Hell’s Belles refused to play until the club took the Confederate flag down from the stage. When we got to the club, the tension had a name, personality, and a beverage of choice. It was just weird, weird, weird. The tension amongst the Hell’s Bellers was kinda weird too. Amy’s a vegetarian. The
people at the club couldn’t understand that. They sent someone out for a garden burger. That person never returned.

They had guards at the front entrance to the
parking lot. “Where’s your tickets?” the toothless employees asked. We dropped our stuff off and went somewhere to eat. A sports bar. That was our choice. Itwas 7pm and everyone, maybe even the bar staff, was DRUNK. I kept hiding my mauve-polished fingers. The adult bookstore was closed until Jan 2. Shawn and I waved at it each time we passed.

Our motel room was the site of many a Calvin Klein ad photo session. Wood paneling. Shawn had a polaroid camera. And a thong.

Back at the club at 9pm. The Roadhouse. It was huge. The first band, a bunch of local boys, were already playing their Creed-esque brand of hard rock. The crowd, 500 and DRUNK, were eating it up. We ran to
the back band room. My hands were shaking I was so fucking nervous. The crowd was dressed in their finest, vintage 1973. The whole town. Harley folks. Old folks. Mullets. Luckily there were some tattoo’d punk looking kids.

Some fucking freak dressed in a black muscle shirt (sans muscles) kept coming into the back room. I guess he was the local radio personality. I guess he worked at KISW Twisted Radio like 100 years ago and
was still playing that card. He’d come back, make fun of the Odwalla juices (as per Hell’s Belles rider), take a swig from Shawn’s bottle of Jager, and ask “where’s the black chick from Hell’s Belles?” Amy would glare at him and say “Her name is Om.” Everyone would stare at this guy until he would leave, only to return 2 minutes later and be more pathetic. After the first band played he was telling bad AC/DC jokes and say “let’s hear from the 40 foot fake out fans” (the 1st band) and the crowd would scream. “Now let’s
hear it from the Studfiner fans!” Dead silence. Repeat. (Later when Hell’s Belles was on stage, he
had Amy got in a huge fight. She was telling him to fuck off and get off the stage and he was going “Don’t
talk to me that way. You don’t know who you’re talking to” like he was the drummer from PaulRevere
and the Raiders or J.Lo’s hairdresser or something, I don’t know.

So we played. At first the audience was polite. 3 songs in, the applause seemed to um…stop. We did a Slayer cover, and that broke ‘em back a little. It was so fucking loud. I kept asking them to turn the
guitar down in my monitor. They would then turn it up. Repeat. I thought we sounded good, nonetheless. Luckily, we had our 6 friends up front while we played. And Betty Lou and her husband Stu, who danced to everything. At one point, Shawn said, “Hello, we hail from Seattle where the official motto is’come ride our ferries.’”

When we finished, I hid in the back room where I read a Sports Illustrated history book.

The 3rd band on the bill had been touring with Hell’s Belles. The guitarist is HB’s bass player’s husband. They were a nice bunch of boys playing totally 70’s classic boogie rock. The crowd LOVED them.

Om showed up totally fucked up. When HB got on stage, she did more drunken ranting than singing. It was kinda funny and the crowd loved getting berated and spit upon her. White male/Black chick thing. Amy was furious. I finally ventured into the crowd. The club supplied festive wear that said “2001.” They must have gotten a deal on last year’s New Years supplies. It was hilarious. Shawn had already gone from chatting-up to blatantly hitting on the 400 pound ex-Canadian Football League bouncer, following him around the club in his spaghetti-strap slut top. Brian was pretty drunk, doing high-kicks and pogo-ing all over the locals. At midnight (though it was probably really 12:30 by then) there was a lame balloon drop. I looked down and saw people on the ground. I thought “oh look, how cute!” It turned out to be some kind of bar room brawl and the boys weren’t kissing. I didn’t see any blood.

Shawn crawled on stage with HB and got dry humped by Amy. His bouncer boyfriend started to avoid him.
I was cruising some guy. He waved. He said, “Didn’t you just walk by 2 seconds ago?” I said, “uh…” He said, “Hey I’m really drunk. I thought you guys were great. I like Van Halen, but you were all right. Did I tell you I’m really drunk. Do you want to go outside?” He didn’t pull back when I….touched
him. He’s lived in Blaine all his life. He was…HOT HOT HOT! And DRUNK. And then his skanky little girlfriend with the blemishes of malnutrition and worry over her drunken and probably gay boyfriend
appeared and kept following us around. My drunk boy kept inviting me back to their house. “I’m really drunk. We live just over the hill.” The skanky ho had a friend with her who was also worried because HER
drunken boyfriend disappeared. I guess this is a local thing. I gave him a CD and my phone number. The crowd was thinning and Om was still spitting venom from the stage. We got paid our full amount without having to beg for it. $300.