Oh dear, it’s the morning of the rapture and I played in a bar last night. Well, we’re going to go play a cancer benefit to give the ole soul a little last polish and then it’s off to load-in at Victoria Station Café, which is where the God Hoover will find us if it comes looking. 6pm. In every time zone. Rolling rapture.
I think it bugs me that Mr. Camping is getting so much attention. Websites devoted to either his success or failure, thousands of people following him devotedly, no doubt millions watching and snickering. The damage these “believers” are doing to their families is atrocious, and yet I think the thing I hate most is that this madness wouldn’t have spread nearly as far (and indeed didn’t) pre-internet. It’s like ______ but without the symptoms. (I’m not going to give you the name cause you’ll do what exactly I did and look it up and then start feeling itchy)
I’m having trouble not being antagonistic to the superstitious community at large right now. It’ll probably be better after this weekend. Btw – whoever thought of a) the Inflatable Doll Rapture and b) leaving lots of sneakers lying around town with dry ice in them? Both of you are geniuses.
Heather and I played the Hessian Lion in Avon, CT last night and it was our first over-heat gig of the year – and a long one at that. Four hours spent in a hot and sweaty bar that in other circumstances would’ve been nothing short of awesome. It’s a cool looking place, with huge leather couches and big comfy chairs and a big old lion-footed pool table that occupied most of the occupants’ attention most of the night. I was surprised that somehow the table didn’t broadcast the sharp CRACK sound of balls smacking one another over and over again – there was something about THESE pool games that was bassier and after I finally realized it wasn’t static clearing from the mains, it was an easy sound to ignore.
Have you ever played music around pool tables before? This was by far the most pleasant of my poolside experiences. It gave me the opportunity to truly appreciate the wonder that is women playing pool as well, which I will not go on at length because a) I didn’t wear my glasses so I was mostly filling in the details with my imagination, b) it was pretty distracting and c) my girlfriend reads the Journal and d) I wasn’t really looking anyways, I swear. (just a little extra tarnish to make sure I get to stay on Earth, where the party’s going to be)
Other than the temperature it was a great gig. Grueling, but great. Unfortunately, partly BECAUSE we were having such a fantastic time, I managed to crack the glue holding my preamp inside my CA and had to do some swift jury-rigging betwixt the last two sets.
Fortunately, when I asked the audience if anyone had any superglue on them, one of our fans (because they’re one of our fans, I guess) said “yes”. It took me about five minutes with a stringwinder and some Crazy Glue to glue my pickup back in. Unfortunately, the break was about 15 minutes long and I ended up using that extra ten minutes to glue my finger to the pickup, my elbow to my strap and my palm to some strings, but all-in-all my story has a happy ending.
It was that really liquidy Crazy Glue, so it really got everywhere and for the rest of the set I was encountering little tacky patches here and there, screwing up in the middle of one of our last numbers because my finger had literally adhered to my D-string. My right hand’s ring finger has a thick additional covering STILL, and there are plenty of points on my body that are missing little patches of skin where I’d had to pull myself away in a hurry.
Sheesh.
But it was still a great, great night. Thank you to everyone who came out. It was crazy to realize that actually, a lot of our fans in Connecticut have really only seen us at Victoria Station and therefore have never seen us perform covers. It was actually kind of fun to whip out the Elvis and Bob Marley and Eric Clapton and Fugazi and Tull for people who’ve been seeing us for years – and have it be something new for them!
Afterwards we drove home with Kyle, who was also the guy who booked us, to a Lovely little over-an-old-ice-cream apartment. There’s a river out back and a shower that does the WHOLE rob and music wafting up from downstairs. It’d all be pretty idyllic if it wasn’t for the fact that we need to get on out to Woodstock for an outdoor show and, what do you know? Tut tut, it looks like rain.
(note that this looks like it will be a NICE rain, not like, a world-ending storm)
(also, interesting to note., touch pads on computers and phones are very hard to use through a layer of glue)
