New Year's Eve Gig.

Well, if you missed our gig at the Living Room Pub in Oregon City, Oregon, you missed a great time.  It was a rather impromptu gig, as the previously scheduled band cancelled a couple of days prior to New Year's Eve.  Now, if you are a pub owner and you're throwing a big bash on New Year's Eve, this is a very bad thing.  Booking a band this close to a big event can be difficult indeed.  So, we got the call on the 30th asking if we could fill in, and being that we are SLAVES TO THE METAL, we ponied up for the gig.

First off, I have to RAVE about the Living Room Pub, in Downtown Oregon City, Oregon.  What a cool place.  The pub is well decorated, spacious, has about 3 pool tables, darts, leather couches, and a fully stocked bar of course.  The staff were just awesome to us.  My beer never went empty, and the ladies tending the bar were super nice to us.  This night was a special occasion, as it was also Larry The Proprietor's birthday.  My bass player was saying that Larry turned 107 years old today, but I wouldn't put him a day over 40.  So, who knows, it doesn't matter because Larry was SUPER COOL to us.  For being the last day of smoking in Oregon's pubs, The Living Room Pub was quite "unsmokey", which is always a welcome relief to me since I'm super anal about getting my gear dirty.  Since it was New Year's/Larry's Party, there were free hors d'ouvres all night long.

So we started playing about 9:30 and continued on until right before midnight when we did the countdown, and then sang Larry the Happy Birthday song - which we just learned about 1-hour prior.  We went through our set a couple of times and even threw in a new tune that we'd never played live before.  In honesty, we never finished writing this song, but played it anyway.  But, the band was "on" this night so it came out pretty darned good I thought.  

In my opinion, this was one of our better gigs.  Most importantly, it was a fun show, probably made more fun by the nice laid back atmosphere and cool staff at The Living Room.  Larry seemed to like us as well as he commented to me, "we just don't hear bands anymore playing songs where you can understand the lyrics and have GUITAR SOLOS.  This is really cool,"  It turns out Larry is a Metalhead of the Old School style, so that worked out great for us as well.  Larry is also a super nice and laid back guy.  We must get him up onstage with us for a Judas Priest or Black Sabbath jam sometime.

I heard another really cool comment early on in the evening.  A very nice young lady came up to during the 1st set. She said she wanted me to "turn up", because she wants to hear the solos better.  She said, "and I don't normally tell guitar players to turn up."  She also told me she heard elements of "Maiden" in our playing.  Well, if you know me then you know Maiden is my all time favorite band, so this was probably one of the best compliments I've ever received.

Anyway, a big huge THANKS to the folks at the Living Room Pub.  We look forward to playing again.  And, if you happen to find yourself in the OC and feel like having a drink, please drop into the Living Room Pub located at: 206 8th St, OREGON CITY, Oregon and tell Larry that S4S sent ya!