The drunken wanderers of Wilmington, and the communication mishaps of Friday night were precursors to the horror of Saturday. Saturday night, Heather made up the term “Band Unity Gig”. BUG. Saturday night was a BUG.
I appreciate getting the gig – it definately came to us through a friend who was eager to help us, but we discovered a lot of… difficulties as the night progressed. The first one came up with that phone call that went something like “uh, I thought YOU had a sound system”. Sigh. Oh, and the part of the conversation that went “no, it’s like a frat party in a GOOD way”.
We arrive at the Coupe de Ville, prepared to play for our minimal pay for a couple of hundred students, not under MUCH of an illusion of what we were facing. We were very pleasantly surprised to have a couple of fans there. Paul had seen us open for the Dreamscapes Project a couple of years ago, and had driven from Blacksburg, VA to come see us. His friend, Kate, hadn’t even seen us before but new all the words off of On Luck On Fumes On Spit On Love, and even stared at me the way I’ve always wished someone would stare at me during Molotov Swell. Sigh. Sort of like the way Indiana Jones’ female students looked at him.
That was just about the last pleasant moment of the night, though. Then a train ran behind the stage. Loudly. Then the football game let out. Loudly. Then the audience arrived. Loudly.
Heather and I agree that we’ve never been so disgusted by an audience. We play a lot of bars – and we’ve played to a lot of drunk people – but this is the first place I’ve been like this. Usually I see lines of bottles behind the bar, and different beers on tap, variety and choice that although I’ve never sampled, I’m sure people have their preferences and favourites. This is a bar that serves one type of beer (and it’s “lite” equivelent) and it’s served cheap and in bulk and with the express purpose of getting as many people as drunk as possible as quickly as possible. It did it’s job.
After three hours of playing, much of which what was drowned out by kids yelling “FREEBIRD!!!”, I was tired, grumpy, and Rowan was my hero.
Rowan had responded “Are any of you even old enough to KNOW Freebird?!!? Would any of you know the words?! I don’t come to YOUR job and yell CHICKEN MCNUGGETS!!! CHICKEN MCNUGGETS!!!!” Genius. I’d just gotten done calling one of the audience members a “cunt” (not a flattering moment for me, I suppose) and I think he retaliated by dumping beer in our tip cup.
At the end of the night, we’d been paid $75, had $10 in beer soaked tips, and sold one $5 CD. We had to pay the sound guy $40 and paid $5 for parking (paid in “beer money” of course)… split three ways. You do the math. Oh, and $16 in gas to go our of our way to Charlottesville, VA.
Sigh.
We drove home afterwards. A very long drive, I-66 east bound was closed, and we drove forever, and ever, and ever. We got back to Rowan’s and all collapsed into bed at 5.30 Sunday morning. Devastatingly fatigued… and one, two… thunk.
