show review: the sleepover disaster @ the big takeover

it really almost was a sleepover disaster this weekend.

how's that? well, we'll get to that in a second.

you see, this last weekend, i had the pleasure of taking my wife out to brooklyn, new york. while we'd been to nyc, we hadn't been to brooklyn, and we had the opportunity to go. you see, our good friends in the sleepover disaster were playing at the big takeover's anniversary festival. the show was 2 days long, and had like 16 bands playing. we knew we wouldn't attend the whole show, but we would see many of the acts on saturday when sleepover was playing. we secured free entry to the gig by being the merch people for sleepover - a fair trade in my opinion.

monticore & i flew out of fresno, and had a decent set of flights. nothing noteworthy, but we did enjoy sending joking texts to our colorado friend jay while we were in the denver airport.

anyway, we arrived in ny, checked into our hotel and began to wander the neighborhood a little bit. thursday night we ate some delicious gourmet pizza at a little place, found a spot for some libations and called it a night.

the band was flying in friday evening, so we planned to do some touristing in the area & then meet up with the band later. they were staying at the same hotel as us, and we thought we may be able to catch a drink after they were in. so, we headed out exploring, focusing mainly on the area of prospect park. we hit up the brooklyn museum, which was great, and the brooklyn botanic garden, which was pretty cool as well. after a lot of walking, we decided to go chill at the hotel for a bit before dinner & the band showed up. this is where the disaster begins to filter in.

you see, the band missed their flight. due to some terrible l.a. traffic (fly fresno, boys!) the band didn't get on their scheduled bird. of course, it was one of those classic situations where they got to the gate, the plane was still there, but the doors were closed and they couldn't board. so, they got put on standby for the next two flights that night. both were full.

the next morning, i got a text from vince and he told me that there were 3 possible flights they were trying to get on. they had stayed the night in the airport and were hoping to still make the 6 hour flight from l.a. to n.y.c. this meant more chance for monticore & i to take in some sights. so, we headed back to prospect park and went to the prospect park zoo. it's a bad sign if no one knows there is a zoo in your town (brooklyn) and even worse if you're within like 4 miles of said zoo and the cab driver doesn't know where you are. so, we helped our cabbie get us close enough. the prospect park zoo is pretty small, but it wasn't bad. and, it made me really value our zoo here in fresno. really, many fresnans don't realize we have an excellent zoo. when you get out and see zoos in a lot of cities (we love zoos) you understand what we have.

eventually, we heard from the band - they had managed to all get on the very last possible plane ride out. seriously, any other flight would've put them into n.y. after their set.

so, the band showed, taxied to the venue to drop off gear, and then met us at the hotel to check in. they got ready for the show & we walked the 10 blocks to the show. i think we arrived at the venue two acts before sleepover went on.

when they went on they killed it. really good. it's been a while since we've seen sleepover, as they've been on a bit of a hiatus. and honestly, this is the last sleepover show for the foreseeable future. eric is focused on family & recording and has left the band (ronald dzerigian played bass - he did some of their early stuff), luke is focused on the quiet americans, and vince is writing some stuff on his own. the band isn't officially dead (last time i heard) but it isn't looking like they'll be playing fresno any time soon.

anyway, sleepover was really good. ronald was a little tentative, but that's understandable when you're filling in. luke and vince were great together, and i loved their set. they had a good mix of their faster, more rocking stuff and some of the slower, more melodic as well. i'm not positive, but i think they stuck to material from the hover full length release and the oceanographer ep. in looking around the venue during the sleepover's set, it seemed that everyone else was digging it, too. really, people liked the band enough that they sold out of all of the cd's they brought, and a bunch of shirts. i'd take credit for my awesome merch selling skills, but the band and their performance is really what sold it all. sadly, the set was a little shorter than planned (i think they cut 2 songs) because the festival was running behind schedule. i got a little bit of video to share with you all:

friend



oceanographer - partial



hold my tongue



the venue, the bell house, was a rather nice venue. the main show space was probably about the size of audie's, and had a bar in there of about the same size. the stage was bigger & higher. they also had a lounge space that was a pretty good size, with another bar.

after the show was all over i was able to chill out with the gents and some friends that ronald had in the brooklyn area. great time.

sunday, monticore & i jumped on a plane home. that was almost a disaster, too. we literally sat on the runway @ laguardia for between 1.5-2 hours while we waited to take off. fortunately, that didn't screw our other flights completely, and we made it home safe.