Whats up Spaffnerds! Thanks to this website, I now know the date of my first Spafford show. It was 5-19-12 at the old Quixote's in Denver. Back in those days I was constantly going to shows looking for good new jam bands. Little did I know, the show I was about to see would become my favorite band.
When I saw this band called Spafford on the Quixote's website, I decided to google them and came upon a video of the band covering Men at Work's -Land Down Under. The video was from September 2011, I think. It's still up and still hilarious to watch the people dancing in that video. I'd never heard of anyone covering this song before and Spafford completely jammed the shit out of it. From that moment, I was hooked and had to see the show.
I remember getting to the show a little early to play ping pong. After crushing my friend, we decided to sit down next to the stage. We ended up talking to this guy sitting next to the stage for about 10 minutes. His name was Nick and he played drums for Spafford. Nick was a super cool and gave me a great first impression of what these guys were like.
I don't remember much of the show, so I'm really hoping a setlist pops up someday, but there were a lot of Phish covers in the second set. I do remember talking to Brian at set break and trying to convince him to move the band to Denver for more exposure. He respectfully declined, and I will always admire them for staying close to home, even if it meant spending more time breaking out.
I continued to be amazed at how much this band and fan base has grown over the last 5 years. It was rough seeing these guys play Denver in front of 10 people sometimes, but to hear they are playing the Ogden (1600 people), I couldn't be happier for this band, the fans and the future of improv music.
