By Michael Copley
Staff writer

I wasn’t thinking and I didn’t realize I hadn’t used the bathroom until we were twenty minutes up the road towards Farmville Saturday.

I thought I could grit my teeth and bear it — “Be a trooper,” I kept telling myself — and I knew the band wondered why the reporter stopped asking questions.

The breaking point came just two miles from our exit.

“Hill,” I said, “I hate to ask, but can we make a pit stop?”

[Laughing] “Just let it go man.”

“Hill,” I reminded him “I’m sitting on an 18 pound pile of your clothes.”

We stopped. But I was still in the trunk with my knees clenched to my chest, waiting for some kind soul to release me.

I was there to cover a weekend with Farm Vegas, a band of Hampden-Sydney graduates whose guitarist Phillip Agee graduated from PHS.

The previous night’s show at the National theater in Richmond was a crowning achievement of sorts for the band, but now they were heading for a more humble destination: a college fraternity party at Hampden-Sydney.

I thought it would be an interesting juxtaposition, and wanted to see how the band handled both the glamour and the grunt work of rock and roll.

Getting stuck in a trunk wasn’t exactly part of the plan.

* * *

The loading entrance to the National is a huge pair of doors, accessed by a narrow side street, that opens onto the backstage area.

I walk in at 6 p.m., a string of teeth-gnashing encounters with parking garage attendants having kept me from getting there sooner.

Farm Vegas’ bassist Brian Hill meets me on the street wearing a black retro-western button-up shirt with sequence stallions galloping across the shoulders.

The first thing I see when we enter the building is the stage: it’s enormous.

Agee approaches me when I walk in, his hand out and a guitar around his neck. He asks if I’m “ready for tonight” and I smile because he’s beaten me to the first question of the evening.

Guitars are scattered on the black leather sofas that line two of the dressing room walls. There’s a big black ottoman in the center of the room, and a refrigerator with beer and water in the corner.

This is why fledgling bands struggle, I thought, To have the chance to play their music in a place like this, to play rock star.

“Chris Robinson could have sat here,” says Hill, his eyes scanning the leather sofa he’s on.

Robinson is the lead singer of the Black Crowes, whose album, The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, hit number one on the Billboard charts in the early 90s.

Farm Vegas isn’t quite there yet, but they’re striving.

I’d done interviews with the band before and wanted Friday’s interaction to be natural; I just wanted to watch and listen.

They talk about song writing.

“Every band I’ve loved always had two or more song writers,” says singer/guitarist JL Hodges.

“Yeah, except for Neil Young and Ryan Adams,” someone adds laughing, “And Ryan Adams killed rock-n-roll.”

***

The social dynamic, the give and take amongst all five bands was impressive and the strata of inspiration and admiration were clear.

Hodges tells me about a conversation he had that night with the guitarist of Schak, a kid from Deep Run High School.

“Is that Justin [Paciocco, Farm Vegas’ singer/keyboardist]?” the kid asked.

“Yeah,” said Hodges with a broad smile, “Go say hey to him.”

The kid just shook his head and grinned.

“No way dude, I’ve only ever talked to him on Myspace.”

The same kid came into Farm Vegas’ dressing room before his band went on and I asked him about the night.

He didn’t say a lot, maybe because Paciocco was sitting a few feet away. All he could say was “I’m so excited to get out there and play.”

***

There’s a scramble for the balcony when Powhatan’s Buff Shaggy goes on.

Farm Vegas members sit or lean over the railing, intent on the performance like betters at the track.

They were all grinning and taking something unseen from the performance, gearing up. And then they’re in the dressing room again and Agee is back at it with the guitar around his neck; he walks with his eyes fixed on a point in front of his feet and he fingers the strings while he talks.

Hill paces motionlessly, making all the nervous circles in his head — he’s got a thousand-yard stare.

Hodges plops next to me on the sofa, trying to see the notes I’m taking; he’s smiling, waiting for me to look up so he can show off the alligator skin boots he’ll wear.

Drummer Austin Peters changes pants in the middle of the room and throws on a hat, and that finishes the wardrobe switch from street to stage.

Shortly after 9 p.m. I follow Paciocco down the hall to the opening bands’ shared dressing room. I’m getting comfortable now and talking to anyone who will look at me.

Schak’s guitarist, the Deep Run kid from earlier, walks in fresh off his band’s set and he’s beaming.

Everyone congratulates him and for the first time I notice he’s wearing a red T-shirt with a sickle on the front.

“Communism, huh?” I venture, and the room goes quiet.

The prodigy responds, spitting the words in my direction, “It’s a band, dude.” 

***

A guy named Squirrel ushers the band from the dressing room to the stage and I bring up the rear on the walk.

The band doesn’t seem anxious anymore, calm has settled about them and there’s an athlete’s focus to their movements.

After 15 minutes, everything’s ready.  The band huddles 10 feet off stage and I try to squeeze close but can only hear a muffled version of what is said.

Then they break and take the stage with more excitement than I’ve ever seen from them.

Farm Vegas is not comprised of once-in-a- lifetime musicians, but what they lack in raw talent they make up for in an unabashed love of what they to. They love playing together and perhaps more, they cherish music- it’s magnified on a stage that size.

And they owned the stage and everything on it Friday.

The crowd swelled and shifted under a light show and the band got down to throwing a party.

***

For a while I drift from the crowd to the balcony, finally settling on the side of the stage where I can watch the crowd and performers at once.

A crowd can’t really be grasped except from the stage. Faces make a mass at once intimate and judgmental; you can read everything in an expression.

Unbeknownst to me, the post I chose was precarious. Squirrel approached with his hands out apologetically and said, “Look I don’t care, but you’re standing on the plug for all the lights in the house.”

“Thank you,” I said, nearly tripping over myself to get away from the sockets.

I’m always the guy standing on the plug.

***

I woke up Saturday feeling like I had performed the night before. I got over to the band’s house at
5 p.m.,

Peters had yet to arrive, so the pace in the basement/studio was casual and I monitored the great migration of equipment from a detached position.

And then somewhere I crossed the line between journalist and roadie.

There weren’t enough people downstairs to get the crate up the basement steps, so before it was all said and done I was helping to hoist and jerk equipment to the car and Peters and I got to pack and repack the trailer.

At seven we were ready to go and I climbed into the trunk of Hill’s SUV for the trip to Farmville.

***

Saturday’s show was everything I, and I think the band, expected.

The Farmville crowd was raucous: the party-goers, girls in tiny dresses and everyone in cowboy boots, knew who they were getting.

Before the trailer was loaded Saturday, Agee answered an unasked question.

“Yeah,” he said looking up from the crate he was wheeling, “last night was awesome, amazing, but tonight we get to go party with everyone at the same time — it’s wild.”

The crowd of over 900 at the National Friday pulsated with the same frenetic surges as the beer soaked kids Saturday, but things are just a bit harsher at a fraternity party. Everyone knows each other and God help you if you don’t know anyone. Girls try storming the stage and the guys claim territory with elbows.

It’s not a scene for the faint of heart. But neither is the path Farm Vegas has taken to get where they are. The road to big venues is as vicious as the fraternity parties along the way.