NXT Sacramento LIVE REPORT 8/12/17

I couldn't make it to the San Jose show on 8/11 (driving to San Jose during Friday rush hour traffic? It would have taken 3.5 hours), so Rachel and I drove to the Sacramento show on 8/12. I have the historic worst luck with driving to Sac. It's always something. Road closures, massive rain storms, accidents that cause huge traffic delays, literally every time I drive to Sac it's a non-stop stream of omens telling me to never return. Last night was no different, filled with accidents causing traffic delays, and getting trapped in Sac post-show due to freeway onramps being closed for construction. The detour signs literally lead in a loop around Sac. It was a disaster. It felt like we were being sealed inside Sac like some kind of Escape from NY colony.

But the show itself was great, and the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium might be my favorite wrestling venue. It's been around for decades, has killer concert posters from old acts that played there, such as "The Beach Boys - America's #1 Surf Band!" There were two Beach Boys shows, a "pre-teens and childrens" matinee with "one parents admitted free per child" and "25 FREE LPs given away per concert!" The tickets were $1.75 in advance and $2 at the door. WTF?? Even with inflation that's like $15! They also have great posters for other shows there, the Dead playing 12/22/70 (a show with no known tapes!), great blown up photos of The Clash and Zappa (not playing together, obviously), just a cool old venue, tons of original beautiful moldings, weird quirks like having to go down a few flights of stairs to use the bathrooms (people in wheelchairs had to use employee bathrooms!), genuinely classy and classic place to see pro wrestling.

We showed up right as the first match was starting, bought the cheap $20 seats, and really the balcony is a perfect view at this venue. We were lined up perfectly with the ring on the left side (looking from the entrance):

1. Andrade Almas vs. No Way Jose

ER: Good opener, Jose has been way over with live crowds both times I've seen him. Almas works almost nothing like he did as La Sombra, I don't think he even does as many highspots as Albert Del Rio. But he looked good and was almost playing up a low rent WWE Eddie Guerrero sneaky heel. He bumped big for Jose (including a great bump to the floor into the railing) and ate the pop-up KO punch great, made it look like a deserving finisher.

2. Ruby Riot/Sarah Logan vs. Sonya Deville/Mandy Rose

ER: This might have actually been my favorite match of the night (this or the women's title 3 way), which I wouldn't have expected had I seen the specific match listing before the show. But I came away really impressed with the Deville/Rose team. Deville may have actually been my favorite performer of the night, but both were great as a team. Both really knew how to work from the apron, better than almost anyone else on the show. Deville especially was awesome, always throwing cheap shots (even ones that weren't meant to land, just always keeping the idea there) and was smart at how she moved around the ringpost to attack. Rose kept fans in the front engaged while not distracting from the match, both had good timing on their sneak shots. I think a couple of Deville's nastiest strikes came while she was on the apron, namely Riot getting tossed into the ropes and Deville laying a kick right into her lower back. Riot was a great FIP and we got two versions of a spot I really love, the babyface trying to leap to the hot tag but getting caught in midair by the heel, and those seconds spent with the face caught but still tryyyying to reach for that tag but falling short. The way they handled it was great: Riot ran for the tag but Deville caught her, Riot coming really close to a tag (and Logan doing a great job of reaching for the tag while still being mindful of the tag rope), but Deville threw her off. Riot caught up and charged back looking to do the same, and Deville just speared her out of the air. Awesome spot. Rose bumps really acutely as a heel, she whips over super fast on armdrags, really making the faces look like superheroes. Logan I had never seen before (she appeared to be working a female Skinner Steve Keirn gimmick, or maybe a girl you would talk to at a small town tailgate party) and wasn't too impressed; she didn't really know what to do on the apron, and had a kind of stilted hot tag. But Rose worked around it fine and I came away really loving the match.

