John and I got ALL the Garfield jokes out on the way up to this show. Garfield is *quite* a hike from Manahawkin, so I am not so sure what really compelled us to go so far for bands we only kind of liked. I think part of it was this weird desperation to feel a connection, at least for me, to the hardcore scene, which I felt like I was quickly losing. I had just started my first “adult” job and was taking night classes, a lot of which I slept through. During this time period, I had horrible insomnia, and depression, and would stay up for two or three days at a time. I did not even realize it was spring break that semester until one of my professors told me at the end of the week prior. Egads.
I mingled with friends while waiting for The First Step to go on. They were an okay band who got hyped up so hard that I felt bad for them. I appreciated their passion and sincerity though in that moment, so I bought a shirt that shrank to a tiny size.
Running Like Thieves’ music has not held up too well, but in the moment they were cool. They busted out Bold and Supertouch covers, which was cool. Matt was a nice dude and grateful that I taped them that day. Unlike the bloated egos of some other people I could name, he always seemed so chill and appreciative that anyone even checked out his bands.
I recorded Running Like Thieves, and maybe The First Step, at this show, so I have a decent memory of their set. They did a lot of their at the time pretty new seven inch, a few new songs, and then covers of Bold and Supertouch songs. It was kind of cool, but also kind of weird how into having half their set be “greatest hits” like some bullshit rock band in Las Vegas or something. I just kind of shrugged that off at the time, but increasingly this began to bother me a lot over the years.
I think I had some big paper due the next day or something like that after this show.
Random Running Like Thieves memory: So I bought a shirt at this show. I started working at Southern maybe a week or two after this show. We did not really have a dress code, so I used to just throw on a pair of jeans, Vans, and a shirt with a button down over it. A lot of times I just wore band shirts because I had so many of them. One day I am sitting in the faculty room and I had my Running Like Thieves shirt on. This frat boy douchebag who I think taught history freaked out over it and did the whole WHAT DOES THAT MEAN thing people seemed to love doing. WHY WOULD THEY BE RUNNING LIKE THIEVES?????? Quickly, I began eating lunch in my classroom.
Bonus content: After the long drive home, we ended up heading to a local show. Some xChristian Hardcorex band played and we joked about it in the back. This also ended up on the Rev Board too somehow? Well a few days go by and I have a meeting with my advisor at like noon. So I go to leave around 1100 and someone had drawn all over my car (I don’t know what that stuff is called…the stuff people put on cars when their kid is a cheerleader or whatever) with all this pro life and Christian stuff. Did I mention it was pouring rain too, so it all smeared all over the car.
I tried to clean it up as best I could, but it was all over everything. I raced down to campus and was probably 20 minutes late to the meeting. My advisor was pissed, but calmed down when he saw how genuinely upset I looked. I told him I had “car problems” and almost cried. We dealt with whatever we had to deal with, which I have zero recollection of what exactly, and I stuck around for a few hours before my night class.
Wait, it gets better: It turned out, I found out later, and only from a friend who was drunk at the time, that some friends of mine did this. Thanks assholes! Totally cannot fucking imagine why I have such trust issues to this very day.
