Carbon Leaf at Plan 9 Wed April 25th

Last Wednesday the Mrs. Colonel and I got to see The K-man's favorite band, Carbon Leaf, live and in person...and for free. They were playing at the Plan 9 store before their concert at Starr Hill later on that night.
It was a pretty fun show, or EP as I like to think of it seeing as how they played 6 songs [it was free]. It's an interesting venue for a live performance, as the stage isn't too big and actually ends at the curtain; the band had to be careful or they would have fallen back because there's nothing behind it. There was a pretty good crowd for a 6pm show, with about 30 of 40 people there. One fun side note was it seemed like if you were a Carbon Leaf fan, married and in your 30's with at least one kid, you came to this show. Oh, and you dressed your newborn in Carbon Leaf clothing, like hats and t-shirts, which was pretty cool. It was a nice moment I'm sure for these families, who couldn't make the band's "real" show later on since it started at 10:30; it also gave it a different kind of feel instead of your average rock concert.

Also, standing in the aisles of Plan 9 listening to a band while people are trying to buy stuff is pretty funny. The guy trying to get to the Easy E cd didn't appreciate me standing there in the A-F aisle of "Rap, Gansta." Oh well.
It's been really fun to watch these guys as they've grown over the past 12 or so years. I first met them my freshman year at HSC when I was a pledge moving their equipment into our fraternity. ["Wait, you were in a fraternity?" Yep. I was as fratty as the K-Man. Beta Theta Pi. Good times, good times. But that's for another post some other time, most likely when the Mrs. is out of town and I can post it without her permission...]. Back then they had just started out, and they'd play for us 2-3 times a semester for ~$300 and beer and pizza. Later I got to know them fairly well, as I was social chair and I'd book them [and pay them at the end of the night]. Since then the band has continued to do really, really well. They even won the 'Best New Artist' award at the American Music Awards a few years ago, and they regularly sell out fairly impressive venues.
Their new material over the past two years is great, and it's only a matter of time before they make it even bigger...maybe like Jack Johnson [that's the 3rd shout out to the K-man, which is a new record]. The greatest thing, though, is that they've stayed the same down to earth, humble and nice guys that they've always been. Never too busy to talk to the fans, they're genuinely talented musicians who are also just great people to be around. By the way, the guy in the green, Barry, looks like a Seattle-based grunge rocker in these pictures. He's usually much cleaner.

The next post [ironically the first you'll see] will have a link to more pictures and even some video if we can figure that whole process out...