7:09 p.m.

“When is this supposed to start?” says Cullen, drummer for “Hazy Days”, the second band scheduled to play.

“Now…” says James, the group’s guitarist.

But there is no audience, and the stage is bare. Dave, the Jazz Giant’s drummer, the first band scheduled can’t make it till ten.

“We may have to go first. Maybe some of us could disappear, that way we wouldn’t have to play…” says Cullen.

7:20 p.m.

The auditorium is still empty. Hazy Days has just pushed a lone piano to the front of the stage. James saunters up to it and begins to move through jazzy piano riffs, slightly crude, yet mood effective. Patrick, the group’s harmonica and back-up vocals comes from behind the curtain to squat against the side of the stage near James and grooves in.

7:25 p.m.

12 people in the audience. “We have no rhythm section,” says Clay, the Jazz Giant’s saxophonist, to Ben Shelton, the groups bassist. They both laugh. The stage is quiet and disheveled.

7:42 p.m.

A few more people have begun to straggle in. Ted, the “Freundt’s Jazz Giants’” pianist has taken over the Balldwin grand; he switches moods between George Winston and Bill Evans. Cullen has been chosen to fill in for Dave. The Jazz Giants begin set up.

7:50p.m.

Freundt’s Jazz Giants take the stage. The first song, they claim invented on the spot, from the horns of Jon Moore [trumpet], Clay Steinwister [sax], Ted Fetter [piano], Ben Shelton [bass], and Cullen culminates in avante-gardesque call-and-response between the horns and funky licks in the rhythm section. They mix all the ingredients of a “bitch’s brew” yet at times feel like a mish-mash of music with no plot. Their second tune, written by Horace Silver entitled, “Song for my Father,” is a more traditional piece that flows on a deep tight undercurrent groove.

8:20 p.m.

40 people in the audience. Hazy Days sets up. Cullen dangles his feet over the front of the stage. Isolated shouts and playful jeers pierce out of the growing crowd.

“Did you get it?” asks Ben Shelton, filling his next roll as “Cousin Jimmy’s” bassist. He walks past Ben Many, one of the groups two guitarists, who sits in a side room backstage. Many rests, shaded with a white cowboy hat on this head shielding him from the flourescents.

“I got it.” For emphasis Many plays the country lick he has been trying to “get” for one their songs perfectly as Shelton glides past.

He continues jamming as Hazy Days begins their set.

8:25 p.m.

“We smile as the music hits us, because there is rhythm in our soul.” Jack, on guitar and vocals, sings above the bum-rush cacophonous pulse. David Cloniger, Stephen Brinkworth, and Jon on percussion, Ted Fetter on keyboard, Patrick McDougal on harmonica, Cullen Poythress on drums, James Hart on Guitar. They jam in the style of the Gratetful Dead and the Allman Brothers. They use dynamics to deliver the audience into states of hashess bliss or rollicking dance. Their playful stage presence accompanies the expanding emotions of the growing crowd.

8:45 p.m.

135 people in the audience. Tim Lafolette, scheduled to go after Clutch Hound, shuffles back and forth backstage. His hands rest on his hips as he weaves through the throngs of black instrument cases, amps, and drum sets. He has on a dirty “wife-beater” with the words, Weiner Bruder 1124601, scrawled in permanent marker on the front. Charlie Chaplan’s face is tattooed to his left shoulder. Four soft dim lights barely light backstage casting most of their glow on four white pillars positioned on the sides of the stage.

Garron Rogers, clad in jeans and a “wife beater,” claps his hands before the curtain as if psyching himself up before heading into an interview. He shakes his head, pulls the side curtain open, and walks on stage.

8:55 p.m.

“Ya’ll come a little closer,” Garron invites. “You shouldn’t be so far away.”

Clutch Hound, Garron’s band composed of feverish marauders shelling the audience with a barrage of guttural aggressive heavy-metal, lives up to its name.

9:31 p.m.

211 people in the audience. “What’s the difference between tuna and a fish?” one of the announcers, whose tongue is quickly loosening, asks the audience. “You can’t tune a fish.” And with that he breaks into beat-boxing, free stylin’, “yo’ momma” joke telling, and dry-humping to appease the audience. Tim Lafolette’s band sets up their wares composed of stuffed animals, a blow up-tulip, and a worn umbrella.

9:43 p.m.

“I had me a girl from North Carolina, she is still on my mind….a.” Tim croons a Tom Waites cover accompanied by an acoustic guitar into a front stage mike. Geordie Woods on drums, Ted Fetter on keyboard, and Eric Mann on guitar enter the main stage. The band is bedecked in shorts, knee high striped 80’s socks, and T’s and proceed to play original pieces reminiscent of Tim’s friends, memories, and fears in the past 4 years. Tim’s fascinating stage presence ignited with his from rote recitation of a scene from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, with almost perfect impersonation of Splinter the rat, and his glorious tribute, in song, to Jesse, present and held atop someone’s shoulders, cheering and singing along 3 feet from the stage.

10:22 p.m.

Outside the side door of Dana 5 people stand around smoking butts. Through a window into a classroom, fluorescent bulbs outline beforceful gesticulated movements of a man practicing for his turn to show on stage, his body reacting to his muted words. The rhythmic nature of his expressions permeate through the jostling of voices yelling and laughing.