Thursday: Our first stop was Asbury Park, NJ's Wonder Bar. Asbury Park has a mythical quality because of Bruce Springsteen--we were all pretty excited to be there. What if he shows up? He's been known to crash other people's gigs unannounced.
We pulled up to a foggy, desolate resort town in the wrong season. Except for about fifty orthodox Jews, there didn't seem to anybody around. We loaded in and set up--tight stage! The sound was pretty decent, all things considered, though when Greg would play a low G the whole place would vibrate.
After soundcheck, we wandered up and down the boardwalk.
It seemed, based on the fact that there were about a hundred people in the entire town that night, that we would be playing to nobody, but the promoters were able to find about fifty people to come see us. A handful of those had either seen us before on a cruise ship or in New York. Repeat customers! One girl even showed me a picture of the two of us--"See? You let me touch your mustache." Weird.
Friday: We made the short drive up from the Jersey shore to New York City for our gig at Brooklyn Bowl. Coolness everywhere. We'd walked in here on a previous trip, but this was our first show--we shared the bill with a heavy metal tribute to the Bee Gees called Tragedy.
First off…we had some time to kill, so we commenced wandering around the Williamsburg neighborhood. No one would allow us to use the restroom--Pete and I ended up doing a shot at a bar so we could go pee.
Cool stuff everywhere. We ate at a Venezuelan restaurant.
Soundcheck was fine, though two sets of gear was a little cluttered.
It is a fact that Brooklyn Bowl has the best fried chicken in the universe. I ate seven pieces (four wings, three boobs).
Opening the evening was Ali Spagnola, who sang sixty stupid one minute songs about drinking. In between every song, everybody was supposed to do a shot of beer. She even sells shot glasses (attached to a USB drive with her "album" on it). "AwwwwwwwwwwSHOT!" It was really bad, then so bad it was funny, then bad again. Kind of shameful that this passes for entertainment, especially at a real music venue.
We then alternated sets with Tragedy. You can find their stuff on YouTube, I bet. Heavy metal Bee Gees is a joke that's amusing for about forty-five seconds, and then you have about forty-five minutes to endure until their set ends. Half the guys on stage aren't doing anything--one of the guys sports a guitar that isn't plugged into anything and sings into a dead microphone. Not my thing at all.
So, at the risk of bragging, I'll say we won. My main evidence is the fact that after our second set (before Tragedy came back for their second set), the crowd requested an encore (we did not--that wouldn't be cool). When we didn't come back to give them one more, three quarters of the audience left.
After the festivities had ended (and Tragedy had covered the stage in buckets of glitter that got all over everything), we loaded up and headed to our hotel in Jamaica, New York. NOT GOOD!!!! At 3 or 4 in the morning, they only had rooms with one bed, so we had to spoon. I slept with Dannells. Our bed had crumbs in it. I was still full from the fried chicken.
Saturday: we headed up to Norwalk, Connecticut to play a wedding reception. It was in a tent right on the beach. Pete was able to back the trailer almost up to the tent, but we still had to carry gear across the sand to the stage. Not the greatest load in.
This one was pretty uninspired, especially coming off the previous couple of nights. It finished at 9:40, though, so yay.
We loaded back out and drove to Enfield, Connecticut (home of former Beth Freeman employer LEGO!) to spend the night. Much better hotel.
Sunday: we were up waaaaaaaay early to fly to Nashville for a talent buyers' showcase. Strangely enough, we had a connecting flight in Atlanta! Notice the emergency exit legroom that Greg Lee and I are enjoying.
The showcase was in the War Memorial Auditorium, an awesome looking venue…though not meant for a modern concert PA. Looked cool, sounded bad. We played five songs--7 PM to 7:20 PM! Steel Magnolia followed us, and then Edwin McCain. Following that were Bare Naked Ladies and the Spin Doctors. Does this say more about the state of our career or the state of theirs?
After that, we went out to celebrate Mark Bencuya's birthday at Robert's Western World. We got really drunk. I was drunkest.
Monday: we rented cars and drove home. Our van and our gear should be home by Tuesday morning. It had better! We've got rehearsal and gig that night.
PS. This is my 600th blog entry. I dare you to read them all in one sitting.
