Friday was a tough night for Billy McCarthy. A lot of different elements came together just so to create a perfectly unfortunate show for the Augustines lead singer:
1) Equipment in the back of the Double Door apparently caught on fire (Chicago is well known for its fires after all) bringing down the monitors the band was using onstage
2) The band had just come from a 9.5 hour drive from their previous city
3) Apparently one of the last times they came through Chicago, McCarthy twisted his ankle and ended up in the hospital with stitches and a rather bad taste for the city in his mouth
The poor man was just not having it on Friday. After a shortened 45 minute set which included “Juarez” and “Book of James” the band made their way back onstage for what was going to be an acoustic encore, but McCarthy was finally done in by an overenthusiastic fan exclaiming that he “loved this one!”. As he tried to explain to the crowd that he was having a tough night a drunk fan exclaimed “Take your top off!” That was it for the poor guy – instead of playing an encore he instead made some choice comments about Chicago and stalked offstage. I’ve only ever heard amazing things about the Augustines’ live shows – I had a friend once text me at 1am to tell me that he’d just been to “the most amazing concert of his life” (which of course turned out to be the Augustines), and there were some nice moments, including a sing-a-long between the crowd and the band for “Cruel City”, but it just wasn’t in the stars for this show.