Surplus 1980 Collectiv Ensembl with G.W. Sok-The Uptown Night Club, Oakland and Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco; 8/23-24/19

I may be jumping the gun by posting this so soon after this past weekend's Surplus 1980 Collectiv Ensembl shows in Oakland and San Francisco. I'm trying to let the impressions sink in really deeply, you see. That said, I also want to log them on this here blog with as fresh a perspective as possible. Kind of a conundrum, really.
I'll just come out and say that I felt that both of the shows went really well. They'd been a LONG time coming. The CD that contains the music that we recorded was tracked a full three years ago, plenty of time for everyone to forget their parts as they worked on other stuff. Thankfully, we managed to get a few rehearsals in; we even had G.W. Sok with us for those, too.
All of the musicians got our parts in order and we seemed to roll into the Uptown Nightclub in downtown Oakland pretty confident. This set felt pretty good to me. I got to use the full Surplus 1980 drum kit, kind of a treat as always. That Pearl bass drum sounds dope. The large group rocked the four pieces, conducted by Moe! in a good way. The emotional weight of them really struck home for me, which I had never noticed during the recordings back in 2016 nor during a few spins of the disc in my car. This music is pretty heavy, and not in a plodding way, which is quite an accomplishment for 13 people sharing a stage. I feel a lot of "shadow" energy to it. It doesn't feel as though I'm explaining it really effectively, but, trust me, it's there.
A good night for Moe! and all of his pals in Oakland.

Below: Surplus 1980 kit and Jordan Glenn's kit; the full band (photo by and courtesy of Thomas Scandura, thanks, Tom!)

The Bottom of the Hill show started off kind of weird, with some miscommunication about gear leading to a last minute scramble for needed drum parts. That was smoothed over in remarkably good time, thanks to the ever cool Ralph Spight. Ralph remains THE MAN.
As for our Saturday night SF set, the energy seemed to be even darker and more heavy. A really solid block of sound emanated from the Bottom of the Hill's stage. Its intensity was kind of scary to me. As compared to Friday night's set, where all of the instruments' tones were sort of side by side, Saturday night had us being one unit. A giant slab of heaviness! Moe! seemed a lot more confident in the City, too. How I wish that we could have played a few more shows a few days after this one, as the Ensembl was REALLY gelled.
Who knows, perhaps we'll find a way to do it again at some point!
Oh yeah, and Victims Family. Just incredible, what a rhythm section.
OK, now I feel as though I'm not doing justice to what went down in Surplus 1980 world at the Uptown and Bottom of the Hill. Suffice it to say that I am incredibly satisfied with it. Hopefully all of the other members are, too.
Thanks to Moe! for putting this all together, to Melne for doing a ton of legwork, and G.W. Sok for participating.
Now, someone please go and buy the CD!