showless?

i’m wondering if i’m having a self-inflicted theme of “without years”…

…for instance, 2023 we didn’t really travel outside of the austin – san antonio corridor. and then, in 2024, i didn’t get tattooed. i think this might be the first year, in quite a while, without a concert.

i can’t recall a single year since 2000 where i didn’t go to at least one show. i’m sure there’s a year in there, somewhere, but i can’t recall it. hell, my first thought was 2009 since i was unemployed for most of it but even then i spent my first unemployment check on going to see (and somehow meeting) cheech & chong. i even cut out of working at atomic to go see depeche mode almost one month to the day after i got hired there at the woodlands – one of two times i made that drive solo to see em.

famously, in 2023, i hit a lot of shows. in 2024 the count was only two – souls of mischief / pharcyde / cypress hill in april, and agnostic front / reverend horton heat / suicidal tendencies / misfits in august. two really well stacked bills, mixtures of bands i’d seen and hadn’t, and unlike the 2023 shows (where i went solo to all of em) this time i went with friends from work to both.

this year i hadn’t planned anything but then the ufc surprised me when she got ticket so see less than jake (eh) and fishbone (now we’re talking) because a friend of hers was coming to town since she was close to angelo, the lead singer, and i was gonna use it to kick off three shows of bands i’d never seen, adding disclosure in houston and joey valance & brae in austin. but, alas, her knee took a turn before the recent surgery which has had me rethinking the whole plan due to my physical issues of late.

we’ll see…

the other two shows are in the fall, so i’ll see if the new stretching / pills regiment takes hold and makes things seem a little more realistic by then.