I still burn for you--Drain STH & Snot, Frankies, Toledo, OH 7/3/97

	First off I want to say I REALLY regret missing Drain at Ozzfest
two weeks ago--they put on a wonderful show, and I look forward to seeing
them again when they come here in August!!
	Anyway, Jim (SinNINburN@aol.com)and I arrived at the club initally
around 7, but they weren't letting people in yet. We wandered in and the 
place was REALLY small. Like, half of it was a bar, and the other half
was a very tiny stage and an audience area that at the most probably held
about 75 people. Anyway, we go have dinner and get in line a little after
eight. We start talking to this guy Todd from Iowa who's following around
Drain...he was pretty cool :)  This one guy walked by and asked Jim if
he was in a band, and I was like "Yeah, he's the lead singer of Krokus"
...LOL (I know this was Erika's but I couldn't help it. Anyway...) So, for
the third time in three weeks, I've gone to a concert and they were late 
opening the doors...we go in around 9:40 and I get a spot in the front
row, which is cool cuz only about 6 ppl can fit across..the stage was
about a foot off the floor, and no barrier...truly the smallest place I've
ever seen a show in. I thought, this is going to be interesting.
	So the opening band, Snot comes on..I'd never heard of em before,
but I guess they have an album out on Geffen....anyway, they were pretty 
cool. They managed to move around a lot on stage considering how little
space they had, cuz both theirs and Drain's eq was up there.  It was funny,
cuz during their set one of the guitarists wanted to go get a beer, so he
pulled a guy out of the audience and had him play guitar while he went and
got a beer. it was pretty cool. They played for about half an hour, and I
got their set list...acutally I just grabbed it off the speaker, it was 
easily within reach =) Jim & I later joined Snot's (snail) mailing list :)
	So at about 11:50, Drain comes on..and I'm just like....WOW...not
just cuz they were good (which they were!) but because of how close I was,
like "Maria is like, a foot in front of me" I brought in a disposable
camera and got like, 10 pix...hopefully they'll turn out good. The crowd
started out mellow and then got crazy. Like during "Smile" the second song
of the set a little mosh pit started but no big deal. During the next song,
"I Don't Mind" is when chaos erupted..the people in the crowd started 
pushing towards the front and ended up pushing people onto the stage..I 
had my foot on the stage at one point, and ended up getting pushed to the
right side later. During that same song, I smiled at Maria and she grabbed
my hand....cool! The set list was(in order):

Crucified
Smile
I Don't Mind
Stench
Unreal
Serve The Shame
Someone
Crack
Klotera

Something called "Ace" was also listed on the set list (which I made sure
to grab as soon as the show ended), but wasn't played. During "Klotera"
I ended up getting pinned against the wall. It was still pretty cool though,
there was a chain hanging from the wall, and I just grabbed onto that and
hung on. The only bad thing was I couldn't really take pictures from that
position. I thought Drain sounded MUCH better live than on their CD, more
aggressive and not as, um, plodding, as they do on the CD. So, they played about 40 minutes, no encores...but the band did 
take a minute to slap hands of audience members..this one guy yelled
out to Martina, this guy in the audience was like "hey drummer!" so
I yelled "martina!!!" and she kinda acknowledged it and then the show was over
....I was just like 
NO MORE DRAIN?! I WANT MORE!! After the show, Jim
got a Drain T-shirt--I would have gotten one too, but didn't have enough
cash on me--*pout* guess I'll have to wait til the Metro show. However, we
did get some 8x10 promo glossies, postcards, and flyers. So had the nite
ended right there it would have been cool, but then we were told Drain was
doing a meet n greet of sorts in the adjoining restaurant. We got all the
band members' autographs and to talk to em and stuff,and we both got pix
taken with Flavia :) They were all really nice, and seemed
to speak English pretty well too. That rocked! So after that, we kinda had
to get going so we left. Man, I am so stoked. I can't wait til the show here 
on the 2nd, and I hope I'll be able to get my 'rents' car for milwaukee on 
the 3rd =)  I spent quite a bit of $$ on that trip too, but it was well worth
it. I'm going to put together a Drain page now (gotta get those pix developed)
too!! look for it soon!!