The Greg Lee Show! Mostly the Yacht Rock guys backing Greg on his originals (and a few choice covers) at Eddie's Attic, just as we'd done earlier in the year with both Greg and Nick. This one had Ben Holst playing bass most of the night--Peter was out of town. I like the material a lot, and I also like that the fact that there we can focus on performing and not think about the rock show posturing. Frankly, the stage is so small at Eddie's that there's no room for any kind of movement at all.
We loaded in and sound checked late in the afternoon, and then hung out for several hours while an entire early show checked and played (two full bands on an earlier time slot), and then our opener (Lexi Street) played. I'm suspecting that I ate something that didn't agree with my stomach, and the hours of waiting gave it plenty of time to reach a boil. By the time we hit the stage (around 10 PM), I was BARELY holding back an avalanche of vomit. It was horrible, and the only way I kept from barfing everywhere was getting on stage and concentrating on something for three or four minutes at a time. I was miserable; probably played like I was miserable, too. I'm really glad I didn't puke on stage. I was one good stomach contraction away from hurling all over the table in front of me.
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| photo cred--Jim Ramsdell |
So...that being said...as usual, I was better at rehearsal. Cartoon Butterfly had a couple of disasters on the piano part, but a good flute solo. Southern Nights, pretty good clarinet stuff. Born and Raised was fine. Nick and Tim Smith did a couple of Indianapolis Jones songs, to which I contributed a bit of flute. Right before my first entrance on Loss is the Law of the World, I decided that my part would be better up and octave, so I laid into it, played a string of wrong notes (couldn't read my chart), and then realized that going up an octave was...a really bad idea. I could see Nick flinch out of the corner of my eye as I ruined his song. The second time the line came around I was much better, but I'd already blown it by that point. Not Ghosts Yet was better. Back on Greg's tunes: Get What You Want and Good Thing were pretty good, as was Three Time Loser, all of which were excuses for me to pretend to be David Sanborn. One Kind of Love was all right; I'd kind of done all my nifty saxophone playing by that point. Cruel to be Kind was just a tambourine part. I don't even remember if we played the planned encore, Sailing Shoes. In the end, I was hoping to die. Somehow, I loaded out and drove home without throwing up in my lap.
Kinda wish we'd had a chance to do this one again...