Jack Rabbit's, Jacksonville, FL
May 2, 2004
by Amy Osborne

Adventures of the Osborne Sisters - Jacksonville 5/2/04

After seeing two Red Elvises shows in our own area (Tampa, FL 4/24/04 & Clearwater, FL4/30/04) my sister, Amber, and I decided to just keep on going. Jacksonville, FL is ONLY 4 hours away!! So, being internet savvy, we got a killer room cheap from Priceline, directions from Mapquest, and we were on off on our first Red Elvises Road Trip. (We would have caught the Orlando show too but I had to work that night.....damn evil real job!)

We got to Jacksonville early in the afternoon so we had plenty of time to rest, eat, and hang about before the show. According to Mapquest, the club, Jack Rabbit's, was only 4 minutes away from our hotel. The show was slated to start at 9 p.m. with the doors opening at 8:00. At around 7:45, Amber started the "can we leave yet?" onslaught but I was able to cool her jets until just a little after 8:00. Twenty minutes later we were still driving around the greater Jacksonville area...totally lost and pissed off at Mapquest. Evil mapquest! Unfortunatly, it was also a Sunday night so most places were closed...not the easiest time to get directions from someone. Finally, we found Steve...a guy who was outside of the Auto Zone he worked at, taking out the trash. Steve gave us directions which were adequate enough to get us to the general area of Jack Rabbit's but not to the club itself. Once again we were wandering aimlessly through the streets of Jacksonville. Then Amber screamed "STOP THE CAR!!" Luckily it was a Sunday night with no traffic...therefore I still have the rear bumper on my car. The rest of her screaming sentence was "THE VAN IS OVER AT SUBWAY!!" I look to where she was vigorously pointing and there was the big red van sitting like a beacon in the parking lot of Subway. I pull in to the parking lot and Amber jumps out before the car is 100% stopped. By the time I'm fully parked, Amber's inside and all I see is her frantic arm movements. Oleg came outside with Amber to give me directions but changed his mind and invited us in to hang out with them. Nifty.

Once inside, we were talking about getting lost and how we were worried that we wouldn't be able to get into the show. That's when we were told that no one was at the club. WHAT?? How could there be no one in Jacksonville that would get off their lazy asses to go see our favorite band?!? It's just not possible. Later, when we got to the club we saw that it was all too true. There were about 5 paying customers in the place. Whoa!! What a contrast to the Tampa area. Skipper's was full of people and Clancey's was officially "sold out." By the time the opening act, "That 1 Guy", went onstage there may have been about 15-20 people there.

Okay...I have to stop here and give proper kudos to "That 1 Guy". If you ever get a chance to see him live...YOU MUST GO! His act is difficult to explain. It's just him and this instrument he has created. You can check him out at www.that1guy.com. We were sitting with Igor during his act and we were all bowled over. It's quite amazing.

Back to the Red Elvises....Somewhere along the line it was agreed that Amber and I would work their merchandise table. We MacGuyvered a shirt display using some hangers and scotch tape (if only we had a coconut too!) and made some signs and price lists with a Sharpie and paper we commandered from the bartender. I must say that it rocks to work the table!! Once you make people understand that "no...we're not fucking the band" they are all really cool. We made some friends and convinced a few people to try to drive down to the next RE Tampa show. Most of the people we talked to had never heard of the Red Elvises before and were just there to see what they were all about. Only 3 people were actual fans!

When the guys finally went on stage there were about 30-50 people in the audience. (But don't hold me to that because I'm not a good judge of crowd size.) During the first few songs, the crowd kinda stood back and weren't really into it. But after a while everyone loosened up and started having a good time. By the time they played "Closet Disco Dancer" even the "I'm really hardcore" punk guys were dancing along. Woo hoo!!

Before the show started we mentioned to Oleg that we only had one copy of "Lunatics and Poets" to sell. He said that there were more in the van but somehow we didn't get them before they went onstage. How are we going to sell cd's we don't have? When Oleg announced from the stage that we had cd's for sale he suddenly remembered that they were in the van. During the extended drum solo Oleg ran out to the van and got the other box for us. It's a good thing they have that drum solo! We sold quite a few of those puppies that night :) (well...quite a few for such a small crowd.)

The last song of the night was "I Wanna See You Bellydance." Since it was a rookie crowd there wasn't a wave of females clawing to get to the stage. I grabbed some of the girls I had been talking to earlier and got them up there. When one other girl realized what was going on, she tried to run into the women's bathroom but Oleg pulled her out and got her onstage. Ya gotta love that!

After the show everyone who came up to the table were all smiles and annoucing how much fun they had. The Red Elvises definitely made quite a number of new fans that night and a good time was had by all.

Total roundtrip miles: Around 500 (including getting lost)

Next stop for us...Atlanta, GA! It's ONLY an 8 hour drive!!