Fever Dream
On Friday, September 19, 2025, after I got groceries on my way home from work, I pulled up to the apartment building, put my hazards on, got out of my car, and ran up to the door. There is this brick that people use to prop the door open when they are moving in. I propped it open and began running the groceries up to our apartment, where Paige was waiting to help put them away. On one of my trips, a neighbor’s dog by the name of Waffles ran into my building, and the owner and I spent 5 minutes chasing him.
That night, Box Seats was supposed to play a show with two other bands. However, both bands dropped out at the last minute, so it was now just Box Seats playing. My parents were out of town, and I hadn’t told Luke that we were coming. As we walked to the car, I told Paige, “So, Luke texted me when I was at Kroger: If you come to the show tonight, I will give you a tambourine and let you come on stage.” We laughed at what was clearly a joke.
We parked at Luke and Josh’s house, the 245, and walked the rest of the way to the venue. When we walked in, the only people there were Luke, Josh, their band mates, Freddy and Max, Freddy’s longtime girlfriend, Kelly, Luke’s college roommate, Malcolm, his current roommate, and two girls who I have seen at a few other Box Seats shows. When I saw Luke, I sarcastically said, “This might be the biggest show you’ve ever played!”
“Well, don’t be mean about it,” he quipped as the girls laughed, and I felt a little guilty.
5 minutes later, at 7:55, about four more people and Ryan entered the venue, and the band got on stage. We all stood in what would have been the front row at a normal show, except Paige stood a little further behind to get some videos. I stood right next to Kelly.
About 10 minutes into the show, after they finished playing a song, Malcolm lifted up a piece of paper. It read: LET ME PLAY! Luke read it and brought him on stage. Once Luke had introduced Malcolm to the crowd, they played a song that they have not released on Spotify yet. When the song ended, and Malcolm got off the stage, I laughed and thought, That’s gonna be the best thing that happens tonight. Boy, was I wrong.
Now, in Diary of a Wimpy Kid, the main character's older brother is in a punk rock band called Loaded Diaper, and Luke was a huge fan of that series, even writing (and publishing in a limited capacity) a parody book based on it in middle school. The first song that Box Seats wrote is called Almost There, so when Luke called Ryan onto the stage and said, “This is the first song we ever wrote,” I assumed it was going to be Almost There. Instead, it was a rock ballad, in which Luke just aggressively sang the words “Loaded Diaper” for like 30 seconds. After they finished, Ryan got off the stage, and they actually played Almost There. After that, I rallied the crowd and asked for an encore, during which Freddy left his guitar and started playing on Max’s- while Max was still playing. I leaned over to Kelly and said, “This is a fricking fever dream.”
Since Luke also plays with Cousin Simple, he and Ryan play together all the time. But after the show, we went back to the 245, and I ended up falling asleep. Because the only time Ryan has played with Box Seats was a song that Luke totally wrote as a joke, before Box Seats even had their name, on top of me chasing a dog through my apartment building, and the bands general manic-ness, if I didn’t have pictures of the show, I think I actually would have believed what I said to Kelly about it being a fever dream. Sometimes we feel like if something is small, it's not as awesome as it would be if it were bigger. But as I think Box Seats proved, something doesn’t have to be big to be…Greattastic
Be Safe everybody,
J. Mitchie Ulibarri
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