June 17th 2003 - Red Devil Lounge - San Francisco, CA

Another "VARIETY PACK!" under our belts. This was #4 to be exact, and although we moved it across town to the Red Devil Lounge, and did it on a Tuesday, it was a really great night.

Some special surprises were the sudden appearance of JBOT, the man who NEVER goes to see other people's shows.....(thanks JBOT, that was really cool of you), and of course the completely unexpected showing of Karen's eldest brother, all the way from Phoenix. He works for an airline, so we really never know when or where he will show up. But we said "a bunch of girl bands", and he was there.

Mark and Sarah made it. Josh Ellingson - the one who made the amazing flier for the show was there. Renee was there even though she was playing at the Great American the very next evening! Ben and Owen made it too. That was cool.

Anyway, you get the gist. There were really lots of good people to hang with the whole night. Not to mention the lineup of music gelled really well.

Koolie Cat started off the night by spicing us all up with their fierce rockin' trio-ness. They're cute, their fun and they kickstarted the whole evening. Thanks to them for switching slots at the last minute as well!

Then Clevergirl went on. It was a little nerve wracking cuz the guitar amp was pointing right into Karen and Elaine's ears. So it was a bit hard to hear, but Karen was too lazy or distracted to move it. Hmmmm....

But the mix sounded great out in the house, or so we were told, so it's all good.

Speaking of mixing....Chris Fortier from Griddle was the glorious sound man, and general RDL organizer for the evening. Every band sounded great. All the vocal mixes were right on, and damn, that just makes the whole attitude of the evening that much better. Thank you Chris!!!

After us were the lovely girls of TART, all the way from Seattle. They're in the midst of their tour, and said that this was definitely one of the best shows so far. Glad it all worked out for ya. TART is made up of three sisters, Anna, Sarah and Julia and their stoppin' drummer Lisa. Rosie said they were "mathy" And she knows her stuff, so lets just say that they are. They have these amazingly tight vocal harmonies that blast you like a horn section too. That's very cool. Go see them. Buy some merch. They're really nice.

Ending the evening was Tiger Beat. The perfect way to mellow out the mood and slow things down. Their dreamy, lush guitar work, and long, moody songs were just what the last of a Tuesday night needed. Thanks you guys. And thanks to Jodi for doing double duty bass playing in CG and TB.

Hope you all had fun. l know we did. We'll see you at the next VP #6!