Kevin: Friday's Fiasco

I apologize ahead of time, but this is going to be a venting post. Some of you may remember we were supposed to play a show Friday night. If you came out, I’m sorry and I hope you didn’t spend too much on drinks. If you lost your shirt, hopefully you at least had better luck with that smokin’ brunette by the coat rack than Devin did. (Sorry, dude, you’re the bass player. Only grandma’s impressed.)

Anyway, where to start. First off, we get to the club and find out we’re supposed to go on at 8, not 9 like they originally said. THEN, as if that doesn’t suck enough, they tell us we have to use their equipment because of some coding thing they got slammed for the night before. Uh…excuse me? You mean that 100 dollar 20 watt starter amp you’ve got balancing on the crate by the stage? You can’t mean that. You can’t POSSIBLY mean that. But they did. Oh, they did. I’m exaggerating slightly, but it was seriously the biggest piece of junk I’ve ever seen. My sweet Les Paul sounded like the Wal-Mart “Joys of Electric Guitar Starter Kit.” I swear I felt poor Les literally cough a few times throughout the night. We should have just bagged the show right then, but Chris wanted the hundred bucks since we already drove down to the city (and Devin wanted the Brunette by the coat rack). Which is BOGUS, because they didn’t make Chris use their crappy drums and Devin’s amp actually wasn’t terrible. Go figure.

Anyhoo, so we’re creeping through our set and we’re about to launch into the killer chorus of our new tune “Forget Me Not,” and of course my pedal decides NOT to work. So that’s great because I programmed the PERFECT distortion just to blow their minds. Instead, I get a clean strum of the first bar. It sounds like a freakin’ third-grader’s 2^nd guitar lesson. Jason’s giving me the evil eye until he figures out what happened. So he covers the rhythm for me and I take over the lead. Which is also fantastic since there’s this sick riff in the bridge that would make Jimi Hendrix shudder, but I guess I pulled it out enough to not look like a complete idiot.

I could go on and on but it’s too depressing. Katie says it wasn’t that bad, but Katie’s an angel. So “not that bad” to her is ear-shattering awful to the rest of us. I can tell you one thing though, we will not be playing there again. No way. No how. Les is getting a surprise tune-up just for being a champ and putting up with that nonsense. Oh, and Sally my Orange amp got a huge hug when we got home. I love you, babe!