"you'll always have a friend in me"

I remember the first week of college was the worst. It was 2000, I'd recently been through the kind of shitty high school relationship that defines how every other one follows will be judged and for the first time in my life I was completely alone with no safety net to fall on (ie: twin brother, family, friends etc). For the first couple days after class all I would do is push around on my skateboard and get kicked out of every campus spot there was to skate. That's when I met Chip. We had a lot in common including sharing the same birthday and year, both skated, hated our current roommates and also loved hardcore/punk/whatnot. He told me that he saw a flier for a show downtown Plattsburgh in the basement of some Church. So that Friday after classes were over we skated down there to see what the local music "scene" had to offer. There were a couple opening bands including Layton Avenue, whom I would later become really close with and then On The Might of Princes. I'd heard them before but never got to see them (LI bands or any other band didn't venture up where I grew up at all). They played a really good set and the place was packed - when I think back of all the people who were there and would later become some of the closest friends I'd have up there it's insane. Anyways when they finished their set they played this song. I remember sitting back against a wall holding my skateboard watching every local kid sing along and have the time of their lives and think to myself, "Man i really want to be a part of this" and for the first time I didn't feel alone anymore, even in a room full of strangers. From then on I went to every single show I could, or as many as I could squeeze into a weekend. Too many other great memories to dig up at once about that time and place but this song always brings me back.

Cheers to my Nordic friends.