3. Oney Lorcan vs. Lars Sullivan

ER: Lorcan wasn't announced ahead of time for these shows (and they announced like 18 people), so I wasn't expecting him, so he was quite the pleasant surprise. He's definitely one of my favorites and the crowd was into him. Lars was a guy I had never heard of before, and the dude is a monster. He looks like Nate Diaz, if Nate Diaz had grown to hideous proportions by chugging Venom all day in Arkham Asylum. It was a fairly short match with Lars dominating, and while the guy is super green he still looked impressive. We got two different press slam spots (and I love press slam spots), with him pressing Lorcan from the floor into the ring, and him holding up a delayed slam in the ring. Lorcan gets a couple nice moments, like him switching his weight on a slam to maneuver into a sleeper, but the match peaked once he snapped and started going off on Sullivan. Lorcan started flying wildly into him with his awesome uppercuts, grabbed Lars by the beard and started slapping the hell out of him, but then flies off the ropes for another uppercut and gets demolished by a lariat. Sullivan wins with a huge uranage (does another after the match for good measure), but I was hoping for ONE more Lorcan hope spot; if he had reversed that uranage into a guillotine choke or DDT, before the inevitable Lars win, this could have been MOTN. As it was, it was still a blast.

4. Kassius Ohno vs. Killian Dain

ER: Ohno is rocking the Sac Kings gear and Dain...is another of those War Machine Hanson types who is big and burly and hoss-like but usually doesn't come off like a hoss. I keep getting tricked by this guy as my brain goes "OH GREAT a big fat hairy guy" but then I remember that I've never actually seen a Big Damo match that I liked. He doesn't have great strikes, but he still has a higher floor than most guys because he has moments where he uses his fat. Being fat and using your fat will get at least some reaction from me. Ohno was the reason to watch this and Hero as Buddy Rose is extremely entertaining. This could have been more of a bomb throwing hoss battle, but what we got was good stuff. Dain is kind of a lousy seller, and doesn't take very interesting bumps, but he leaned into plenty of elbows and kicks from Ohno, and as one would expect Ohno's elbows and kicks loosened jaws. Ohno had some fun show off moments, like his rope flip Misawa feint, and still nuttily busting out his handspring from in the ring to the apron to the floor. He does that and blasts Dain in the jaw, I flip out. I still don't know how Ohno makes his roundhouse pump kick look so good, but it always does. We get both men using fat guy sentons, Ohno does a great elbow pad removal before attempting a killshot (you all know how much I love Lawler taking down the strap, Valentine moving the shin guard, etc., so Ohno tossing the pad is 8 stars from me), Hero misses a great moonsault (and calls his shot by pointing at Dain through his legs from up top!), Dain finishes with a nice Vader bomb (got good and horizontal), and more good spots that I'm forgetting. I don't think we could have expected a better match from these two, so I was plenty pleased.

5. Nikki Cross vs. Ember Moon vs. Asuka

ER: This was my other contender for favorite of the night, even with the 3 way aspect kind of making itself known too often. I'll give credit to all the gals involved for busting ass and getting around the stip. Even though there WAS a lot of "person sells on floor longer than normal so other two can work", they got to those moments in quality ways. I hate in a 3 way where someone is in the ring having a normal match, then takes a move, holds their midsection and rolls to the floor for a few minutes. It's so unnatural. Nobody ever does that in a singles match. Here the attacks themselves actually knocked the person to the floor, with the best being Asuka doing a baseball slide dropkick on Nikki but Nikki catching her in the apron skirt and clubbering her to a pulp. All three women looked great, with Asuka looking like a superstar. She has awesome charisma, I like her moveset, great look, and she has no problem leaning into strikes. I did think Nikki's frayed bootcut jeans were a little amateur, but she seems like she wrestles like a female Dean Ambrose, so I guess it fits. And she's probably better than current Dean Ambrose so why not. Asuka landed some nice hip attacks and locked in a sick abdominal stretch/cravate, Cross and Moon both had some nice respective clubbing forearms and kicks, but surprisingly the real good moments of the match happened with all three in the ring. We got a superplex/powerbomb spots, which are a little played out at this point, but a superplex is always going to look nasty. Best spot was a beautifully timed moment where Cross was getting back into the ring but got nailed with a running butt attack by Asuka, knocking her into the guardrail. It leaves Asuka sitting on the middle rope (where she made contact), and one beat later Moon nails her with a superkick (and it was the nastiest strike of the night, even factoring in Lorcan and Ohno). The hit all the beats perfectly, sequence of the night. The end involving all three was also great, with Moon hitting the eclipse, really nasty finish that Cross made look like a whiplash inducing snap. Asuka runs in from the floor, attacks Moon, throws her to the floor, vultures the win. It doesn't sound special, but the timing was so exact that it was a great finish. The misdirection was strong, it genuinely looked like Moon could get the win, and Asuka made it in, tossed Moon, and stole the win in perfectly believable bam bam bam timing. Great stuff.

