October 9th, 2011.

Well, I’ve been asked to shut up.  “Dear”.  I was apparently talking about hamster balls too much.  I thought I was making a positive contribution to the conversation since neither Kristen or Heather have ever owned a hamster and have little to no experience with the species.

But apparently, I’ve gone too far, and I’ve been asked to be quiet.

Hey – I was good for the WHOLE show!  And now they want to censor me on the ride home!  Blargh! 

It wasn’t hard to be good for the show.  When we got to Dogfish Head tonight the place was packed.  Standing room only at the bar, a long wait for tables, a free-for-all for the few standing centre tables… and at the staging area, two tables that looked to be in it for the long haul.  

The Dogfish shows can be tricky because we’ve often got to wait for our area to clear out before we can start setting up.  Tonight was an extreme (though not the worst) example… and our start time can and HAS been up to an hour and a half later than contracted (and advertised).  We only had a couple of people show up specifically for us tonight (many people don’t come back precisely for this reason) and it’s always frustrating to welcome them and explain that no… we’re not even able to set up yet… and get to playing 45 minutes later than we were all expecting.

Still, at least we were playing to a full house.  Right?  Right?!  What the Hell!?  It seemed like I only looked away for a second and suddenly the place was EMPTY.  I think we played the majority of the night to 10 people not counting the staff.  I’d like to think we didn’t chase people out (and once again we were told that we’re the best act that’s booked there, and that normally when new people come in they ask to be seated well away from the music and that that NEVER happens with us…) but I was amazed and pretty disheartened at how fast the people cleared out.

As always, we had the rapt attention of the staff, but as for the rest of the people – smatterings of applause, a request to “play some more John Mayer!” after we played a Police cover, and a scrawled note with a name and a phone number because we looked like the kind of people that could help a sister out – a sister who’d just lost her pot dealer…

Meh.  I’m sorry, she must of mistook one of our tunes for a long droning E minor stoner jam.  That never happens when we’ve got Sharif with us.

Well, it’s on to the long drive home.  Not bad in the greater scheme of things, but an hour + drive home when there’s a day at HMT tomorrow always kind of pains me.  At least it’s open mic night.  That’s always a little more delicious to look forward to.  Twrr.

upComing & inComing

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