New London, CT, Saturday, June 30th, 2007. The Pist reunite (again). Click pics to enlarge. All photos copyright me. Look at the looks on people's faces in the crowd. It says something about a band when they can do a show a good decade after they've broken up and still get that kind of reaction.

The sign outside the club. I guess they don't have many T's.

I met Brian (far right, drumming) in the late 90s, a few years after The Pist had broke up. We started a band called The Pac-Men. The rest of us in The Pac-Men hadn't been followers of The Pist, which was good, because Brian easily could've had people joining a band with him for the purpose of "being in a band with a dude from The Pist." In 2002, The Pist reunited for the final shows at New Haven's Tune Inn. At that point, I'd become a fan, but, you know, they didn't exist anymore. So it was great to see them--and great to see Brian drumming, since he's such a great drummer but was the singer for our band. (Which, thankfully, also had a great drummer.) I'll never forget being in the back of the Tune Inn, seeing the Pist start playing, and watching the crowd instantly explode. It was like a giant blender being turned on. The above shot is the initial insanity from Saturday night. It was just as, if not more, Blender-ific as it was in '02.

The Rest of The Pist, Bill, Al, and Rick. My friend Anthony had noted that the high speaker at left would most likely become a launching pad. He was right, as many folks dove off into the crowd. Who was it that said "it's just not a show unless someone lands on your head?"

More insanity. We'd wondered how many people we'd run into from the old days. And we saw a lot. They are sprinkled thoughout these pics. It was cool that my ggirlfriend got to meet all these people she's heard a lot about.

I like how the guy on top of the crowd has one shoe-foot and one sock-foot. Oh, just an aside: Don't go to New London if you don't have to. Crazy people are everywhere. As Caitlin and Anthony and my girlfriend and I were sitting on the pier, minding our own business, a woman started yelling at us and threatening my girlfriend. Terrible job, that lady. Of course, the cops were more interested in the punks around the venue, there only to have a good time, than the psychos milling about the downtown.

Don't know what Al's talking to Brian about here, but Brian's not a zombie, I swear.

Singing to Shoes: The Al Story.

At left, fist raised, with Lee Harvey Oswald face and Stiffs shirt: Our friend Chris, who used to book a lot of Pac-Men shows and got a lot of people into us.

Crowd singing along.

At this point, the stage was getting pretty crowded....

This guy's not so much stage diving as stage falling. Oh, so I also talked to someone who was a big Pac-Men fan, who I'd remembered from our shows back in the day. He talked about how much fun he had at our shows and how we should reunite. Awesome. Look for yourself in these pics, guy!

For the last song, Street Punks, Al invited anyone to just come up and sing along with him. (As if they wouldn't have anyway.) It was a really fun show. I can't wait to see them again up near me in Cambridge on my birthday, September 8th, as part of their minimalistic reunion tour. Supposedly some kind of new collection of all their stuff should be out at some point. Watch for that.

The next morning, after sleeping at my parents' house, my girlfriend and I went into New Haven to eat at Clare's, and we found ourselves back in good ol' 1955. The street had been turned into a fifties street, in a mythical town called Bedford, for a movie shoot.

While eating, we overheard someone mention Harrison Ford, Steven Spielburg, and "the Nazis." That's when I knew this must be the new Indiana Jones film. Above, a "Fun-Phone."

Here's a coffee shop turned into the "Bedford Coffee Shop." We didn't see any actors, though. (I won't bore you with my pic of Indy's stand-in.) Note: Had I seen Harrison Ford, I'd planned to ask him to give me an autograph for Chan, signed, "You switched the samples!"

Then we drove all the way up to New Milford, CT, to the Elephant's Trunk, a huge outdoor flea market. I wanted to show my girlfriend some of this stuff from my CT days. I got a Rico Petrocelli pin. Then I took her across the border to New York State, and she finally got to experience Rosemary's Texas Taco. The above "cars" are parked outside. And that's all you need to know about that place. There may or may not be a live monkey in the back, but I know there's a parrot in there because it's talked to me. Great burritos, too.

Then we drove down to New York City, and, amazingly, made it there by 2:30 PM. I'd seen Rod y Gab on Letterman, and made a note to see them live. The only place they were playing anywhere around the northeast was Summerstage in Central Park. Love the Summerstage. It's not Summer til you're standing in Central Park, surrounded by green, hearing (usually) free music. Don't you hate when people say something as if it refers to everyone when it really just refers to them? Sorry. But Summerstage does rule. Try it someday.

Basically, these two are from the Mexican thrash metal scene. But they started playing on acoustic guitars, and doing the percussion by pounding on them. They are both incredible guitarists. They do lots of Metallica songs mixed in with their own. And other rock hits from the past. I wonder how many people leave their shows saying "I couldn't see the drummer," only to be told by their friends that that huge, full-band sound was created by just two people with acoustics. Here, Gab raises a hook'em horns to the crowd, as she does after literally every song.

Close-up of Gabriela.

Got this different angle of them on our way out. Then we went downtown and ate Italian food. Our waiter was a Sox fan from Brookline. Gold. Got back to New Haven before midnight and lazed on the beach the next day. You can't beat life. Terrible job, dude from Milli Vanilli who killed himself. My girlfriend referred to my travel itinerary as "trying to stuff 10 pounds of potatoes into a five-pound bag." I think we got 12 in there.