Our car load made the trek up from Albany. Driving through Vermont made me reminisce about my crazy college days at Castleton State College. Just the beautiful drive up through the hills of Vermont made the drive fly by.
We made it to the Healthy Hippie and CSO Dan's house, drank a few beers, and played a round of drinking Jenga. We arrived at Higher Ground at 10:15pm to make the expected 10:20pm start. The line was so long we ended up missing "Comptroller > Suitcases and Sandwiches".
The dance floor was packed but the back of the club had enough room for us raging seasoned Loti-wooksters to drink our whiskey (that wasn't watered down) and bask in the night's festivities. Hammerstrike a brotherly battle between Luke and Jesse Miller was a heavy synth-bass driven song overlapped by Mike Remple's searing guitar melodies which helped us loosen up our legs. As the club started to heat up at the end of Hammerstrike the pure ectascy shown by many poured into the room like a faucet. People quickly started removing and stashing their coats and scarfs. I then took a brief moment to take a sip of my drink and brace myself for Age of Inexperience to kick things into another gear. This song debuted during week 1 of the Copy, Paste Repeat tour and has really taken shape as one of the new fan favorites. It captivates the post-rock sound that Lotus is still continuing to help forge. The first set concluded with standard old time but new for many Marisol, and Jump Off ending a rockus first set for many first timers and soon to be converted Loti-lovers.
DJ Kypski opened the second set with the boys offering an exploratory Greet the Mind followed by a raging musical orgy lead by the tag team drummers of Steve Clemens and Chuck Morris that would have left Ron Jeremy and Peter North impressed. Upon thinking the best may be behind us, this only led us to a new ground breaking first time played baby lotus blossom; Scrapple that is on it's way to developing into something amazing. The energy was at full speed all night long. Bubonic Tonic is one of my old time favs, it brought me back to the summer shows in PA at Jazz Street that blew me away. I don't think there was a still body in the crowd all night long. The funk/indie/trance/post-rock has never been sweeter (non high fructose corn syrup of course), the loti vibes have never been brighter and the merchandise table just keeps on growing and growing!
Every show entices my senses and never ceases
to amaze me. There's something about Lotus that makes you feel like you're
floating on that never ending ride through a magical forest controlled by the
umbilical moonrise that just keeps on keepin on. It just keeps getting better.
So plan your summer tour around these boys because you can sleep when you're
dead and Lotus is indeed a must add late night headliner. So now lets start the
early chant to bring back Lotus for a 2 day run at Higher Ground what do you
say? They got my vote. So until then take care of yourself.
- By Joe Tegnander and Lyndsy Celestino courtesy of www.healthyhippie.net
