8:00 pm Saturday night. Winter Park. I am computering and thinking of something to do for the night. Bang! It hits me. The Grifters are in Tampa. Time to Tampa: 1 hour 30 minutes..... something like that. What time is it again? I get there 9:30 ish. Okae. I don't even know where this place is. Doesn't matter. I grab a pile of CDs and hit the road.

It was warm out, it's FL i'm talking about! I drive fast. My little car can move. I listen to the new Tsunami, Moped, and Versus (dead leaves) twice and i'm there at The Alternative Record Store, now closed, posters on the walls. Cool, i think, as the address is Nebraska Avenue, which is the street the store is on. I drive towards downtown. This is a "bad" neighborhood. Hookers and hour rental motels room line up alongside the liquor stores. Nice. The Harbour Club is right there with them.

The Harbour Club is a pretty big room. It takes up the entire second floor of this sorta run-down building. The floors are wooden and bouncy. It's dark. The stage is in one of the corners with three or four tables near the front with chairs around them, occupied. I get my own table.

Mosley is the first band i get to see. There was another but gimme a break I was 90 miles away and hour before! Mosley were good, but they went from idolizing popisms to headbanging. Okay that was just a first impression. Sometimes they just drug along, the brilliant pop were sparce treats for me.

Edison Shine was next. ES is one of those bands i always hear about and see opening all kinds of shows around the state but never saw them or heard them. I liked them. Kinda Pavementy in an old style american pop way. Some of their songs were pretty dang snappy. I did 'em. Happy happy.

It was after midnight I think before the Grifters made their stage entrance. They were in a laid back mood and their set followed the mood, created by a single light behind the drummer. The last time the Grifters came this way they had a light show. Not this time. They grooved for a good long while and I drove home happy. It was 3:45 am when i walked in the door.

Monday was repeat performance in Orlando.

Bailter Space, from New Zeland opened. They could have been a wall of noise if it weren't for the terribly long pauses between songs. I was thinking about how a Bailter Space/Idaho tour would be just rad.

The Grifters remembered the last time when they played here. They were the "late" show and Jewel "miss i was meant for you" was the "early" show. And they got ahold of some weird, bad drugs. I remember them staring off into space, sweating the whole show. "Only good drugs this time," Dave Shouse says. They rocked out this show :)

P.S. - The photos are from the Orlando show and the movies from Tampa.