The gig:
Went very well. We had quite a few people there who hadn’t seen us before, we gave away a dozen copies of the Fine Line show from Sept 8, and we drank a bunch of good German beer.
We opened with Planet Made Of Sound, which I don’t think we’d ever done before. It felt good to play that song again; we hadn’t played in a very long time. We had a lot of energy going into that one. I broke a string during the third song (“remix” version of Metaphor), which was kind of disappointing because the song almost fell apart, but I managed to get the backup guitar just in time for the second half of the solo.
So the rest of the show, I had to play Ben’s old Squire guitar, which would have been cool, except that I was already self-concious about how I was sounding, because it seemed like I couldn’t get the distorted channel on my amp to match the volume of the clean sound. Plus, they weren’t running guitars through the monitors at all, and that always bugs me. I have a feeling Chad couldn’t hear me very well, and I know that always bothers him.
All in all, though, we held it together pretty well, despite the technical difficulties. Ben did a really good job of keeping the crowd involved. He ran out and fetched people three times during the show.
We also extended the intro of Broken Man Blues to include a ‘Pass The Boot’ ritual for the boot full o’ beer.
Also, I think this show was the second time ever, we completely randomly jammed. Just before Both Hands, some guys yelled out of the crowd that it was their friends 21st birthday, so we did a mini metal jam in his honor while he rolled around on the floor in front of the stage. It was really weird, but it was fun because it was so spontaneous.
Emma’s Song came out for the first time since the March 1st Emma’s show. First electric Emma’s Song since Jan 2nd at 4th St Station.
All in all, it kind of felt sloppy to me, but everybody had a good time, so it was okay.
Kerry got really, really drunk.
Yesterday, I woke up with a bit of a headache, but an omelette and coffee took care of that. I also finally got my oil changed, which was WAY overdue. It was nice to have a day off of work. I picked up the revised and expanded edition of The Gunslinger, and read the entire book from 6pm to 12:30am. I read the original when I was in 8th grade or so, and I remembered it being a really difficult book to read because it didn’t flow well, and seemed really depressing. I’m not sure what exactly King changed, but it made a huge difference. This version was fun to read, and the story flowed a lot better in my mind.
This weekend will be spent reading Wolves Of The Calla. I plan to finish it by Sunday, if not earlier.
After that, who knows, maybe I’ll try reading Dreamcatcher again. Hah!