The last couple of nights have been rapid fire gigs, and I’m not sure if I’m discouraged by them or not.
Thursday night the full band headed out to play the Emergenza Battle of the Bands at Fletcher’s in Fells Point. I was really, really nervous about this – and as a matter of fact, had been suffering severe elephant-level panic attacks all week. Between getting rid of my old Saturn, severe lack of moneys, the battle of the bands, personal stresses…
whatever, I was freaking out pretty bad, and Thursday (since I had to get up early and deal with some of the above) was the first time my alarm clock woke me up before my panic attack did.
It was a minor victory.
The battle of the bands, however, was not. Even during sound check we knew we were severely out of place – grind-core, death metal, whatever you want to call it… that seemed to rule the day, with a couple of other sounds. I knew we’d be different. Hell, we’re ALWAYS different. I knew we’d pummel their little ear-balls pretty hard, but I wasn’t really sure how well we’d go over, and when it came down to it, I was horrified that we’d produced a grand draw of 3.
Sure, it was a Thursday night… sure it was a Battle of the Bands and our slowly-getting-more-mature crowd maybe didn’t want to be bothered with such a thing, but still – 3 was painful.
Really appreciative of the 3 that DID come out though.
On the upside, I don’t know that I saw anyone I didn’t like. We met a lot of people, and a lot of people really, really Loved us. We had a pretty tremendous night, to the point that while leaping around during our closing tune, Counting, I broke the strap on my guitar. Heather and Rowan and Sharif all kept things going as I sussed the issue – ripping it apart and affixing it with a guitar cable. It’s fun to return to cheers.
On the downside, it wasn’t quite enough and we didn’t advance to the next level.
That’s okay… the next night we played the fucking RAMS HEAD LIVE in Baltimore. Any of you who know Charm City know that that’s a pretty huge deal. 35k sq feet or so, huge people capacity. It’s where Brennan saw Steve Vai, apparently. Great sound system, little Millenium Falcon style entry ramp to the stage… I Loved playing here. It made me feel important. We were huge, broadcast on multiple video screens, loud and Lovely.
And then after that we were introduced to Mercy Creek who was nothing short of spectacular. After us, this may be my new favourite duo ever, though I’d like to see them go head-to-head with White Hassle.
Ok, I’ve run out of time, and I haven’t even gotten to Ryan Van Orsdell, the Christian coffeehouse, desiring a Mudd Puddle, driving to Frederick, rocking out, wishes, dreams, desires and other desecrations of my interior brain-meats.
Your loss.
Btw – not pictured acts from the night are: And I Proceed Backwards – Nightmare Prophecy– Freedom Enterprise (very cool reggae sound, great lead singer) – Cirius B (intense rap/r&b group with a Black Eyed Peas bent) – Somediva…
