TACOMA, Wash. — Local punk band Dungeons and Koalas applied their optimistic mindset to see a completely empty venue during their set as half full, sources who had a much harder time extracting any positives confirmed.
“Despite not a single member of the human race in attendance unless you count Kevin the bartender who had to be there, I’d say it was a pretty solid turnout,” said the band’s bassist Lucy Viles before reiterating that this was technically the largest crowd they’ve ever had. “What can I say? Our band just naturally views the world with rose-colored glasses. Sure, we’ve only ever been an opener. But if you look on the bright side, the opening slot is actually the best one — you only have to play for 20 minutes, you’re done at like 6:30pm, and when your set is over you can just focus on important stuff like getting absolutely shit-faced. See? Way better than headlining.”
Others weren’t as adept at putting a positive spin on the situation.
“The venue may have been at 50% capacity during our set, but to me it just looked half empty,” said singer Jacob Dastart of Angular Cheekbones, the middle band at the show. “It’s like Murphy’s Law where anything at a show that can go wrong will go wrong. For instance, the crowd’s lively moshing in the pit was distracting as hell, our merch sold out so now we have to magically come up with more, and the crowd was singing along so loud I couldn’t even hear myself scream. Seriously, probably the worst show ever.”
Psychologists are well aware that a person’s attitude contributes to their well-being.
“You actually need to strike a healthy balance between optimism and pessimism,” said counselor Judie Wrabbit. “Just think about it. If you’re too optimistic, you’re not going to see that we’ll all be dead in a few years when climate change inevitably destroys everyone except the billionaires. And if you’re too pessimistic, you won’t enjoy the nice 75-degree sunny days in Alaska during January in the meantime. On second thought, maybe there’s no right answer here. You do you.”
At press time, Dungeons and Koalas checked their Spotify account and noticed that they had a whole four listeners for the month, a “highly encouraging and unprecedented amount” in their opinions.