Date: May.31.2003

Place: Riversplash Festival, Milwaukee WI

So what happened during Riversplash?
By jumpin sax splash playa, Matt Ostlund.

The wind was blowing fiercely during the set up of the instruments. It was about 15 minutes before the start of the show and all of a sudden a gust of
wind blows Brian's drums to the ground. I saw it happened like it was in slow motion while yelling "oh no!!". I would like to thank the wind gods for that being the only disruption but what about the rain. The question was would it hold off for our entire show? Yes!!!

So now it was time to start rocking and that's exactly what we did. Never mind that Sean's, Steve's, and my hands were chilled to numbness. Once we started we were cooking. Jumping, rocking, Richie break dancing with a UGC fan; all this at Pere Marquette park what more could you ask for? How about sun? well once we started the sun stayed out.

At the end of the first set I noticed that every picnic table and seat were taken and I talked to many new UGC fans while chugging some beverages. I believe Steve had a chicken sandwich, Brian had a bratwurst, Richie had a smoke and I think Sean had a bite of Brian's weeny.

Now it was time to start the second set with a bang and that's what we did. I never played with a life preserver on before and I thought it would go together well with the Riversplash theme. If you missed that image check it out in Sunday June 1st metro back cover in the Journal-Sentinel. that's right, UGC represented Riversplash and got more space then Winona Ryder.

The set was dynamite!! We played our butts off and we could tell from our listeners faces that we impressed everyone. Too bad we ran out of time but time flies when your having fun.

With many more songs left to play we decided that 3 hours of playing was enough and it is impolite to eat up other bands time (remember 10/16/02 at the rave with Strangefolk!). So we ended our day talking to journalists, taking photos with new fans, and signing a few T-shirts. OK, maybe a couple more beverages as well. What a fun party Riversplash was and we can't wait to play next year.

Matt

Write Matt at: mo@upsidegc.com