Back in July Model Stranger were booked to play the Ultra Lounge with Ours. The show was cancelled do to some roofing that had caused concern for the promoters. To make it a total bumfest I'd also left a family vacation and drove 3 hours to get back for the performance. Wasn't a pleasant Friday night. Needless to say we were pretty bummed this happened as we had been looking forward to this show.
Kevin and I have been fans of Ours since we were young teens. We first met Jimmy at a show when we were teenagers living in California and for years have been telling fellow music fans, peers and friends to take a good hard listen. Over the years they have and our fans were excited about this show as a lot of them are also now Ours fans too. It's safe to say we are Ours enthusiasts.
When we received the reschedule date we, as luck would have it we hit a snag. As it turns out Vincent was going to be on a vacation. Vincent was ready to make the trip back for that show but this was a trip that would require nearly 8 hours of travel just to get to a plane - all on his own dime. Sadly he had to bow out on the show and with a very surrendering sigh suggested we find someone to fill in.
When we received the reschedule date we, as luck would have it we hit a snag. As it turns out Vincent was going to be on a vacation. Vincent was ready to make the trip back for that show but this was a trip that would require nearly 8 hours of travel just to get to a plane - all on his own dime. Sadly he had to bow out on the show and with a very surrendering sigh suggested we find someone to fill in.
Usually we wouldn't do such a thing like perform without Vincent but we were looking forward to this, so we, with a LOT of help from our friends, made it happen.
It was at this time, only 7 days out from the show that Johnathon Schiller, the drummer from A Friend Called Fire, friends of Model Stranger from Chicago, offered his services. At first I was nervous - we'd been looking forward to this show and I didn't want to misrepresent Model Stranger - we'd never even played a note of a Model Stranger tune with Jonathon.
However our only other option was using Kevin and getting our friend from Bullet Called Life to sit in on Bass. Kevin had just seen Jonathon perform and assured me he was the better guy for the job. After we decided on Jonathon we also thought it'd be wise to bring our old friend Thomas Miller, also from Bullet Called Life in for the performance. The line up jokingly was referred to in Chicago as "A Model Called Fire"
However our only other option was using Kevin and getting our friend from Bullet Called Life to sit in on Bass. Kevin had just seen Jonathon perform and assured me he was the better guy for the job. After we decided on Jonathon we also thought it'd be wise to bring our old friend Thomas Miller, also from Bullet Called Life in for the performance. The line up jokingly was referred to in Chicago as "A Model Called Fire"
We had the opportunity to do three solid rehearsals the week of the show with Jonathon and Tom - just enough to get a few songs that we hadn't performed live yet in Chicago.
Thankfully all of the hard work was worth it. The show went better than we could have hoped. We performed well and the crowd enjoyed it. - "A Model Called Fire" didn't botch it! We had a great time sweating our asses off on a hot Summer August night in Chicago at the Ultra Lounge. If only the photographer had grabbed a picture of Tommy!
The night was capped off by a killer set by Ours. Ironically we would have been at this show anyways but being able to perform too.. just simply awesome.
It was a long hard road to make the performance work and we are forever indebted to Thomas Milller and Jonathon Schiller for their time and dedication to help us stay on the bill.
Thankfully all of the hard work was worth it. The show went better than we could have hoped. We performed well and the crowd enjoyed it. - "A Model Called Fire" didn't botch it! We had a great time sweating our asses off on a hot Summer August night in Chicago at the Ultra Lounge. If only the photographer had grabbed a picture of Tommy!
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| Jonathon Schiller |
The night was capped off by a killer set by Ours. Ironically we would have been at this show anyways but being able to perform too.. just simply awesome.
It was a long hard road to make the performance work and we are forever indebted to Thomas Milller and Jonathon Schiller for their time and dedication to help us stay on the bill.
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| Jimmy Gnecco of Ours |
Interested in reading more about the show and some one else's thoughts on the actual show? Check out a review by Popstache here.
