The City Veins

I think that it was at about 6:00 on Friday that Aaron suggested that I needed a drink. We were sitting in Rebel, the venue we were playing in that night, and things were not going well. The club holds a variety of events, and they didn’t seem all that prepared for a rock concert. For example, setting up our show was delayed so that the woman singing some kind of techno thing late night could sound check. In addition, one of the bands on the bill had called just a few hours earlier to cancel, and Matt from Lights Resolve had lost an expensive piece of equipment. Finally, the bar had not been set up yet, so Aaron’s suggestion was not even possible. The only thing left for me to do was sit and soberly seethe.

I take our performances very seriously, and I don’t reaction well when things are not running well. So by about 6:15 I had pretty much written off our performance. I figured that there would be no one there because we were playing so early, and I assumed that we wouldn’t sound good because we didn’t have a lot of time to set up. I had visions of our bass amp deciding not to work, or a guitar that just refusing to stay in tune. My only consolation was going to be that I didn’t go to work on Friday. That, and I had really good hummus in the Village earlier that day.

Maybe it was because I didn’t care about my performance, or had such low expectations, but somehow the concert ended up being really good. Probably our best concert. We all played well, I personally had my best performance. It turns out that people did in fact show up, and that they liked us. There were even requests for us to take our shirts off. There were a lot of people who wanted to talk to Aaron and Spencer after the concert (it appears that I do a good job of looking like I want to be left alone after concerts). We gave away a lot of cds, and met a lot of people who might, in fact, come back to another concert! This is a new phenomenon for us, so forgive me for being a little excited. Hell, it is possible that I may have even been in a good mood by the end of the night.

So I guess the moral of the story is that I am a big pessimistic jerk. I would like to say that I learned my lesson, but I know myself too well.

You all should check out more pictures by Sean O’Kane. The club had a crazy light system set up. Complete with moving colored lights, strobe lights, and a smoke machine. I did briefly worry about a light blinding me, or the strobe sending me into a seizure, or falling of the stage in the dark, but the lights definitely made for some cool pictures.

Our next concert is this Saturday, November 24th at the Velvet Lounge, and it would be great to see as many of you as possible. We have some new songs, and if enough of you request it, I promise that I will make Aaron keep his shirt on.