The Concert That Wasn’t

Kali-Ra Kali-Ra front-man David Goad dropped by for an inter­view yes­ter­day before head­ing over to Opolis to open for CHUD. After record­ing the inter­view, I headed to down­town to pho­to­graph the show, but not before receiv­ing an invi­ta­tion from Psychic Milk’s Justin Hogan (who also plays gui­tar for Kali Ra) to attend same — the Kamals, also open­ing for CHUD, had to can­cel due to a med­ical emer­gency, and Psychic Milk would be sub­bing for them.

Arriving at the venue an hour after the doors were to have offi­cially opened, I found the place dark and the doors locked. I wan­dered over to the adja­cent hookah bar, think­ing that Opolis had moved and I’d missed it. I was the 2^nd per­son with the same ques­tion, and the bar man­ager assured me that Opolis was still located next door, and that he’d seen a van unload­ing equip­ment around back.

Strolling to the back, I ran into Justin, who told me that CHUD had also bailed — also for a med­ical emer­gency — so Opolis can­celled the show. In the mean­time, a video crew from UCO, helmed by Zac Haigh, were inter­view­ing Kali-Ra bassist Brian Daniel for a doc­u­men­tary about the band to be released next year.

I snapped a photo of Brian and Justin while the video crew paused to let a loco­mo­tive roll by. After that, David arrived with his wife, Alicia, who had been present for the inter­view ear­lier that evening. He apol­o­gized pro­fusely for hav­ing brought me on a wild goose chase, even though it wasn’t his fault. David felt very bad about the prospect of other fans arriv­ing to find a can­celled show, and thought per­haps he could Skype a per­for­mance to them later that evening.

I sug­gested we leave a note on Opolis’s door say­ing as much, so we walked to my MINI Cooper to grab a Moleskine note­book. After leav­ing a note to fol­low David on Facebook for news about the Skype con­cert, we retired to the Abner Ale House, where we debated large philo­soph­i­cal ques­tions, talked of triv­ial things, and con­sumed beer.