Part 12
Brian said he'd play one more show and we had a good one booked at the local VFW hall. We had given up trying to find bars in the suburbs so we decided to lie to local hall rental folks and book our own shows with us and our friends' bands. The Gurnee VFW was the first one we tried. Me and Pete had gone in there and met with Red, the old-timer in charge of renting out the hall. He was the prototypical crotchety old VFW hall type of dude. We sat down with him at the bar and told him with straight faces that we wanted to hold a 'dance' with live music. Specifically a 'dance' for 'the kids'. When Red asked me what kind of music we'd be having I told him, "You know, dance music." He gave us a mean look, but he went for it. We booked a Sunday afternoon and left giggling.
To advertise for upcoming shows, we'd combine our shoplifting trips with flyering trips. We'd do our usual business, then leave a stack of flyers on the way out the door. This was not only a few short weeks after the "talent show" disaster but it was also the first all-ages punk show in the Wildwood/Gurnee area. There'd been a couple death metal-type shows with the occasional punk band tossed in [Ed. note-I vividly remember seeing No Empathy at the Libertyville VFW on one of these type of shows, which also featured a post-Paul Alford version of Not-Us], but not a regular, city-type punk show, so anticipation was high.
We wanted to get Ron into the act so we thought it would be funny if he sang the national anthem before we played. I'm not sure why this was funny, but it sounded hilarious. When showtime came, we were all really shocked by the turnout. We had 120 paid by the time the first band, so we were amped to rock it the fuck out.
When the time came and we were tuned up and lubed up, Ron took his place at the mic and without any ado leapt into an earnest accapella version of the Star Spangled Banner. At first people were just confused. A little heckling, but mostly just looking around wondering who WAS this guy? Then the spit came. First once, then again. Suddenly, Ron was standing up to a veritable spit shower. At one point, a loogie of formidable size caught him on the nose and just hung there, as Ron sang on with dedication. He finished the song, spit back, and we played Brian's farewell show.