6. SAnitY (Eric Young/Alexander Wolfe) vs. Authors of Pain

ER: Well, Authors of Pain still stink. These guys are a bad Ascension, and you can see how well Ascension have done on the main roster (they do probably have better looks than Ascension, so that may help them). This whole thing started pretty ugly with a before-the-bell brawl that was supposed to look unhinged, but just looked like four guys throwing mostly bad punches. Wolfe's punches especially looked terrible. BUT he was redeemed later. So let's skip to later, because this match was dry as a desert. AoP had dud control segments, though EY is still a good face bumper. I had written most of this off, but then EY got the hot tag and Wolfe had an actual good hot tag run. His timing was on point and his energetic elbows and clotheslines and house on fire offense was surprisingly effective. We built to a couple nifty nearfalls, and AoP won the match by DQ by dragging ref Drake Younger out of the ring and punching him. So, pretty lame. BUT, then Wolfe hits a wild flip dive and EY hits a fast bullet tope, so for a match with a cheap finish it sure exited the ring better than it entered. Salvaged.

7. Hideo Itami vs. Johnny Gargano

ER: I'm sure many would say this was the match of the night, and I liked the first half, but once it devolved into sexy dance fighting and clumsily set-up signature offense I think it got a little cold. The early parts were worked slower, with Itami grinding in headlocks and playing an amusing "Budro not wearing kneepads" stalling house heel, avoiding contact and rolling to the floor to avoid stuff. I was digging it. Itami kept taking nice little bumps to the floor, landing in painful ways, falling into the railing, great bullshit. But at a certain point went into our rehearsed we're having a real WAR part of the evening, with unnatural spot set up and strike exchanges and dramatic kickouts that weren't dramatic. Itami still has a bunch of holdover 2004 offense, nowhere near as good as his stalling heel work. Gargano gets into the ring, Itami stops him with a nice kick to the chest. Then Gargano has to act like he's stuck entering the ring, hanging in the ropes, for 10 seconds so Itami can stomp him off the ropes. The stomp looked nasty, the landing rough, but the set up is just absurd in 2017. Gargano has a bunch of smaller versions of those moments, unnaturally rushing over to roll Itami over so Gargano can hit his sliding pivot kick, or getting kicked into place just so he can deliver a strike in a certain way. It's unnatural and silly. The finish was at least hot, as I liked the reversal. Itami went for the Go 2 Sleep, Gargano caught his knee on the way down and locked in the Gargano escape. The crowd even seemed to get more robotic during the "hot strikes" section, doing a lethargic "This is Awesome" chant (though this match was the first match back after intermission, so I don't think I can fully blame the crowds lethargy on their robotic match structure).

8. Roderick Strong/Aleister Black/Drew McIntyre vs. Riddick Moss/Tino Sabbatelli/Bobby Roode

ER: This really had to win me over, as entrances alone took 16 minutes. I knew I had a 2.5 hour drive back home, and it was already 10:15. Jesus, Aleister, walk a little bit faster to the ring. So the entrances take an eternity, I was ready to dump all over the match, but everybody really busted their ass. I expected nothing from Moss and Tino, two guys who you might recognize from their trick bartending work at The White Swallow, but they were really great at feeding all the face team offense and stooging around, nicely playing off Roode's stooging. They acted like Roode acolytes and it was amusing the way Roode kept throwing them to the wolves. Strong looked great here, and it's kind of wild to think that my favorite period of Strong's career has been the last 2-3 years. He's been around so long, I just think he's really finetuned his game. His chops blister and he's great at crowd control in a busy match like this. And those backbreakers still break. Aleister Black worked stiff and did some nutty stuff on a non-taped house show, peaking when he hit a moonsault to the floor on Moss & Tino. Roode kept trying to avoid McIntyre the whole match, rolling to the floor, even getting shoved back towards the ring by an older woman at one point (A STUNT GRANNY!?!?). All three heels did some inspired apron work, acting like great meatheads. We got a hot sequence where everybody hits their finisher, where one guy hits his, then he takes the next guy's and so on. WWE is always pretty shockingly great at the timing of those and this was no different. Tino makes it work by running fast into McIntyre's shotgun knee, but the whole thing was hot. Again, I was pretty tired at this point, just sat through an intermission and the two weakest matches of the night and THEN 16 minutes of ring entrance...but they won me back over. No small feat.

