Day Two Hundred and Sixty-Eight: The Set List

One of my favorite little parts about playing live music is creating the set list.

I don't just mean coming up with the songs I want to play and the order in which to play them - I mean physically writing the set list.

One of the coolest mementos I have from college is the set list of my favorite band from Minnesota (ironically called The Jayhawks), which I nabbed from the stage following their performance at The Bottleneck, a bar in downtown Lawrence, in my undergrad years.

After the concert I got to meet the band and talk to them about the drive they were about to make (as was I) back up to Minnesota the next day - I saw them perform in the Twin Cities two days later.

I don't know if its the nostalgia of that perfect concert experience or what, but since then I love the feeling of a freshly created set list. And tonight I had the perfect excuse to make one, as a friend and I performed a midnight show at an unlikely place: the old train depot in Lawrence.

While the list of songs was prepared well ahead of time, a sudden downpour spurred the addition of one more number into the mix: The Thunder Rolls.

The thunder continued to roll even after the Amtrack train and all of its guests had departed. Only the instruments and equipment were left beside the train tracks, seeking shelter from the rain, waiting for a ride back home.