15 minutes

Continuous Peasant played our biggest show ever last night, opening for the Silver Jews at Mezzanine on the other side of the bridge.

Only about .03% of the packed house was there to see us, but it was still pretty amazing to look out over a sea of faces filling a space that big. I'm probably the world's worst estimator, so I won't even try—but Mezzanine's website says the club can hold up to 1,000 people, and it looked close to full from our vantage point. Wow.

The sound system was insane, meaning really clear but really loud, so I couldn't hear much of anything while we were playing. But the set felt tight enough (especially considering our lineup morphs all the time and we only had a few practices with the whole cast before the show), and we had a great time. Many truckloads of adrenalin whizzing through peasant veins.

Just to top it all off: I found out today that Mos Def, Talib Kweli, and Jurassic 5 have all played that club, three key members of the hip-hop canon in my record collection. Wow. Standing in the footprints of giants. I like it.

Before and after were almost as fun as being onstage. They had a plush greenroom setup upstairs in the back, with two sitting/dressing rooms, a mini kitchen, and a comfy lounge with a huge flatscreen view of the stage and a balcony overlooking the club floor, so you could perch on a stool and watch everyone entering down below. There were big ice buckets full of water and beer, a bunch of security guys, and a fleet of attentive skinny kids in black with tousled hair who kept coming by to see if we needed anything.

Monotonix came on after us. My blood sugar was reaching the level where I get grumpy and confused, so I went to find a late dinner with friends and missed most of their set. From what I did see, they were entertaining but certifiable. The hairy little lead singer crowd-surfed, scaled a stair railing, and ran around the audience poking pretty women and shrieking—all during the first song. My vote went to Thai food instead.

When we got back, the Silver Jews were playing. I don't know much about them, but every music person I've met out here has a take on the band ranging from respect to worship, so I figured they must have something special going on.

We only stayed for a few songs (it was midnight on a Sunday, after all), but I think I get it. They're a group of normal but preternaturally thoughtful-looking people who write contemplative poetry, set it loosely to melody, then play it with a quiet but definitive personality that speaks to a range of people and moods. It was like watching a conversation between the band and the audience, if they were friends that went way back.

A thousand people listening that attentively—and with that much familiarity—can only be what every fledgling rockstar dreams about.