waywardpanties.com

The show opened up with a pounding kick drum and the first few notes of “This World Is Not My Home”, and as the music swelled, I found myself lining up a shot at the hi-dive’s lone pool table, singing at the top of my lungs “Lord, take me awaay! This worrld is not my home! I won’t need a thinng! Love will be my home! Love, love, love… love, love, love!” The four or five friends I had invited out to the show all looked at me as if I was a crazy man. In their defense, lead singer Chris Adolf hadn’t started singing yet, and my friends didn’t yet know I was singing the lyrics to the song being played. And really, who just starts singing “Lord, take me awaay! This world is not my home!” while playing a game of pool at a dive bar? A crazy man.

But that’s just the sort of song Bad Weather California plays, songs that seem to take root in you and well up out of you and songs that you can’t help singing along to, even if you’ve only heard them once or twice. And they play them well, and they play them differently almost every show.

And then the strangest thing happens… the hi-dive, which had up until last night been, for me, one of those bars that made me feel out of the loop or not on the scene or just plain not cool enough, suddenly felt like my bar, the place I hung out at. I suddenly realized that all of that loop/scene/cool stuff was just in my head. Maybe it was because I was with my friends and we were just hanging out playing pool while Bad Weather California, the best band in Denver, was playing the soundtrack to our evening, but I like to believe that it was the love. The love coming out clear over the speakers and into everyone’s brains was what made that big scary hi-dive feel like home to me. But you can believe what you want, right?