Another great NXT house show, I really hope they keep doing these so that I can see them once a year. According to special live guest William Regal, he was happy that they got 1,500+ people there, since early NXT shows "did 50 people on a good night". Is he acting like NXT used to play smoky bingo halls until they took them to the big time?? But this show was a great time, filled with a crowd that loves pro wrestling, watched in a great old wrestling venue. Yes, please.

Oh, and a final shoutout to the NXT ring announcer, who had no protected seat so had to sit right at ringside with the ring bell, and ran around ringside away from the action all night in very high heels. She put on a Julie Newmar-esque performance of high heel running and irked facials.

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NXT in Sacramento ROAD REPORT 10/27/16

Despite me being streets behind on my NXT watching, I was still excited when it was announced they would be doing a house show run (sort of) in my area. Shinsuke Nakamura is basically Rachel's favorite wrestler, Dylan Hales is new to town and hasn't seen live wrestling in a couple months, and Tim Livingston is obsessed with NXT. So we were going to the show. A crazy rain storm hit our area the last couple days (scheduled to run another week!) so it was pouring rain on the drive down, and with traffic and accidents and more rain the typically 105 minute drive became a 200 minute drive. Yeeeeesh. We listened to the nice new LVL UP album, then I attempted to fry my brain to distract it from the traffic by listening to White Hills. My brain did not get fried and I was forced to accept my sore car butt and endless traffic, so finally put on King Sunny Ade and tranced out to his hypnotizing needling guitar sounds. That actually did the trick. We got to the Golden Bear and I pounded happy hour whiskey gingers while Rachel pounded happy hour whiskey sours, and Tim pounded happy hour water because he has impressive will power and is the skinniest I've ever seen him. Rachel and I stumbled to the Memorial Auditorium and got through the doors literally as the show was starting. The memorial is a cool old venue with wildly inaccessible bathrooms (tons of bathrooms had you walking up and down stairs once inside), and the venue was really full on the floor, and not very full up top. We were on the floor, Tim got the nice seats, but really the balcony seats looked pretty nice when I ventured up there, especially the seats on the side (venue seating is shaped like a U, so seating was better on the sides than if you were on the curve), but a great place for a wrestling show.

So yes, I am currently in the middle of July 2014 in my NXT viewing, and I don't look ahead. So I'm not familiar with most of these wrestlers, and the ones I am familiar with are very different than they were 27 months ago, so I'll try to limit the "I'm so out of the loop" comments, but know that I will be very much out of the loop. And I'm pretty sure I was the only one, as every other person bought 100% into each wrestler's gimmick, knew what to chant, when to do it. Felt like Rocky Horror Picture Show only actually entertaining.

1. Patrick Clark vs. Buddy Murphy

I genuinely thought Clark was Shelton Benjamin as he came out. It would be easy to make a joke about my incredibly white upbringing, but I DO think they have similar facial features, and I'm like 70% sure I remember hearing about Benjamin getting resigned for the brand extension. He's working a Prince gimmick (apparently) which is somehow more topical now that Prince is recently deceased, than when Prince Iaukea was working a Prince gimmick. In hindsight Iaukea's Prince gimmick came when Prince himself was at his most irrelevant, which is kind of a perfect WCW thing. I mean who was listening to any current Prince during 1998-2001? Clark doesn't show me a whole lot, other than an absolutely sick theme song. It's got just a looping bass groove and drum beat, sounds like something from Thundercat. Crowd was way into him, but the crowd was into almost everything tonight. I'm not totally sure if the gimmick is supposed to be controversial, or what, but there's really not much to it. He wears a ruffly shirt and a sparkly headband and walks slowly and assuredly, and I'm sure maybe more will come out explaining the why. I was one of few Buddy Murphy fans in attendance, but I liked what he brought. He had fringe on his tights which gave him instant bonus points with me, but he just worked a real solid game and played into all of Clark's spots in a great comedic way. An "unsettlingly sexually ambiguous" character isn't really interesting to me in 2016, but Buddy sold the moments well, acting like he didn't want to lock up, stealing the headwrap and wearing it, then an amusing moment where he threw the wrap down, stomped it, and then bodyslammed Clark onto it. Clark sold it like he was slammed onto a chair, we all laughed. The whole match was simple stuff, but it worked.

