AHHHHH BORN RUFFIANS!! BEST NIGHT EVER (seriously.)

Probably the best / most fun / most deviant night of my life. 

So I was headed to their afternoon event all the way across town. Ticket said it started at 1.30, so I show up a bit before then and they’re walking on stage to close the show. Yeah. That didn’t go so well. Mitch came right up to me afterwards and we chatted it up for a bit, Luke stopped by and I met their rep from WARP. Steve was still pretty sad haha. Fortunately the thing was taped, so I’ll see it sometime. 

So I go back home and go about my day, hoping that Bowery would somehow make up for the weekend’s previous disappointments.

My friend/plus one dan comes a bit later, makes some burned-yet-somehow-still-good grilled cheese for me and one of my roommates Ali. Dan and I leave, get to Bowery around 8.45 and sit on the floor for awhile. Steve sees me and stops to chat, saying how they’ve almost sold the place out. 

FRP come on, pretty good. There were these really obnoxious kids from sarah lawrence (they looked soo SL as well. gross haha) one of them was on E I think. He was like falling over everyone and shouting. He disappeared before Ruffians came on though. Winter Gloves, blah blah. Okay, then people go freaking NUTS when BR comes on. Like, crazy. They kill the set, like. it was the BEST of all 10 shows I’ve seen. Setlist was the same, but they added Badonkadonkey to the encore. I took a crazy video of them ALL jump down in the crowd during the best singalong to Kurt V. ever. 

Oh I got recognized! Some couple in their late 20s walks up to me and is like Are you Julia? and I’m just like, yeah.. the girl’s giving me this huge smile and his voice is shaking. haha it was pretty sublime. We’ll send photos! .. okay, great! thanks for saying Hi blah blah blah. incredible. 

So I stick around after, stay near the stage, take my instax photos, chat with all of them. Dan was carrying conversation impressively well, even though he seemed like he was a bit taken aback by me just going up to them and hanging out after they killed the bowery. So yeah. I’m sticking around with Mitch the most by the stage as they pack up. Steve says I should meet up with them later. Mitch comes back up to me and asks for my number. Yeah. Just like. What. Okay. Then he gives me the address of the bar they’re going to be at. I’m looking over at Dan all like, what the f u c k is happening rn. Then Mitch yells out MERCH! and just like whisks us downstairs. He loads me up with the poster, their entire discography on vinyl and gets everyone to sign a Plinky Plonk EP for me to give away. So okay. I’ve got an armful of vinyl and we go back up to the stage. Mitch gives me his number and Luke tells me the address again. Good goood. 

Dan and I like run back to the train, hop the 6 and go back to the apartment. I drop off all the vinyl and we decide to take the L across to the F that would land us right near the bar. The L doesn’t come and it’s getting late so we race over to 6th ave (nuts.) and wait for the F. Doesn’t come. We go back over to 5th ave, and are like FUCK THIS we’re getting in a cab, who overshoots the addr we told him by two blocks. Great. Now it’s almost three in the morning.

We get out of the cab and start to run through Chinatown, find the bar and go up to the door, which says you have to be 21 to enter. Dan is, so he scopes it out and comes back. We go down half a block, I give him my ID and we go back up to the door. Dan goes in and stands in the doorway. I shuffle through my bag and tell the bouncer that I must’ve left it at The Bowery. He lets me in. Just like that. DEVIANCE at its finest. We head to the back of the bar.. all the Ruffs are there, Winter Gloves, FRP. All of them. I walk up to Mitch, who’s with one of the FRP guys who says ‘There she is.’ Mitch gives me this half hug and says, where were you?! haha. I love him. He tells me about this tribute show they’ll be doing in TO in the winter, and how awesome it would be if I were there. I spend the whole winter break month in Toronto so I really hope it’s on when I’m up there. So we’re just kicking around the bar for another hour, he gets me a drink (water haha. let’s not push our luck here.) and we sit on this couch together with andy and steve nearby on another. Jared Raab was there as well. Really cool. The girl from FRP was glaring at me from across the room. Weird. I geek out near the end and ask about Like When You, and Mitch was like super happy to tell me the story about it. He tells me about Luke’s new demos for the third record as well, and how he’s never been more excited for the new material. Bar closes at four, so we move to the street. I watch FRP say their goodbyes to the Ruffs. Luke shakes my hand luuuul and Steve just kinda smiles at me. Mitch gave me this huge hug and was like, aww I dunno when we’re going to see you again. So sweet. ugh. 

Dan and I hop another cab (fuck last night’s mta service) up to my apartment and he crashes there. We (me/ali/dan) all sleep in the same room, stay up until 6.30, deliriously talking about nothing and laughing our asses off. Then we ate pumpkin pie for breakfast. 

Seriously. I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say it was one of the best nights of my life. Maybe even the best.