Some of us had to look in through the wide window from Northwest Second Street. Most of us were covered in sweat and cheap beer. We were all singing along.
Michael Claytor and His Friends have been hosting an improv musical mash-up of folk and Americana music in the back room of Flaco's Cuban Bakery in downtown Gainesville for more than two years. The local band headlined the grand opening of the back room and have been hosting the ritualistic event on Wednesdays ever since.
"We definitely settled in here," bass player Michael Pedron said. "This is our home."
Michael Claytor, on vocals, said the band played for an empty room the night of the opening.
Two years later, it was bursting with old friends and newcomers eager to participate in the band's last show at the venue.
Michael Claytor and His Friends, along with Devon Stuart from The Takers, forged a new band at Flaco's, called the Adult Boys Thunderband. They played together on Wednesday and released their first CD.
The back room, a space dimly lit by antique light fixtures housed an enthusiastic, participatory audience for more than three hours Wednesday, July 14. Abiding by the rituals of the past two years, the audience sang along and requested household songs.
"It is my favorite place to play at, for sure," Claytor said. "It was a good, friendly atmosphere."
Claytor said the band has never come up with a lineup. Instead, they play whatever they feel at the moment.
Apparently, a moment last Wednesday called for "The Star-Spangled Banner." You haven't heard the American classic done right until you have seen a bounty of Gainesville residents sing along with such strength and accord.
"The people that I met and the employees at Flaco's are some of my favorite people in town," Claytor said.
Last week's show might mark the last musical Wednesday at Flaco's because two of the five members of the headlining band are moving on after graduation. Michael Pedron, on bass, and Evan Garfield, on drums, are moving to New York City for graduate school in August.
"This is a constantly expanding family," Pedron said. "Every week I can trust I'm going to come out and see my friends."
Andrew Williams, an agricultural economics major at Santa Fe College, said he has been coming to Flaco's on Wednesday nights religiously for a year.
"Being here is what I looked forward to every single week," he said. "I have become close friends with bands and people I met here."
The crowd said goodbye to the recipe of cheap beer, good food and old friends with the ritual song, "Solidarity Forever."
"It's always a great moment when you have everybody in the room with their fists in the air singing with us," he said. "It wasn't a true Flaco's Wednesday without singing 'Solidarity Forever.'"
As the crowd began to fragment at 2 a.m., downtown Gainesville echoed with the excitement of a shuttered tradition.
"This is a big time of transition," Claytor said. Michael Claytor and His Friends played their last show together on Saturday at Common Grounds.
