Old97s.com

by seeing rhett miller at union square doing solo instore

  fot the instigator
 

Back in 1999, I was working in a bar.  There was this great girl who was a bartender, and while everyone who knew the two of us thought we should be dating, we weren’t.   We had both came out of bad marriages and were content with being friends. That was until she needed a “date” for a function at her day job.  (I was the third person she asked).  I tried to be cool about it, but the wheels were in motion.

At the bar, the background music was on VCR tapes so they only needed to be changed every six hours.  There was this one song she absolutely loved.  It had something to do with being “29 years old”, which she was at the time.  No one knew who played it.  Every time the song came on, I would offer every table a round of drinks if they could name the band.  Not even free beer could get me an answer. 

Finally I spent a couple hours online (it was 1999) and found out who it was.  I found the CD at the store, and had Indefinitely playing when she got home.  We fell in love with the band, and each other.

September 2^nd, we will celebrate our 8^th anniversary.  We both had a son from our previous marriages, and together we have a son and a daughter.  All six of us are big fans, and maybe no one more than our five year old daughter. At the Taste of Chicago show, she sang every word.  (Someday I will have some explaining to do)  We met the band after the show, and they were extremely nice, if maybe a little overwhelmed by the clan.

It doesn't get much better than that... . I enjoy reading these, there's just so many great ones.. Thanks for posting.

 

I don't have much of a story myself. First experience was catching them on Austin City Limits on TV... I was glued to the fuzzy screen instantly going "YES!"  I don't think the then GF noticed. At the time PBS was one of two channels that came on in that little house. I put two and two together after moving, and popped Wreck You Life in my car's player and didn't turn it off til it played through 2 1/2 times. It's a record that really got me through a "wreck my life" kind of period too. And, since I was a dork, I made myself wait awhile before picking up the records so I could look forward to them.. (this was a year or three before Drag came out). 

it all started with my parents going to see Chris Isaak and the 97's were opening for him. They liked them and later bought Fight Songs. They listened to it constantly, on family vacations especially. I was only 9 years old or so but i loved it. My favorite song was Busted Afternoon. So the years following that, i bought all their records, saw every show they played in atlanta, and became a bigger fan than my parents.

LectroShockBlues:

it all started with my parents going to see Chris Isaak and the 97's were opening for him. They liked them and later bought Fight Songs. They listened to it constantly, on family vacations especially. I was only 9 years old or so but i loved it. My favorite song was Busted Afternoon. So the years following that, i bought all their records, saw every show they played in atlanta, and became a bigger fan than my parents.

 Was that show in San Antonio?  If so, I was at that show to see Chris Isaak and that's when I first heard them too.  I met my husband at that show!  Yay!  I actually blogged about it here:

http://funkyspunkymama.blogspot.com/ 

When I went to college, I can safely say that the stuff on the radio was so foreign to me--I didn't listen to popular music in high school, only Christian rock, so I really had no idea what music "normal" people my age really liked. I moved to Columbia, MO for college at Mizzou and started listening to local radio stations, not really finding anything I liked I started listening to the college radio station. There was a lot of crap on that station too, but I found one d.j. that really seemed to have music taste that I appreciated (Jason Cafer). I would make an effort to catch his two shows every week and at some point, I heard some of the stuff from Fight Songs in '99. I really liked what I heard so I went out and got the album, then when Satellite Rides came out, I got that too. I liked it a lot, but never looked back to see what the guys had done before Fight Songs. I met my husband, he got into med. school, then did his residency in psychiatry. That same d.j. that did the shows that I loved on college radio was a psychiatry resident too! We all became friends and he gave me a bootleg from a live performance at Columbia's Blue Note back in 2000. I had these 2 cd's for a full year before I ever listened to them (why, I have no idea). I'd never been to an Old 97's concert before, so I had no idea what they sounded like live. Drag it Up had just come out and I became obsessed and purchased everything prior to Fight Songs too. After I'd become so enamored with them, Rhett did his solo work and I really thought I'd missed the boat. Here was this amazing band, and I felt like it was dissolving before I'd even had the chance to really experience them live. I was really disappointed. That was 2004, so I waited.... I was determined to see a live show--I wouldn't believe it was over, so finally, last July, 2007, I saw them live and it was incredible. There is no other band that I can listen to over and over and never tire of. For several months at a time, I will have 6 Old 97's cd's of 6 cd slots in my car cd player. Every once in a while Wolf Parade or Wilco will sneak in, but that's mostly to keep my husband from killing me. He likes the Old 97's too, but just not as much as me. The Old 97's music fits me like a favorite pair of blue jeans, and I think they are like that for those people that maybe don't have a specific "box" that they can be put in.

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I'll stomp a mud hole in your heart

can totally relate and agree with you!  I never tire of them, I try and try and it just doesn't happen

We have much in common miss Victoria Lee.  My name is also Victoria Lee but I couldn't use the name because it was taken hence big brown eyes of tx was the next best thing i could get.  My husband and i also saw them first at the Carter A benefit.  Loved them so much that we drove to Austin the next night to see them again at Stubbs.  We were hooked and haven't missed many Texas shows since.  Even at the live taping in Gruene Hall in the godawful heat we saw them both nights in a row.  Seeing Rhett in a tiny yoga turned music venue was also great.  Couldn't believe he could play all the bands songs with such passion.  It was fun and a great experience.  Can't wait for Austin.

OOPS!  Sorry it wasn't the Carter Albright show (we did see it) but a fund raiser they did for a fan who got beat up after one of their concerts.  We were impressed by their thoughtfulness as well as their music.  We had seen their name in the paper under band listings years before and hadn't seen them when they were all here in Dallas.  We were sick that we had missed so much.  Since then we've been making up for lost time.