Throwback Thursday: ‘Band Night’ at Lawrence High School, 25 years ago

Grady Reid sat on this VHS footage from 1990 for years, then edited together four hours into a half-hour documentary. Shot on the evening of January 12, 1990, this footage of two high school bands — Still Thinking and Renegade Blue, in the cafeteria of Lawrence High School — is like a time capsule of the era.

Be it the music or the fashion, these sounds and images distill the early ’90s into thirty minutes that should fascinate younger viewers — and will likely instill a mix of heartwarming nostalgia and cringing embarrassment in the older ones.

The quality is surprisingly good for something shot in what’s essentially a cinder block room, but the performances aren’t really the point here. If you’ve ever seen your friend’s band play an early show, you’re familiar with the hesitation combined with bravado and flubbed lyrics, along with cover songs executed with more enthusiasm than chops.

The other footage — interviews, interaction with teachers, and just random coverage of kids hanging out — is what makes this worth seeing. “Band Night” is, most importantly, what it purports to be: “a slice-of-life of high school kids back in the day.” Watch this for that, or the dancing, or the frantic freak-out when somebody realizes they’re almost out of videotape. A bunch of teenagers playing Free’s “All Right Now” is really just a bonus. 

If Mike, the singer of Still Thinking, seems at all familiar, you may know him better as Mike Ratzlaff, former front-of-house sound engineer for the Bottleneck. Renegade Blue’s bassist frontman Noah Musser, along with guitarist Greg Yother, would go on to play in longtime Lawrence bluegrass quartet the Prairie Acre, who disbanded in late 2013.

See also: 
Throwback Thursday: Listen to Vitreous Humor’s ‘Sharin’ Stone’; Danny Pound at the Replay Friday
Throwback Thursday: Watch Onward Crispin Glover’s video for for ‘No Need For Checkpoints’