The State Theater.

Once upon a time on 609 Congress St. right after the High St. intersection by Congress Square there used to be a wonderful wonderful establishment. It still exists, the building, the letters are still on the overhang, but the magic is no longer there. It's just an empty old theater house. Once, it was an old sleazy porn theater. Then it was a Concert Hall. Then it became how I would come to know it as the State Theater, a place of rock, roll, concerts and fans.

I saw some great acts there. In no particular order, the Dropkick Murphys, Paranoid Social Club, Saves the Day, Zox, Our Lady Peace, Catch-22, Reel Big Fish, and so on. Magnificent stuff has gone on there, and it was, in my mind, the perfect venue. Three tiers of floor space with railings then seats behind it. If it were a rock show, you didn't want to sit. The railing was the most secure space, allowing you to see directly over all the heads of the tier below you and hold on for position security. But to be right up against the stage, that was the prime time. My best concert there (save for the story I'm about to tell) was Dropkick. I got up and stagedived three times, one of them a security guard gave me a hand and helped me up, and the last time I actually crowdsurfed during "Kiss Me, I'm Shitfaced." It was phenomenal.

But one time. On the reals here. I played at the State Theater.

Here's how this went down:

I've worked every summer ('cept this one) at a reputable summer camp nestled deep within Waterford, Maine. I'm a counselor and teach kids neat things like sailing, boxing, hiking, and I write and direct the camp play, as well as maintain the camp newspaper. A few other staffers involved in the arts department of the camp had formed a band and played at a couple of talent shows. They were Black Diamond. The most powerful trio of explosive experimental rock noise you've never heard. They were a three piece set, involving drums, bass/guitar and vocals, but played such a plethora of other instruments onstage it's impossible to really entitle instruments to them. There were congas, with tambourines on top of them, being beaten with maraca's. A lead guitar being rubbed on a bass guitar like a violin. Two recorders played at the same time. A flute played at first with the mouth, then used as a slide on the guitar (creepiest noise ever). These guys were epic.

AND the drummer, a Portland native, happened to be chums with the House Manager of the State Theater. They decided once over some beers that Black Diamond could play a show there after the camp season had ended just for the staff and visiting alumni. It'd be a closed ticketed showing, seated and so on. But they made it happen. I was approached by the guitarist/bassist/flutist/percussionist/vocalist, Foley, an old counselor of mine and my artistic mentor to me, to see if I wanted to be involved.

Fuck yes I wanted to be involved. So my second truly live performance was booked.

First the basement of a church in Norway. Now the motherfuckin' State Theater.

Unfortunately, Brackett and the Drill Bits had been defunct for quite some time at this point, really since our first and last performance, so a new act was needed. I looked to a fellow musician friend of mine who went to the Camp too, hereby known as Heston. We'd been toying around with the idea of a punk band for a while, but it had been one of those projects where you make plans, get together, plug in your axes, turn up the amps and don't write anything. A few years back we had one thing for a Camp talent show under the name Only If You Pay Me but we couldn't revamp that, and Foley already limited us to no covers of "Blister in the Sun" by the Violent Femmes. Total let down for me.

So we scrambled up some business, made some calls, walked into walls, and eventually got our old drummer buddy from Only If You Pay Me on board, Westley, and this other guy Davin. Davin and Westley were in Caligula, the Latin-core band I may have mentioned earlier. So we all met together the night before the big show and decided that we could form a band in one night and write some material. No. Big. Deal.

Thus, we became The Inside Kids.

Truly the best band name I've ever worked under to date (that is, until my roommate and I get our new experimental ukulele punk group kicking. Get this: Rebel Scum. I know, right? Right.)

So one night of practice down and the Inside Kids were more or less ready than ever. Foley had hooked us up with a bunch of the tickets and Heston had made a whole bunch of fliers featuring Black Diamond's signature hand symbol (you make a diamond connecting both your thumbs and index fingers) and three cryptic words: Danger, Music, Dance. And the date. Unfortunately, no mention of where this was going down or what time but you know what. Whatever. We plastered Portland. We accosted strangers on the street and told them to come. My girlfriend of the time was with us and using her cuteness as a Dude Lure, and pied-pipered them to the State Theater.

