Friends Forever Elude At Heliotrope; Show Up Today At Ye Olde Zoo Ruins
Having seen a questionably amazing documentary about the band Friends Forever a few years ago, I had great intentions of watching them play last night and asking them a few rapid-fire questions. It would likely have gone down something like this:
ME: Assume Nate can paint a van in three hours, and Josh can paint a van in two hours. How long would it take to paint the van if Nate and Josh worked together?
FF: Using x as a variable for time it is easily seen that 1/x is equivalent to 1/3 plus 1/2, or 2+3/6. Standard algebraic cross-multiplication yields the number 6/5. As such it would take 1 and 1/5 hours, or precisely 72 minutes if we were to both paint the van.
In reality the evening went something like this:
- We went to il corral
- No bands were playing.
- We left and had margaritas at el conquistador.
- Stopped and took a swinging break at a tree which was essentially underneath the 101 freeway
- We returned to il corral.
- Two bands had played.
- Friends Forever were rumored to be the fourth and final band.
- We went to 4100 bar for 30-ish minutes.
- We returned to the il corral.
- All bands were done for the evening.
The Friends Forever VW Van was in the courtyard behind the venue, covered in t-shirts. The show had ended but a crowd remained. Girls in bathing suits hawked shirts.
The legend grows. Will I ever witness the live show!? I’m at work, but my next chance will be today, somewhere between 1 and 5pm. They’re apparently playing near the LA Zoo at “the old LA Zoo Ruins”…a free show with a few other bands.
So take note, unemployed Angelenos: you have a few hours to get your act together and get to the old LA Zoo ruins in Griffith Park to witness a punk band lay down the rules of rock from inside their van. Not to be missed. They may not be back in town for another six weeks…six months…or six years.
UPDATE
I did in fact make it to the old zoo ruins by 4pm. FF were there, but I did not see them play. I did however see a band from San Francisco called ‘Animal Birth Control’ perform in and above one of the abandonded bear caves. They were followed by a few people who basically just made really loud feedback noises with footpedals. Good times in the park.
