OK, well, I'm a little late on the show blogs and I have to type this one from some laptop with a tiny keyboard on my vacation in South Carolina, so this should be fun.
Unfortunately, I don't remember a lot about the Liquid Lounge gig so this sentence about sums it up. The sound wasn't as good as it usually is, as the normal sound guy wasn't working there. That's all I remember.
Andy's in Denton started off like it was going to be a disaster. I couldn't get my amp to work (a problem I rectified the next morning) so I had to plug in direct, meaning that my sound was not what I was used to. Nonetheless, we drove on. We had come to the realization in between gigs that part of the problem we were having with Matthew's bass sound was going from the direct out in the back of his amp head. This lead to a really thin and plinky sound. This time we had them just mic up his amp and voila, the problem was solved. In some ways, however, this is unfortunate since it means that all future sound problem ire will be directed my way. Of course, I did a lot to address this problem in between the Andy's and O'Riley's gig. As for Andy's, we enjoyed the show and actually had a decent turnout. The staff there was a lot of fun and of course we enjoy the time we do have up there. The town is nice and the food and beer is cheap.
O'Riley's was a show we'd been trying to land for a while. They have the best deal in town where they charge $7 at the door and the bands get $6 of that for every person they draw. They start most bands out on a Thursday to measure what kind of draw they get, so we really tried to promote the show more than usual so that when they do have us back, it will be on the weekend.
I had sent an e-mail to all the guys earlier in the week saying that since load-in was at 8pm, that load-up at my place should probably be around 7:15. On the day of the show, I get a call from Michael in the AM asking if he could stop by at some point early that afternoon to fix whatever problem it was that popped up with his wireless at the Andy's gig. I told him that wasn't a problem, but that he should call to make sure I'm there in case I'm out to lunch or something. When the afternoon came and went without a call or a visit from Michael, I didn't think much of it. At 7:16, however, I get a call from Michael. "Hey. I was wondering if it's alright if I stop by now," he says. You really can't make this stuff up. I responded by saying that I would prefer if he did stop by since it was time to load-up. This was greeting by a short silence on the other end as Michael processed this little tidbit of information. Needless to say, he soon stopped by and we loaded up.
We made a pretty good impression right off because not only did we show up for load-in right on time, but we were also the only band to show up that night. The other two bands completely flaked out either due to the weather or general flakiness. As a result, we were a bit more relaxed than usual and even improvised a few tunes with mixed results. We played a full set on top of that and even took a break about two-thirds of the way through to socialize and drink a few more beers. The sound was very good up on the stage and some of my guitar issues were considered resolved by the end of the night. We also pulled nearly 20 people, so we had a decent payout and in their good graces. Louie the soundguy seemed like a genuinely nice guy to boot, which made the venue all that more agreeable.
Anyway, that's about it. I've gotta go out to the seafood joint and order some crabs for Thursday night's dinner. Sorry. None of you get any of my crabs. Pun intended.
-Josh