It probably helped that the first night of the Indie 500 was headlined by skanker-turned-folkster Dan Potthast and Asian Man Records founder Mike Park. The two not only played an early acoustic ska show for the children of other musicians and artists scheduled to perform that night, followed by longer individual sets later in the evening.

Potthast and Park were among the first of 50 different indie bands and musicians from the local scene and around the country that are participating in the Indie 500. Five or more acts are booked per day and each will play 10 songs or so, roughly equaling the event's titular number.

In fact, during the kickoff (and every day since then), Carrico has been using a manual tally counter to keep track of each of the 500 songs as they're played. And the count officially started off when French Girls took the stage on Sunday for a mid-afternoon set to contribute their songs to the total. As the sun shined through Trunk Space's windows off Grand Avenue, lead singer Chela Mischke declared the band's loyalty to the venue.

"We played more at Trunk Space than any other venue," she stated "I'm glad there's A/C."

Someone one in the audience immediately replied, "There's not," to which Miscke countered, "There will be, dammit."

This little exchange is, of course, referring to the successful recent Indiegogo crowdfunder that provided Carrico and JRC with enough cash to both fund the 10-day festival and buy a badly needed air conditioner for the space, which has yet to be purchased as of this writing. (They'd better get a move on, since the yearly scorch is about to arrive.)