Sloan

October 14, 2012 Lafayette College Fall Fest, Easton, Pennsylvania USA. Sloan has always been amazing, the catalog of music that easily stands up to any other bands in intellect, exuberance is immense! The versatility of each member of the band in that each write songs and can switch instruments marks them as unique and brilliant in their ability to be seen at times as four different bands. I myself became a fan at the time Between the Bridges came out, being introduced to them by a college professor. It's safe to say that the melodic, intricate rocking pop hooked me for life. As my kids got inundated with Sloan tunes always being played either in the house or the car, they quickly caught the "Slo - own" fever, I was always disappointed that they were to young to be admitted at the venues the band were typically booked at in the Philadelphia area, as I wanted to share the great concert experience with them. This time, band management let us know of this not typical gig at the college that was happening the day after the Philly show that was perfect for us all to attend. We drove up and waited as another band played on well beyond their slotted time, which built up the anticipation for our heroes. The boys and I kidded around that we would go behind the stage and unplug some of their cords as we anxiously awaited our heroes arrival. Well the time finally rolled around that the stage crew came on and put Sloan's equipment in place and the friendly man in charge of the band merch struck up a lively conversation with us and we discussed everyone's impressions of the band and what they mean to us, its albums and venues etc. I bought a band Tshirt and then Andrew came out to tune his drum kit. When the rest of the band got onstage, they tuned quickly and Chris announced to the crowd that they were going to be playing LOUD. Yay!
Ready For You was an excellent choice to start the show, followed by Who Taught You and then Chris looked right at us and proclaimed this next one being for us in particular as we displayed full enthusiasm; Keep On Thinkin, which we loved! Other high lights included Coax Me, Losing California, The Lines You Amend and ended with the call to arms anthem of Money City Maniacs, which somehow I managed to record by handheld camera while singing along full out to! The band gave it and us in particular their best effort, which may have been difficult with the audience being quite sparse. The band manager was impressed by my sons and my enthusiasm and told us the band would come out to us after the show and greet us. Andrew came out followed by Chris and Jay and kidded around with us, they are such REAL people, so nice, and so cool. We got our pictures with them, got all 4 autographs on a CD graciously given us by management, my son got to actually hold Chris's bass and Jay actually signed a pumpkin that was kicked offstage earlier by Chris. We were also invited into the bus and got to see how the band travels in fine style and also were then invited to eat with the band! There lively conversation ensued with some Spinal Tap moments popping up including Andrew coming in and scrawling "Helloo Cleveland!!" on the chalkboard, and discussions on the band's lodgings at Brooklyn which they headed to after we departed. They signed gig posters for us from the Philly show and they gave us an unforgettably great day with their kindness. My boys were gushing about this experience all night, and we love you all including the gracious manager and merch man; it was a great show and experience which felt like was exclusively for us - thank you to all of the entity that is SLOAN!