Rock Bottom Remainders

Exactly one week ago tonight, I was engulfed in a wild crowd of music lovers in D.C.'s 930 Club, jamming out to the tunes of the Rock Bottom Remainders. Who is this band, you may wonder. If you haven't heard of them, you're not alone - I'd never heard the name until a few hours before the show. "By day, they're authors. Really famous authors" their website boasts. And by night: rockstars. Well, they play covers for the most part, but they're really good covers.

You may know a couple of these writers, who include Amy Tan, Dave Barry, Stephen King, Mitch Albom, Ridley Pearson, Matt Groening... the stage was pretty packed with some true literary talent.

The best part of the show I have to say was each band member's sense of humor. They seemed to be having the time of their lives up there, from Amy Tan's vocal solo beneath her enormous blonde wig to Mitch Albom's incredible Elvis act, hips and all. Here's me getting an autograph from the man himself (a bit blurry, but I swear it's really him)

me 'n Mitch... yea, we're on a first name basis now

They made it clear from the start that they were there to have fun when they told their audience "We want you to forget we're all such geniouses of the pen- we just want you to get drunk and silly because that's what we would be doing if we weren't playing up here." I'd say we followed their instructions pretty well...

I <3 Amy Tan

About midway through the show, someone on stage called out, "We've come to a point in the night when you may have forgotten what good music sounds like" and then continued on with Los Rabanes' I Shot the Law.

It was an incredible, unique experience to be in the presence of so many fantastic writers, and to watch them be whatever character they wanted to be on stage that night. I won't ever think of them in quite the same way again.