There were roughly 60 people packed into the Venture Compound, an experimental music venue in St. Pete's Warehouse Arts District.
This time around, the music wasn't the main event. It was a streaming speech of a U.S. Senator hailing from about a thousand miles away, Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who is running for president as a Democrat in 2016.
The venue was one of thousands to host events showing Sanders' speech. There were dozens in the Tampa Bay area, some just minutes away from Venture Compound, where a diverse crowd began to gather an hour ahead of Sanders' 7:30 speech. They sat in rows of chairs, all filled, facing a large canvass on which Sanders' short speech was projected.
When Sanders spoke, after a brief introduction, he seemed to hit all the right notes for his progressive base on issues like minimum wage, health care and equality, and often garnered applause from the remote audience.
His dramatic speech had a staccato-like refrain: Enough is enough.
"This great country and our government belong to all of us, and not just a handful of billionaires," he said. "Enough is enough. We cannot as a nation continue to have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on earth. No, it is not acceptable that the rich get richer and everybody else gets poorer."
He called for an end to the decline in the middle class, a $15-per-hour minimum wage and for large companies to pay their fair share in taxes.
"No, it is not right that major corporations make billions of dollars in profit and in some cases pay nothing in federal taxes," he said "Enough is enough."
He bemoaned the country's "real" unemployment rate of 10 percent, the 35 to 40 percent of young high school graduates who can't find a job, racial inequality as well as the nation's incredibly high rate of imprisoned people.
"It seems to me that just maybe, just maybe, in stead of having the highest rate of incarceration of any country on earth*, instead of throwing our kids in jail, maybe we should provide them with education and jobs," he said. "Just maybe."
And, of course, he called for a single payer health care system, immigration reform and universal paid family medical leave.
He concluded his speech with a call to action.
"i don't have to tell anybody that these are very difficult times in America. As I have said over and over again, Bernie Sanders alone, as president of the United States, is not going to solve all of these problems. The only way we take on the Koch Brothers, the only way we take on the billionaire class and corporate America — and these people have unbelievable amounts of money and power — the only way that I know that we do that is when we put together a strong grassroots movement of millions and millions. And that is what I mean by a political revolution. And that is what you are involved in today."
Campaign volunteer Larry Cohen, former president of the Communication Workers of America, then called on there audience to reach for their cell phones and connect with the campaign via text, asking that those watching from early primary states like Iowa and New Hampshire start organizing immediately.
Attendees were impressed with the candidate, but were split on whether they think he could beat the odds — or suffer the same fate Howard Dean did ahead of the 2004 election.
"If Donald Trump has gotten this far, I think Bernie could make a few gaffes and not even blink," said Tampa resident Luis Gottardi.
Ben Barrett, one of the event's organizers, said he backs Sanders in part because of his long record on civil rights.
"Our choices are, on the Republican side, off the rails on civil rights, then there's Hillary Clinton, whose husband signed (the Defense of Marriage Act) in the first place," Barrett said. "Bernie Sanders was against DOMA, he was at the Martin Luther King speech, he did sit-ins against segregation in the 60s. He just has a huge record, longer than anyone else, of just being on the right side of history."
While he acknowledge Sanders doesn't currently look as though he'll win the nomination, let alone the presidency, simply having him in the race is good for everyone.
"I don't have a lot of expectation of him winning, but I think the more he can get on the stage, the more he can talk about his ideas, the more it'll force him into the conversation. If we can pull Hillary to the left and have her win, that's still a victory overall."
Sanders faces extremely well funded, well known Democratic contender Hillary Clinton, of course, in a primary as well as Lincoln Chafee, Martin O'Malley and Jim Webb. Against Clinton, the obvious frontrunner, Sanders has managed to distinguish himself as an exciting alternative.
He and his supporters cite a groundswell of support as well as fundraising that has come from small donations from individuals rather than large corporate donations a là Clinton.
*The U.S.A. actually only has the second highest incarceration rate in the world, beyond Seychelles.
This article appears in Jul 23-29, 2015.