Apr
23
2011

The Persuaders @ Sky Bar

As Opposed To "Sky Box"

PhotosSaturday, April 23, 2011 - 11:22:59 pm
(Posted Under: Tempe Music Scene Tempe Music Scene, Music Music, Live Shows)
What's the worst thing you can do after traveling to Tucson to see a band? Go to the wrong bar at show time. [wink] Well, maybe there are worse things to do, but still, it's not a great thing to do.

After leaving Zia's, it was somewhat concerning driving out to Skybox, which seemed really reminiscent of driving to Eltham [wink] especially since I FELT like this place should be somewhere near 4th Ave. Or at least somewhere that looked like 4th Ave more than East Jesus Tucson. And even more concerning when we got there, right on 9, but there was not a familiar face to be found! But this HAD to be the place, right? Right?!? [smile] Or were we confused with the place in Gilbert that the Black Moods play? After sitting around and having a smoke for 10 minutes, we decided use the downstairs library's free wi-fi to confirm we were at the right place. As it turns out, the Skybox is where the Black Moods play, and they happen to have one in Tucson also. And it wasn't where The Persuaders were playing tonight. That was the Sky Bar, as I'd thought, on 4th Avenue. Damn you Josh Kennedy! [wink]

Thankfully, rock never actually starts at 9pm, and tonight was no exception, which completely saved our bacon. It was a good 25 minutes to get down to 4th Avenue, and we didn't leave Sky Box until at least 9:15. I noticed tonight another thing about Tucson that is more like Melbourne than Phoenix - the drivers. They're not lunatics! However, in our desperate attempts to get to Sky Bar, I think I bitched out everyone on the road like I that would have made any Phoenician proud. [smile] My sincerest apologies to Tucson drivers. You should all be applauded, and I would have done as much in any other situation that the one we were in. [lol] We happened to pull up at the bar at 9:45 to find the band only just finishing setting up. Phew. It's times like these that I really appreciate the fact that rock never really starts at 9pm!

The guys put on a great, and quite long set which really made it even more worth the trip down. As to appreciated that we didn't actually miss any of it! It was certainly the longest single set we've seen, so it was cool to get the entire catalog, including One Soul (which we haven't seen in a while) and a couple of covers.

This afternoon's photo shooting had left me with virtually no space left (yes, on and 8GB card - shooting RAW at full res will do that to you), but I was amazingly able to shoot one video before completely running out of space. Given how dark the stage was, I could barely see what I was shooting, and am kind of amazed that I managed to keep everyone mostly in frame.



Given that later start and long set, Silverbell didn't go on until a little before midnight. Halfway through The Persuader's set we both realized that it was going to be pushing it to stay for all of Silverbell, which was a shame as we had gone down to see them as much as the Persuaders. We did however manage to get in 5 songs before agreeing that it was time to hit the I-10, at least if we wanted to get back to Tempe alive. It seemed like a lot of our favorite Silverbell songs were played in that first five, which at least made the unfortunate reality of having to bail a bit easier.

After doing the rounds out the back we were back out on the road, with a short diversion to find a fast food restaurant that was open, since we'd had nothing to eat all day. As much as we pride ourselves on being hard core, there is an argument that we probably should start making our rock n' roll road trips to Tucson an overnight stay. While that's true, we managed to make it back to Tempe in one piece, and by 2:20am, which was pretty impressive.

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