Birthday

For my sweet 16, i decided to coincide my party with the Jump Little Children concert happening at Ziggy's the following Saturday. Sweet Jesus it was the best birthday party ever!

Not only was Jump Little Children doing a concert at Ziggy's that night, but they were holding a free mini-acoustic show at the Record Exchange. So at 2, Fields Droo and I went to Record Exchange and found a nice little spot from which to watch the little acoustic set.
They came on and played 6 songs from their new CD, Vertigo. The set was pretty cool...a really low-key performance. In the middle of one of the songs, Ward's cell phone went off.

After the show they set up a table and signed things for the audience. Wearing a shirt reading IT'S MY BIRTHDAY, I got David Lee's cymbal he gave me and a poster signed. I'm going to give the poster to my new friend Anna (if she ever decides to pick it up) who had to have oral surgery on Friday, thus missing the whole experience. When we went back to talk to them after Fields's mom brought his camera, the band put my newly autographed cymbal on my head and hit it with pens. It was most excellent. I got a picture of it if Fields ever decides to bring it to me.

After the mini-concert, we headed to Speas for the formal party. At our usual frisbee playing time and location, we.....played frisbee. Interesting, I know. But I brought cupcakes and soda....so it was a party. Trust me.

And two people brought me presents....more than I would have otherwise guessed. Sherry got me 5 bucks and free admission to the show....most excellent. Fields looted the Dollar Store, spending 3 bucks on like twenty bucks worth of candy on which I will be feasting until mid July.

After that, all the cool people at the party made their way onward to Ziggy's for the real show. Still wearing my super-cool IT'S MY BIRTHDAY shirt, we were like 15th in line at the door. I got in free (with a 4 dollar donation the red cross) and secured a spot 3 deep in the pit, next to droo, alex, fields, john, and some of the chicks we met at record exchange.

The opener was a guy named Howie Day. He was just a guy with an acoustic guitar, but he was really a one-man band. He'd drum on the body of the guitar to get a drum beat and then set a pedal to repeat it; then he'd do a little bassline and set that to repeat. The he'd do the guitar and vocals over the top of his rhythm. It was really cool and I was impressed. He also dropped a couple of random covers...the Titanic Song, a Pearl Jam song, Hit Me Baby One More Time...and some other random stuff like that. And dammit, he's not fake!

The Jump came out and rocked the joint. They played almost every song off of Vertigo, about 5 off of Magazine, 2 off of Licorice Tea and 3 or 4 unreleased songs. It was an awesome set.

Perhaps the coolest thing about the show was the fact that I brought my digital camera. I got about 40 pictures and they came out awesome. I'm so happy they worked. I've got them all posted here, so check em out.

Birthday Concert Pictures