2. Aliyah & Daria vs. Billie Kay & Peyton Royce

Kay and Royce are Australians (so was Murphy, so we're at a 1:1 Australia:USA ratio so far tonight). Aliyah is small and cute (WWE bills her as 5'3" which is a flat out lie. I doubt she's even 5') and only 21, but age ain't nothing but a number! This was really back & forth, but Aliyah was really good at dusting herself off and trying again. Daria was not wearing a pleated skirt or army boots, which was wildly disappointing. She works a MMA gimmick and does a decent job with it, but it didn't really fit well into this match. Really liked the Australians though. They worked nice distraction spots, and I thought Royce especially looked good. She threw a killer knee on the apron and had an awesome "athletic heel" spot in the corner where she choked Daria with her boot, but was doing a sort of vertical splits while doing it, so her head was upside down and touching the mat while her boot was high up choking Daria. Daria had a fun comeback moment where she tore off her MMA gloves and started throwing bare fists blows, nice update on the strap removal spots I love so much. Aliyah was the hot tag and she didn't look great, but the energy was there which is half a hot tag anyway. Australians are really taking a hit to the Loss column on this show.

3. Roderick Strong vs. Oney Lorcan

This match really delivered, and was pretty much all you'd expect. Strong dominated, threw huge chops, nice knees, slick running kick; but it was Lorcan's comeback that made things really work. Once Lorcan started going off with uppercuts and his great lariat, we had business. It looked like both guys knew each other well and were able to work some pretty complicated fast sequences. I loved Lorcan going for some fast running uppercuts in the corner, and on the third Strong catches him mid move and drops him with a big backbreaker. Both guys had no problem leaning into the other's strikes, and the pace and build were great. It never really felt like Lorcan had a chance, and that's what made his comeback so much fun, suddenly he was pinballing Strong all around, launching him with a half nelson suplex, all of this was just a real fun go go go match. At one point, the inspired masses were moved to a This is Awesome chant. I wonder if, sometimes, a This Is Awesome chant starts up, and the guys in the ring let out a single syllable laugh and go, "We did it, partner. We did it."

4. Tye Dillinger vs. Wesley Blake

Blake is a favorite of mine from 2014 television, Dillinger - I was told - has a new gimmick, and that gimmick was very much over with the fans in attendance. Talking it over with Dylan, Lana and Tim, we came to the conclusion that Blake is working a gimmick as Keith Urban's slide guitar player, who facially looks like Balls Mahoney while dressing like 2007 Brian Kendrick, essentially making Wesley Blake = Jimmy Del Ray. We already had someone paying tribute to Prince on this show, and while Del Ray may be more of an obscure name, I appreciate what Blake was going for. Oh and I still think Blake is awesome. Dude stooged all over the place for Dillinger and his 10 chants, being perfectly fine with his own "1" chants. He wore tasseled kneepads. He had me at hello. This match went about 42 minutes and Blake was great at keeping things simple and light. His running punch off the ropes was a highlight of the evening. After being inundated with TEN chants throughout this match, I later got to ask Tim what time it was when it was 10:00, and then flashed the Tye 10 count. You guys, I was real happy with myself.

A long intermission allowed me to wade through one of the trech-uh-ruhsly wet bathrooms (seriously it was impossible not to kick through puddles of water and urine in these bathrooms) and really meet Lana and Dylan in person for the first time. They bought snacks. I stood with them. And it was good! Neither appeared to be weirdos, and I don't believe I was weird either. We talked about where my friend got me my Vader shirt (at a NOAH show! in 2002!), how genuine Papa Hales' gimmick is, other local indies, and I talked more about Wesley Blake.

