“Thoughts of you filled my head as I left E-ville tonight, no saying why. Perhaps ’twas the darkened skies illuminated by flashes of lightening deep within towering, HUGE storm clouds to the east as I journeyed home….no matter your stature, my sweet, you ARE the flash, the crack, and fury of those sizzling bursts. You are never small…….”
The last two gigs have been hard, and my fingers are so, reflecting it all in pulsing waves of black and blue ache. Last night at the Blue Horn Lounge we played to a room divided in two and only united by space and golf. Tonight we played to a room divided in two and united by space and ultimate fighting.
The sun setting over Rowan’s djembe at Carroll Creek Linear Park in Frederick, MD. Apparently, it was the first Alive at Five that hadn’t gotten rained on over the past two years – a grand distinction. In one of the past shows the wind had picked up so suddenly that a monitor had gotten blown into the water and had to be reeled back in by it’s cable. So sad.
The Blue Horn Lounge is one of the tiniest spaces we play. It’s tight and we can’t move around much, and that in itself is exhausting – but the heat and humidity in Chapel Hill last night was simply brutal. I think the moisture in the air softens my callouses because I am far more terribly aware of their saw-tooth texture on a humid day that I ever am in a more temperate, arid clime.
Couple that with the fact that the half of the audience that’s just kind of annoyed that Live music has intruded on their existence is trying their hardest to talk over our performance – and it’s a hard night. We’re right next to the door as well and the constant in-and-out there flooded out guitars with hot, moist air – then the bar would counter with the air conditioner pushing it all back out – the guitars of course didn’t respond any too well to that and swung liberally in and out of tune. AND we’d been playing short gigs – the three hour long sets of last night sapped us pretty thoroughly.
So today – we got up, drove four hours, had a big meal and set up to play another two and a half hours at Dogfish Head – a shorter overall gig though this time we had the full gear set up and break down. Halfway through the FIRST set my fingers were aching and my bridge callous was on fire, I wanted to dip my aching, overheated body in ice – and then we dove into the second set.
It was almost with a sense of relief that the lights came up 2/3 of the way through and we were informed that we’d played through closing time without even realizing it. Who am I kidding? It WAS a sense of relief! We’d started late because a table hung out for about an hour after they paid their check in the middle of the stage space. I guess the management was okay with that, and in hindsight, since the closing of the bar is a firm time and they’re not going to stiff us the money, I should be okay with it too – but it means that we started nearly an hour late from our advertised time – and we actually had a fair turnout of people specifically there to see US.
Anywho – the mini-tour of the south is over and I think that when booking things like that in the future, I should remember to allow myself some downtime, especially in places that we don’t know too well – or at all. I really regretted not getting to see Charleston in the sunlight, and we didn’t get to hang out with our friends in Chapel Hill at ALL. (I’m actually probably going to get some growly letters about that).
The weather’s cleared up – and actually the temperature was stunning when we stepped out of the car in Virginia. We’re driving with the windows down allowing the night air to just wash over us. My hair is going to be a disaster, but I’ve been told that only girls worry about such things and to man up. It seems to me, however, that it’s going to take real manliness to get a brush through what’s forming on the top of my skull, and a real man to stand that pain of doing so.
Yup – cause brushing your long hair 40 strokes a day is what puts hair on your chest.
