New Snaps 6.17.05: Erron Olive Edition

It's been a hectic week, all. We here at the regional offices of Nothing Terribly Grandiose have had quite a bit happening...One of those happenings was a trip to The City That Loves You Back (aka Philadelphia) to catch rock sensation Erron Olive at the Khyber in Olde City.

Sadly, this was the Olive's farewell show, as venerable drummer Grant Whittaker is relocating to New Orleans. He and frontman Mike Pomranz are dear friends of mine (although Pomranz confessed he wasn't a fan of NTG, which is excusable), so my attendance at this show was unquestionably mandatory. It was a long, sweaty, chaotic set, and thankfully my trusty Pentax was at my eye throughout most of it. Here's how the evening went down:

* There are a lot of pictures here, they may take awhile to load...in the meantime, feel free to watch THIS.

Pomranz and I hung out in the exclusive "band room" before the set. My good friend Shal (his full, official, given name is The One Known As Andrew James Neil Shal XIV...we call him either Shal or TOKA for short) has imparted many a tale of hanging in the band room at the Khyber, so I feel very glad to have finally seen this previously-fabled room with my own eyes. There was no light switch and Pomranz tried to steal my bag.



This is the wall of the band room. I added my own tag to the graffiti'd chaos, but it's much too small to see in this pic. See the blurry, square-ish shape to the right of the bong and just below the word "compels"? Yeah, that's mine.



As is par for the course, Pomranz played barefoot. Not pictured: his cowboy boots waiting in the wings.



I've seen Erron Olive play many times, but this was easily the most high-energy they've ever been. They obviously pulled out all the stops for this one, to send Grant off right.



Apparently part of sending Grant off right was Pomranz looking like a porn star. Seriously, he could rival Steve Drake for smarm in this picture. This could be a screen shot from a 1977 film called "Hard Rockin'" or something to that effect.



The funny thing about Grant is that all the previous times I had seen him play, he was so sedate while drumming. He could be doing a ridiculously powerful and complex drum solo, but to look at his face you'd think he was chewing gum and reading the sports page. It became apparent early on that this show would be different...



...especially when, after one song, he leapt in front of the set to fix his bass drum. Come to think of it, he specifically warned me that his bass pedal might not make it through the show.



I figured I could do some cool things, photographically speaking, with the lights near the stage. Here are some of my favorites:

The band, in spiral form:









Pomranz, travelling through time:



I love the tiny squiggles of light coming off the drumset in this picture...That's really it, I just think the light squiggles are cool. No other explanation necessary:



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This is Bubba.



This is Britney. Britney bought Bubba a beer.



This is the beer Britney bought Bubba.



This is Bubba and his beer.



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As the show continued, I made sure to snap some of the requisite black and whites:



These three lovely ladies served as my dates for the evening. From left-right: Cait, Cera, Abbie.



Pomranz surprised me by saying, shortly after I arrived at the venue before the show, that he wanted me to play bass for one of his songs, "Retrospective Nearsight Vision." This is a tune that we played at our Senior Class Show in 1997, the first time I ever played live with him and Grant. I was honored to be able to take the stage with them for their final performance.











* Much love and thanks to impromptu photograph-atrixes, Cera and Abbie.

The last thirty minutes of the show were the most chaotic...just a donnybrook of sweaty, string-breaking bedlam.



This is Pomranz at his most primal:



Grant took another solo toward the end, and he went on for so long that once Pomranz and Mark had come back from the bar, they started removing pieces of the set while Grant drummed. Eventually they got him down to the bass drum and a cymbal, and he kept drumming. Then they started putting things back in the wrong place, and he still wouldn't stop. After that they reconstructed the set properly (Grant's still playing, mind you), then they went into another song! Here's some snaps from that whole saga:













Eventually they busted into the final tune, the so-called "80's Jam." (Real hardcore Pomranz cultists will tell you the song is actually called "Elementary Opus." But those people have no lives and spend their late nights alone updating a blog no one reads but them.)





Grant kept solo-ing AGAIN at the end of this one, and it only ended when Pomranz tackled him.





Once the smoke had cleared, Pomranz bade us all a fond farewell...



...and then walked away. Erron Olive was done.



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Post-show, Pomranz and I were waiting at the bar to have a drink but were sadly reminded that Philly bars close at 2. Just as well...as you can see by the picture, we had had a fantastic time already.




* This is a small sampling of what I actually took that night...I took something close to 170 shots. Hooray for 128mb memory cards. If you're feeling masochicstic, you can view every single damn one! Just click HERE.


*****N*T*G*****