he said it’d be more profitable, but since we have Wavelength that weekend and really would rather not deal with Danny boy unless it’s necessary or really beneficial, I passed. My biggest regret is that I don’t get to keep calling and leaving happy fun messages for him, and that he didn’t offer me a pair of shoes.

On a related note, I have seem to have been appointed/acclaimed ‘manager’ of Lake Holiday, which basically means I get to deal with the fun bullshit like the above. Why? Because no one else wants to but someone has to. I had been taking care of a lot of (read: all) the financial and logistic stuff anyway, but now I guess I have to start paying attention to shows, bookings, etc etc. Despite the personality requirements for this position running totally contrary to my own personal nature, I’ll give it a go. But first I need to get a cricket bat.

You know you’ve been to too many shows in too short a period of time when you’re more concerned with getting good pictures instead of the music. So was the case at Rainer Maria tonight. Between scurrying from one side of the stage to the other trying to catch them in action and the fact that I was wearing earplugs (my ears still haven’t recovered from Tuesday), the show almost turned into background music. It’s tough to snap a three-piece on stage when they’re set up pretty far apart and frequently pogo-ing all over the place. I got some good ones, though.

It was a good show – high energy and fast paced. Kyle Fischer has got more rock guitar moves than anyone I’ve ever seen and sweats like a fiend. I’d always thought that Caithlin de Marrais’ voice was a little thin and reticent on the older records, and was pleased with the vocal strength displayed on Long Knives Drawn. Her improved delivery really helped out the older material, which had considerably more fire and energy. Their between-song political commentary, however well intentioned, came off kinda vague and unnecessary, though. The crowd was smallish, but very enthusiastic and the band seemed really pleased with the response. I enjoyed the show but am at the point where I’m more concerned with getting all the concerts on my schedule over with. I’m glad August is wide open – Radiohead is it for the month right now. I need to take a breather.

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