My Favorite Performance: The Time I Opened For D.R.I.

I had a dream come true last October when I got to play with a band that I have been listening to since I was 12 in middle school (you can see the D.R.I. patch I've had since high school in the picture of us at the merch booth). The band Dirty Rotten Imbeciles is a band that started with making skater punk music but transformed into a fusion of both punk and thrash people often call crossover or crossover thrash (like Suicidal Tendencies).

It was my first day of vacation in Idaho, smoking weed inside a bomb shelter turned music practice building with my best friend I haven't seen in years, whos the bass player for a rock band called Looom, when I got a call from the singer for the Bay Area thrash band Frolic asking if I'd like to open for them and D.R.I. It felt like a joke or a dream at first (I was very high) but of course the first thing I said was yes, because that was a goal of mine I never thought I would reach so quickly. 

The second day of being in Idaho I woke up and immediately threw up because of everything that happened the day before. Going through the stress of being at the airport, flying for hours, getting situated in my hotel room, reuniting with my friend, meeting many new people and being shown around town, smoking a lot of weed, getting called to open for a band that was one of my inspirations to pick up music, and going back to the hotel struggling to sleep cause all I could think about was opening for D.R.I.

A month goes by and my band Vestige is ready for redemption after our total embarrassing failure from our last show. We played to our largest crowd yet and it was the best performance we had. Nothing went wrong and we had the crowd moving, grooving, and moshing. The stars aligned to let us have a moment we will never forget and will always cherish (thanks to Frolic). We also made the most money we've made in one day, because lots of people bought our shirts and patches and the promoter gave us money for playing too! 

I hope my band has many more shows like this in the future!