Shapiro played a wedding on Saturday. Wow. One of the more awkward shows I've played. Ever. The wedding was for Jeff (from Aggrocrag) and Emily, some friends of ours. Jeff asked us to play at the reception.

So we arrive at some ranch-style farm where the reception is to be held. We walk into the reception "hall," a large, camp-meeting-type large wooden barn but with very nice floors and decorations, very rustic-looking and classy, it's hard to describe but whatever. I realize my drums are going to echo like I was in the Grand Canyon and my Hot Rod sticks are broken. Oh well. We set up and attempt to soundcheck ourselves. I tape up my drums as best as I can to cut down on the overtones. The only other people around at the time were the catering service crew, so we asked them if it was too loud. They said, "Yeah, but we're old. It'll be OK."

The guests start to arrive and I can feel the tension within me begin to grow. There are a lot of my Harrisonburg friends there, so that helped, but they were flanked by an equal number of elderly people. We are told to begin playing after the bride and groom had gotten their food and were seated. We are about to begin when the catering lady comes up and asks us to play some "dinner-type music, no rock and roll or anything." Grrreeeat. So Jeremy talks to Jeff and Jeff tells him not to worry about it, to just start playing.

So we begin. We open with "Prelude." I am playing as lightly as possible. In the middle of the song some guy comes up to Jeremy and tells him we are too loud. Jeremy turns around at me and we look at each other helplessly. I am playing lighter than I ever have before at a gig. So I laugh and we trudge ahead with our set, despite our urges to just apologize to everyone and stop playing. We are interrupted numerous times by people telling us to turn down. We do our best and continue to play our half-hour set.

We threw a few covers into our song list. Jeff requested "'Til Kingdom Come" by Coldplay and "The Luckiest" by Ben Folds. We also played our jazz version of Aggrocrag's "Rattle the Cages." You should have seen the expression on some of the more refined wedding attendees. Priceless.

Finally we finished and they turned the iPod back on and Jeff and Emily came over and thanked us. They seemed to be happy so that's all that mattered to us. Jeff said he just enjoyed watching the faces of his parents' friends who clearly "didn't get it," meaning our music.

So needless to say, we will never play another wedding ever again. However, we were honored to play for Jeff Crag and his lovely new wife at their reception, and we hope that despite the awkwardness, those present at least got a little pleasure from Nathan's lounge-singer vocals in the Aggrocrag cover. Rattle those cages, you two crazy lovebirds.