DOWNLOAD: Harry & The Potters and Uncle Monsterface, "Benjamin" (mp3)
DOWNLOAD: Harry & The Potters and Uncle Monsterface, "No More Tour" (mp3)
Day 13:“Andy Man O’ Warhol”; the transformative properties of puppetry; Dumbledore’s guitar; finale.
Paul: Our friend Nick lives above this coffee shop that has the most insane muffins ever. If God was in the muffin business, this is probably what his muffins would be like. The strawberry cream cheese is a winner, as is the cinnamon coffee cake.
Joe: We just finished tracking “Andy Man O’ Warhol!” If Andy Warhol were in a metal band, this would be his theme. “Smash the antiquated window of the ennui/With the bloody fist of redundancy!”
Marty Allen: Philly: the perfect way to end the best tour ever. Ending as she began, boldly and in a church basement. Contrary to popular metal mythology, God totally does know how to rock. With everything in order and a solid sound check under our belts, we hit the stage ready for thunder and poised for lightning, destiny awaited, like a gussied up elderly relative with both your favorite dessert AND main course ready for you all at once.
Jesse: The posted maximum occupancy is 150. Luckily for us, there's no fire marshal present because double that number turns up at the First Unitarian.
Marty Allen: I puttered around a bit, checking on this and that as I am wont to do, excited by the sheer number of kids, when I heard a sudden uproarious cheer.
Jesse: Normally, before the show starts, Uncle Monsterface pokes his puppet head up to look around and perhaps one or two people notice. Seeing them, he’ll then jump down and hide. Tonight a huge cheer reverberated through the crowd when he appeared. He was stunned — visibly, jaw-droppingly stunned — before he turned tail. The crowd was so happy, so excited, so ready to have a good time that Uncle Monsterface could not let them down.
Marty Allen: Philly audience, how much do I love thee? Philly utterly, completely, and unabashedly threw down. They screamed, they rocked, and they rolled like no other audience I've ever seen. They were a gift to us, the perfect end to the most amazing tour. Three hundred screaming kids, dancing and born to rock, the best present ever. After playing this rock show, I can truly die a happy man.
Jesse: I’m watching as Uncle Monsterface performs their last set of the tour, no one wanting this to be over. For their finale, “Lobster Building,” the band usually asks a handful of people from the audience to rock out with them, and these people are given inflatable prop guitars, lobsters, and puppets. Tonight, so many people join them onstage — including Harry and the Potters — that it looks like a Prince’s Trust concert. When Uncle Monsterface himself makes his appearance at the climax of the song, he needs to gingerly step between fans, careful not to crush toes with his size 13-and-a-half feet.
Marty Allen: The stage was so crammed with audience rock volunteers at the end of the set that we actually had to turn some folks away. The place erupted with sock puppets capes and giant lobsters in a miasma of rock glory. The kids danced, faces melted, banshees wept, the very earth quaked beneath us and we went out in true Monsterface style. Our one and only encore of the tour was to get everyone to sing "Happy Birthday" to one of the girls who had joined us on stage. Poetic. Beautiful moments upon beautiful moments, it overwhelms me, and it is over, and it was so very very good.
Jesse: I am there in that crowd, watching, but the line between watching and taking part has evaporated. We’re one wave, a circuit, beginning with the band onstage, running through the crowd, back. “We build and we build/We build and we build,” Marty shouts into a megaphone, as their finale crescendos. Ordinary things are transformed by will and imagination, excitement and sweat. I am inside that puppet’s head. I am inside that crowd. I am in the belly of the beast, and Uncle Monsterface is in their hearts.
These moments happen, if you let them.
Joe: Paul just broke his string because he was rocking extra hard. To stall for a bit, I start to tell the story of how Harry Potter from Year 7 and Year 4 met up and decided to join forces and start a solo project using rock music to fight evil. No one is listening though. They’re all gawking at Paul’s backup guitar. This is completely understandable. This backup guitar looks pretty rad. It’s pretty much something Dumbledore would make if he was an electric guitar manufacturer instead of the headmaster of a magic school.