5. Bobby Roode vs. No Way Jose

So Bobby Roode is legit. For a guy I've been watching wrestle for (sheesh) 12+ years, he wasn't really a guy I had much opinion on. He operated in the middle zone, not good enough for me to seek out more, not bad enough for him to become a running joke. My strongest opinion on him for  many years was "sometimes his torso looks too long". And sometimes it did! But I didn't have any favorite Bobby Roode matches, and he never struck me as bad. He just existed on wrestling programming, for a fed that I often skipped. But live? Man he is legit. This guy was Tracy Smothers up there. You watch what he did in this match and you realize how easily he could fit this into tons of different kinds of Memphis match. You could see him working his way through them. He starts with comedy and came back to it. His theme song - you may have heard - is way over. Fans wanted any excuse to sing it, just as they wanted any excuse to chant DELETE. It's amusing that "DELETE" is fast becoming the "You fucked up" of the 2010s. It's a trade I'm fine with. But Roode incorporated NWJ's dancing into the match about as well as possible. He stooged all over, he knew when to cut off Jose, knew when to turn things serious, planted NWJ with a great spinebuster. You could easily see Roode as Dutch or Tracy Smothers in this match. What is odd, and I don't think this is an insult, but I think Roode will remain a better house show worker. I don't know if the stuff I loved live will translate very well to TV, or be given the time to translate. Roode may remain a guy I don't get excited for on TV, but get excited for in the house show experience. Goldust is one of my favorite workers in the world, and I'd take him on a house show every time if my other chance was a TV match. And there aren't tons of guys in WWE I'd say that about.

6. Asuka vs. Mandy Rose

Crowd was chanting "Asuka's Gonna Kill You" which was amusing because the dreaded and feared Asuka ended up giving like 80% of the match to Mandy Rose. Mandy Rose I know only from being wisely talked out of forming any sort of friendly alliance with Eva Marie on Total Divas. She didn't strike me on Divas as someone who "came from wrestling". She seemed like a typical fashion model hired to sort of learn to fake fight. This was my first time seeing her wrestle, and I really liked her. She was better than half the people in the tag earlier, and she worked as a strong heel the entire match. Fans wanted to see Asuka murder her and I was tickled that Rose was working "not in the face" schtick, Asuka works some nice hip attacks, but I really dug Rose working simple heel stuff the whole match. The best parts were when Asuka was trying to lock on an armbar and a chickenwing, and they did a bunch of really cool rolling. Rose must be double jointed as she was bending every which way while Asuka held on. There were a couple unexpected reversals, and a nice build to Rose finally tapping to the chickenwing. Asuka has awesome body charisma, really captivating from the moment she started her entrance, and I have no doubt that helped Rose. But this was an unexpected and fun showing from Rose.

7. Shinsuke Nakamura/TM-61 vs. Samoa Joe/Authors of Pain

I gotta say it was pretty adorable watching Rachel scramble for her phone when Nakamura was coming out, as if there is anybody in her life (who wasn't standing right next to her) who would have anything but a single raised eyebrow if she showed them pictures of some guy named Shinsuke Nakamura. Who knows, maybe the gals in her office would get it. I've never seen either Authors of Pain or TM61, though apparently not knowing TM61 shows how little NOAH I watch these days. Authors of Pain definitely appear to be not Da Hit Squad, and I couldn't get a feel for either of those guys. This was a pretty lazy main event, as Nak was perfectly fine standing on the apron and looking only semi inspired while actually tagged in. While working an armlock sequence with one of AoP he even accidentally kicked him right in the eye while cartwheeling; felt like a classic Rayo de Jalisco Jr. move, like whipping his cape into a referee's eye while being announced. I've heard Joe getting a lot of praise for his work in NXT, but here he was just doing the same few moves in the same sequences that he was doing on indy shows 10 years ago. Jab/chop combo in the corner, walking away from an opponent's blind crossbody, chop/kick then a senton, it was the same Joe that I haven't really cared about for awhile. He has more charisma and comes across as more tough than a guy like Christopher Daniels, so he gets more out of not updating the old routine than other guys, but he didn't do a whole lot for me here. TM61 did a double team moonsault/fistdrop so I loved that, and they seemed fine overall although I'll have to see more of them to fully judge. Crowd was so crazy into Nakamura, all he really had to do was wriggle or point and the crowd would flip out. He was definitely a lot of the draw here, and I get it. The match wasn't much but it was a blast seeing him do (part of) his thing live and up close. Joe kicks one of TM61 low and gets the kokina clutch and Nak goes crazy on everyone with flying knees after the match and does a lot of goofy/great poses.


Well that was a really fun show. I'd definitely go out of my way to see NXT live again, so hopefully it becomes some kind of small venue touring commodity. If instead this was more of a test run that never takes off, well I'm glad I got to see it, and I'm glad Rachel got to see Nakamura. Tim, Dylan and Lana got to see them again the next night in San Jose, which also sounded like a fun show. And with that we drove back home in the super low visibility rain, road lines completely invisible, me blindly following the GPS as I was left completely turned around by the blurred out rain. The processed vocals of the new Bon Iver took us home.

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