Best Of C-ville: A Sincere Thank You
Posted August 19, 2008
Thank you thank you thank you. For the second straight year, the C-ville Weekly readers among you have named us your favorite Charlottesville band. We can’t begin to tell you how much this means to us. To get that kind of support from your hometown is an unqualified blessing in this rough business. Since the beginning we’ve always been able to endure long stretches of mediocre shows far from home because we can look on the calendar and see a hometown show looming not too far in the distance. Those shows at Outback Lodge and Starr Hill and Satellite Ballroom were always a rejuvenating shot in the arm that kept us going strong until the next time we had a chance to see your shining faces.
However, this brings us to the unsettling part of this email. Starr Hill and Satellite are gone. Outback, still a fantastic place to get your face rocked, has grown a bit small to hold all of you. We seem to have no place to rock out in C’ville. This, needless to say, is an unprecedented tragedy. Public outcry recently crushed a proposal to open a new venue on Preston Ave. This leaves us nowhere to resurrect the glory days of standing in the rain on West Main St. waiting for Starr Hill to open its doors and unleash the horde of rabid SoB’s on unsuspecting bar-sales records. While we wait for public outcry to build in favor of opening a new rock club, we do have some chances for C’villians to get their SoB fix.
September 13th! We will be playing the downtown Pavilion with none other than Robert Earl Keen. It is an honor for us to share the stage with a man whose name is prominently featured in one of our songs (a song which is somewhat anti- his home state, but unequivocally pro- his music) and we can’t wait to throw down under the big top with him. Our good old friends Wrinkle Neck Mules will be opening the show, so it promises to be a full night. We realize that the comfort, space and fresh air of the Pavilion are no substitute for being jammed into the sweaty upstairs floor of a brewery (or the former storage room of a local record store) to get beer spilled on you, but until we have a space to re-enact those great nights, civilized evenings at the Pavilion will have to do.
In summary, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the honor of being named your Best Musical Group for another year. We hope to see you at the Pavilion on September 13th, or soon afterwards in the greater Central Virginia area. Keep your heads up, there’s already a CVS downtown, so at least they won’t be shutting down Gravity Lounge anytime soon.
humbled in gratitude,
Sons of Bill
