Since the COVID-19 pandemic first made landfall in my neck of the woods sometime around March 2020, the landscape of the world around me has irrevocably changed despite the efforts of many to refocus that now-warped glass. And this effect has also swept up concerts, which isn’t exactly surprising when they tend to consist of large, huddled together groups of sweaty people. But the slight germaphobe in me digresses.

Point being, despite some changes I don’t get to go to shows and experience the joy of them nearly as much as I used to anymore. So, I’m glad to get swept off into a bit of that nostalgia with this tour diary entry I present to you below from Connecticut-based indie rock outfit The Inside Out. They played a recent concert earlier this March near their home base at a placed called The Beeracks supporting their new album  “No Brains, No Blood.” (Spotify in the hyperlink). But without further ado, let me let them tell you all about it.

MEET THE BAND

Hey, we’re the CT indie/alt rock band The Inside Out! Pictured left to right, we’re Zach Stout (lead guitar/vocals), John Landino (bass/vocals), Andi Wright (drums), and James Howard (guitar/lead vocals). 

We’re here to share our night at The Beeracks in East Haven, CT on Saturday 3/11/2023. It was an album release party for the band Aunts, who we had the pleasure of meeting last year during a When We Were Young-Fest themed show in New Haven, CT. We made a lot of new friends during this Beeracks show, as we met and shared the stage with the artists of Lighthouse, Sober Bill, and Shagohod for the first time. We were hyped to discover new music and play to a fresh audience, and we had such a great time!

PRE-GAME

We started off our Saturday at rehearsal. We usually don’t rehearse the day of, but our schedules ended up clashing that week so we woke up, had coffee, and headed to the studio for an early (for us) practice at the crack of 1:00pm. We’re lucky to have a sick setup at Black Barrel Records in Shelton, CT to rehearse, write music, and occasionally play shows. We quickly ran through our set to make sure any rust from the past week was gone, and then we packed up our gear and headed to the venue.

LOAD-IN

We hadn’t played at The Beeracks brewery / local music scene venue since our first time there, which was over a year ago for a Christmas show in 2021. We immediately noticed a bunch of improvements to the sound and lighting that made us extra hyped for the evening. Our first Beeracks show was awesome, so this one was bound to be even better. After loading in our gear and grabbing some food and a beer, we couldn’t wait for our time to play.

SETTLING IN

We found a perfect place to set up our merch table: right next to pallets of kegs and a gigantic stack of unlabelled tallboys. It was dark af in that corner, though, so good thing we brought our glowing head and tea candles that lowkey turn our setup into an alchemy table. For legal reasons we can’t promise our merch is enchanted with magical powers, but we won’t deny it either… you’ll just have to see for yourself.

THE VIBE

We were second to last to play, so we had a bunch of time to just rock out to the other bands. There was a great turnout and the audience had a welcoming vibe. Since the stage was in an actual brewery warehouse, the disco ball stood out and set a cool mood, throwing lights all around the big open space and reflecting off of beer cans and metal vats.

Individual band member pics – credit: @moolignon on IG

IN THE SPOTLIGHT

From the get-go we were stoked to be playing right before the headlining act, Aunts. Whoever was on lighting tech duty that night was absolutely nailing it, and it was cool to be on a raised stage instead of the warehouse floor like last time we played this venue. We mostly played songs off of our latest album, No Brains, No Blood., namely the title track and our single “Figure Me Out”. We were also able to sneak in our two favorite cover songs as well as an unreleased song that we’re currently writing/recording for our next album called “Mr. Arrogant”.

No show is 100% perfect, but this one went smoothly overall. There were some funny hiccups though, like when James realized he really had to pee right after set up/line check and we had to take a quick breather before starting our first song. Also as we started playing our last song, we realized John was still changing basses and was frantically plugging in as the rest of us played the intro to “Constant Headache” by Joyce Manor. That’s the unique side to live music that can’t be replaced; all’s well that ends well, and we definitely had an awesome time up there.

POST-SHOW CHILLIN

After our set we ventured over to the bar, where we found terpene-infused beer – aka weed beer. James grabbed the Grandaddy Purps and John got the Tangie strain (yuuum). Andi had a raspberry sour and Zach went for a belgian tripel. We rocked out to Aunts’ whole album start to finish, and then we came back to the bar to play the notorious “ring game”. Andi got it on the first try more than once, but she’s not bragging… 

PEACE OUT

As we headed out we said goodbye to the last guy at the bar, but he wasn’t looking too hot… The bartender said not to worry, though, he’s a regular. 

At the end of the day we sold some merch, made new friends and fans, had tasty beer, listened to amazing music, and had lots of fun. Successful show in the books! 

Thanks so much for joining us on our day at The Beeracks! To listen to our album, No Brains, No Blood., watch our music videos, grab some merch, or follow us on Instagram, you can find it all at this link: https://linktr.ee/theinsideout Hope to see you at a future show!

Thanks so much to The Inside Out for offering their time, show experience and plenty of great photos! Again, check out their album  “No Brains, No Blood.” on Spotify and their website listed above. Thanks again!