Wednesday: We flew to the Florida Panhandle to meet up with our gear for a cancer benefit show. This place we played was a little weird. The keg urinal, for instance. Nick wanted to know if it would turn his pee into beer.
And the three giant Yamaha mixing consoles, one of which was in pieces behind the building.
And we had an opener--an older guy with an acoustic guitar and a drum machine. He was pretty good, except that some of his chords were weird (he seemed to have a fear of diminished chords, among other things). The green room was so small/terrible that we ate dinner out in the main room, so the guy had to play at least half his set to seven judgmental musicians.
Our set was ok. The room didn't sound too bad, but the crowd was a little weird--some people in the room seemed to be having too much fun, and some people looked at us like we were singing in a foreign language. The vibe didn't fit the nature of the event.
Also, they had cameras that broadcast onto TVs on the wall (and behind us), and it was distracting watching yourself on a half second delay, but it was also hard to look away.
We got out of there and crashed at our hotel for a few hours before the next day's travel. The hotel didn't have enough rooms for us, and so Nick and Pete stayed at a hotel ten minutes down the road.
Thursday: Here's a weird one. We (the band) flew from the Panhandle to Sarasota WITH A CONNECTION IN ATLANTA! and then rode from Sarasota to St. Pete in two cars.
We left the hotel at 7:45 AM. The van and trailer (and Kip and Zach) left at 9 AM. We beat them to the venue by a half hour. Whyyyyyyyyyyyy did we flyyyyyyyyyy?
Anyway, I had a good lunch--some kind of veggie wrap thing.
Around the time that I walked back in, load in had begun. At this venue, they stack things on a forklift and raise them up to the stage. Bencuya probably wouldn't like to see his keyboard on the bottom of this stack.
It's always weird when the venue misspells the name of the band. It's REVUE.
Expectations weren't too great for this one--right around 500 tickets sold, and it was outdoors in Florida in late June, and bleah, but it wasn't too bad! Pretty great crowd, and the heat wasn't too bad. Turned out to be a good Thursday night.
Check out the statue that lives in the lighting booth at night. For a while when I was packing up, I kept waiting for him to finally move before I realized it wasn't a real person. Wonder what that's all about?
Looks kind of like Lee Sklar out there.
The cork foot behind my palm key D finally disintegrated, and I used a bunch of strips of gaff tape to try and build up a some material to keep the key from opening too much. If my saxophone ever gets off the road, I'll actually have a chance to repair it!
Friday: Next stop, the Florida Theater in Jacksonville! We drove to this one (and left the hotel at a much more comfortable 10:30 AM). In spite of our wanting to believe that Jacksonville is a dump, this theatre was really beautiful. What a cool looking place!
We had a pretty incredible first time in Jacksonville! This theatre sounded great, and the crowd was really into it in spite of the fact that there was no standing room. Very cool.
Saturday: Homeward! Up a little too early yet again, but this trip is over. Jacksonville's airport is actually really nice, too.
My nasty finger. This gets gross, so you might not want to look at the pictures.
During Wednesday's gig, the middle finger on my right hand was sore at the tip. Not so bad that I couldn't play my keyboard parts, but...almost. I assumed it was because I'd jammed it the day before. It was a bit swollen around the nail.
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| Wednesday: some swelling |
Thursday was significantly worse in terms of pain and swelling. I started leaving out some notes in voicings, or trying to finger them differently to avoid using that finger. My finger swelled wide enough that it wouldn't fit between the black keys on the piano. I couldn't press on the keys without pain, so I arched my fingers so that my fingernail would hit the key instead of the fleshy part of my fingertip.
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| Thursday: fatter finger |
By Friday, I knew I was in trouble. It was clearly getting worse. I tried icing it, which instantaneously quadrupled the pain. Even cool water was excruciating. The gig this evening was extra tough, because now it was starting to affect my saxophone and flute playing as well as the keyboard stuff. Even the EWI, which has no actual moving keys, was difficult to handle. It really hurt all the time now.
Saturday afternoon, swelling was super bad on one side of my fingernail. It finally occurred to me that this was not because of jamming my finger. Instead, it was an oncoming infection from a torn cuticle the previous week.
Saturday was brutal--I gobbled ibuprofen like candy, and I woke up in serious pain every couple of hours, and my entire finger had ballooned up.
I accidentally hit it on something Sunday morning, which was indescribably painful, and yet...it opened the wound and began to release some of the swelling.
Several warm saltwater soaks helped draw out some of the blood and puss.
Made it through my church gig without it oozing on anybody.
Gross, but the healing is underway. Antibiotics start tomorrow!