During soundcheck, I met the House Manager and the guy he bitched into running lights and sound for this show. He showed me the soundboard and lightboard, my eyes wide with bright streaming lights and rows upon rows of knobs and sliders. Little did I know I'd go to college and learn how to man each of these helms. Prophetic? Perhaps. Probably one of the highlights here was free roam of my favorite concert venue, which was incredible. They had little to no backstage area which was surprising. The balcony was pretty awesome too, had never been up there. But the real deal here for me was the Green Room. Black Diamond had been partying up there, PBR cans everywhere, but man oh man, that room. It had this energy to it. The place where so many acts over the years had just mentally prepared for another performance and slammed beer back. Maybe they had warmed up vocally. Maybe they had sex with groupies. I don't know. All I could do was read the signatures.

Snoop Dogg, Guster, Korn, Trey Anastasio, Henry Rollins, Godsmack, Rustic Overtones, Blink 182, David Byrne, Government Mule, Dropkick Murphys, DJ Venom, Rocktopus, Rusted Root, Incubus, Dave Chapelle, Lewis Black. So many more just lost to time, covered up by larger scrawlings. Incubus drew this huge picture on the inside of the door, a selfportrait of them between towering collosal mushrooms over their band's name. It was a place of magic, mystery and myth. And my band chilled there if only so briefly.

Then the show had to start. The crowd was a decent mix of staff from the camp, our friends from Buckfield, Portland locals who just wanted to drink and didn't care what show it was, and the handful of strangers who were lured by the fliers and our beckons outside.

The Inside Kids performance was definitely something. One night of practice was kind of apparent as songs were stunted or downright created right there. We wrote a quick diddy during soundcheck too. A last minute decision switched me from guitarist/vox to just vocals as Heston took the guitar. And there I found myself. Lead singer in a band, rocking out in the State Theater. I had told the lighting guy to just go nuts with our set, and so he did. It was a spectacle. An approximately seven minute long spectacle. Then we were done. My girlfriend told me I sounded like Jello Biafra (huge influence of mine) and I appreciated that, but didn't know if she was just saying it or not, whatever. We did it. And it rocked.

Black Diamond wasn't far behind, and nobody in that audience was ready for them. They crashed and smashed, they rocked and rolled, they destroyed every semblance of structure and order in the musical realm. It was brilliant. It was catastrophic. They hit every one of their singles, then laid some new shit down on us. Fantastical. They had one song entitled "Fisher Cat", a tale of how the maintenance guy from camp one night heard a fisher cat in the woods and went out after it with his hatchet and a gun. He did not return for four hours and only two shots were fired. Autonomous Government played a pivotal role during this song, dressing up as a fishercat and prowling around the stage as they played. Until the man himself got onstage, withdrew his pistol and "fired" (snare hits) at him, killing Auto-Gov. Our friends from Buckfield had created a giant sign reading "I HAD SEX WITH {AUTONOMOUS GOVERNMENT}" and threw ladies underwear onstage. The lead singer of Black Diamond, Texas, wore the panties around his neck for the rest of the show, even after stripping down to his ducttape underwear during the finale.

There were brief sideshows during their set, one being a Scottish counselor getting up with an acoustic guitar and playing a lovely tune entitled "The Pussy Song." It's a collection of verses about cats, each becoming either hot, wet, shaved, and so on.
Then a multimedia experience. A large screen was dropped and projected upon. Texas read softly the story of Hiawatha, as the drummer of the group, a very talented artist, drew the story unfolding, project up on the stage. He would draw the story, then redraw over it. It was intense.

Then the show ended. The band invited the audience to go drink at a bar with them. And everyone left, thoroughly rocked.

And the Inside Kids had a brief moment outside with cigars. We decided that we should quit while we were ahead, go out with a fiery bang instead of fading away, and disbanded. The greatest band I've ever been in. We had played the State Theater.

Now the establishment is over. The owners had trouble with money and were too stubborn to sell the place. I walk past it now and again, still hearing the faintest of echoes...of flutes striking guitar strings, of drums being lifted and thrown, of one instant where I shouted "HAHAHAHAHA...Wipeout"... ringing down the halls of History. Reminding me that once, there was brilliant Rock and Roll Magic. And now it's gone forever...


But my Memory stays the same.