… in Santa Cruz – a whole three weeks before San Francisco. Which maybe is a device to allow Santa Cruzians to go to both? Anyway, it also means we’re down in Santa Cruz playing the Pink Party – a Pride after-party at the Attic.

The Attic is a really nice space – with the music in a huge loft like room upstairs – with lots of wood and an open airy feel. But that does mean that we have to take the equipment up the world’s smallest/slowest elevator, and that the sound is inherently bright and echoing.

We’re on first, and by the time we’ve set up and helped set up the sound system and sound-checked, everything is running late. But Catie (the promoter) had built in a fair amount of contingency un the running order and juggles the schedule around so that we go on a tad later, and that all the bands get pretty much the same set time.

So… we get to go on around 8;30pm, which has the advantage that it is getting dark outside (it just feels so funny going on while it is still light),and that the Santa Cruz Pride marchers (today is the Dyke March) have made it back and are starting to fill the place. We have about fifty minutes, which means we’re doing all but a few songs, covering all the new stuff and most of the old. And the set goes down really well, with an audience who are clearly there to party – dancing and bopping from the first bars of “I won’t go”. The only negatives is that they stop dancing if we bring the tempo down just a bit (eg for 10000 Days and Kelly) and that the echo/brightness makes lyrics hard to hear. This is particularly noticeable later when the Fruitie Flavors are on, and their stuff is very humorous/witty, but gets a bit lost because the words are largely lost.

Anyway… a good night… but it feels hard to stay awake on the way back up 280 to SF at two in the morning…