“Awesome” during the early, “funny” years.
One summer night in 2004, I squeezed into the crowded and dusty backroom theater of the Rendezvous to see a seven-member performance-art band called “Awesome.” The phrase “seven-member performance-art band” would send most sane people running in the opposite direction, and the folks I recognized in the crowd (most of them theater artists) had that tolerant, we’re-privately-skeptical-but-here-to-be-supportive smile endemic to theater lobbies, local-music clubs, and elementary-school recital halls across the country. The seven members of “Awesome” walked onstage wearing suits, some of them ill-fitting. They weren’t the kind of guys who normally wear suits…
