The United Way Benefit was a success! The night went well for all acts involved, the crowd was in generous spirits, and the United Way should be getting a nice donation in Ceridian's name, so all in all, this was a great evening.

First up was the Dollhouse Factor. We'd played with these guys a few shows back at the 449 Room, and they had volunteered to perform at this show. What an awesome job they did! The band was really tight, plenty of their fans showed up in support, and it was a great set for them. The only disappointment was when the microphone kept cutting out during their cover of "Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys, but of course that was more a sound issue, not the fault of the band. They did great through it anyway. Great show, guys!

Next we took the stage. We started out strong, hitting the audience with "Got No Time For You", "By My Side", "The Ledge", and several other of our originals, in addition to pulling out some fun covers for the evening. All seemed well. The crowd was having a good time, we were on top of things, and everybody was smiling.

We managed to sneak in "Happy Birthday" for our manager Morgan, whose birthday is June 28th. We were about halfway through the set at this point, and right after Morgan's birthday wishes, we had designed a back and forth cover series involving "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" and "I Love Rock N' Roll" (both songs are in the same key, so why not?!). This is when things went down hill abruptly!

Midway through the guitar solo in "Hit Me With Your Best Shot", Laura snapped the high E string on the guitar. That's never good. This then caused the entire instrument to go out of tune... The rest of the band covered the music and held everything together while Laura ran off to the edge of the stage to recover the backup guitar. At this point, however, the switching effect between the two songs was unfortunately lost. We wrapped up by going back into "Hit Me With Your Best Shot", but the cool effect was gone.

Luckily for us, the audience seemed to be forgiving and cheered loudly for us when we finally got our performance together. Sorry about that, guys! We appreciate your support and will try harder to make sure our equipment is in working order. To quote the movie Drop Dead Gorgeous, though, "these things happen..."

We finished up the set, definitely a bit shaken from the string incident, but we did manage to continue and have a good evening. The audience remained strong with us until the end, which we always appreciate.

The evening ended with DJ Gliss creating a dance party, and some of the fans stayed around and danced. That was definitely an interesting part of the evening! Good times.

So now for our thank yous: Thank you to Shannon, who helped coordinate the event and was able to work the doors for us this evening. Shannon, you're wonderful! We can throw drumsticks at you and yet you still come help us out. What a good friend! Thank you to Matt & the staff at the Conduit, you were very helpful with this event and we appreciate the use of your venue! Thanks to Dollhouse Factor and DJ Gliss for volunteering your time for this event despite the fact that it did not pay any money, we appreciate that you are willing to do things simply for a good cause! You also gave great performances for the event, and we all appreciate that! Thanks to Morgan & Michelle for all of your help with everything, as always you're both incredibly helpful! And last but not least, thanks to everyone who came to the show or made a contribution to the event. All of your proceeds are benefiting the United Way, which is something you definitely should be proud of! We hope the evening was fun for you and you had a good time while giving to a good cause.

So what's in store for the future of Odds Are? Saturday, July 8th we will be performing at Luna Stage in Montclair, NJ as a part of the Digital Cafe Tour (www.digitalcafetour.com) - this is a big night for us, as the event is being filmed for an internet broadcast! Ticket prices have now dropped to a reasonable $10, so please come check us out - we could use all of your support!

We hope to see you in Montclair on July 8th!