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I posted this a week after The Show to a group of friends, most of whom were at the show, and many of whom were not. Please excuse the "I, me, my" aspect. It was, in part, a diary-like posting, written down for personal recollection. Hope this amuses.
Our Set Sunday
Posted by: "Charles Leroy Pickett, Jr." Cpickett@caseyciklin.com
Sun Feb 4, 2007 12:40 pm (PST)
I went in there trying to play a 10 on a scale of 10 and hoping to play a 6. Eddie and I got there early, around noon. I was trying to get some preview of what the other bands were going to play and how they had weathered the years but most importantly to me, to get a sound check of my amps on that relatively big stage. I brought a 60-watt, four-ten, Fender blond Blues Deluxe (maybe that's what it is called, I can't be bothered to remember), an Ampeg 60-watt, one-fifteen VT-40, a 20-watt Reverb Rocket, and a weird 15-watt Blues Jr (in a different box-cabinet). I had never played with the 60-watt Fender wide open and that's the one I wanted to use with the VT-40 (via an A-B box) with the VT-40 handling the low mids and bottom end to free up the Fender for high mids and treble only.
Barry Seiver showed up early too (more of Barry in a post to follow). We moved my amps to the dressing room as things were progressing slowly on stage. The rig seemed ok there--if I held onto the neck, feedback would slowly develop (although the hot spots were different than on the smaller amps). Eddie went home to get Peppy. I caught up with Barry and watched soundchecks -- and was impressed by how tight every band was (though some were without a member or two).
Eddie got back with Peppy and Vullo and Rick showed up around 3:30 and Deb Cichlid took off to try to find Bobby (more on that in a later post too). We all tuned up. I overloaded--brought six guitars and a guitar-rack to try to avoid tuning problems. I did not want to use an onstage tuner fearing line-drop and/or battery weakness -- and I'd decided long ago that I was going to try to avoid between-song blabber that sometimes makes the tuning less painful to the audience. (Moreover, the audience-types I anticipated don't want to hear comparisons between Holden Caulfield and Huckleberry Flynn).
Nervous. Although I've played more than 700 hundred shows (I guess) and have experienced every kind of ecstasy and humiliation that goes with playing, I was nervous about this show way back, even to the point of waking up at night thinking about it. Part of it was due to playing in front of band-people I have not played in front of for years (Z-Cars and Critical Mass mostly) and part of it was the idea of playing rock in front of a lot of strangers at 53 years old, fat, with grey hair. However, the nervousness went away though about a month before the show. That being said though, I must have still had more than normal pre-show excitement because we sound-checked to Nadine in the key of D -- my mistake because I start it off and we actually play it in A.
The VT-40 was fizzing/squeaking so I pulled the A-B box and just checked through the 60-watt Fender. Everyone could hear ok and Barry did a very short check of his amp--a back-line 50-watt Marshall. Here was my first mistake of the day though. I should have noticed that the Fender was not on the verge of feedback, it was just loud with merely decent sustain.
Shortly thereafter, someone decided that Peppy O'Brien was not properly credentialed (oh no, not that!) so I had to mess around with that for a few minutes at the box office and then, they wouldn't let me back in (in truth, I'd given my stuff to son, Ty, figuring some security person would know me).
Billy (Slyder) Livesay's kids opened the show and they were darned good as far as delivery, sound quality, and tightness. I was expecting amateur, weak, and poor execution. Then they concluded with Bruce Witkin's daughter joining them for one song. (Some of this is for Cindy, Robert, Rupe, and others that were not there).
We went on at 5:10, I believe. About 1,700 paid attendees—raised a lot of $$ for charity. I thought, because it was being filmed, that the right thing to do vis-a-vis the film-maker (Diane Jaques) was give her songs that I could waive royalty payments for (until the film made a little money, if ever), so we planned to play all originals except for Mark's If This Is Love, Can I Get My Money Back? and Eddie's I Led Two Lives.
I just fell into the objective I've always done with big crowds, just try to move it. However, at 53 and 245 pounds, I was GASPING for air during the second verse of the first song (Travelust). I remember thinking, "Well this is great--I want to rock but I can't breathe." I was trying to get a breath between every WORD of the second verse of Travelust. Anyhow, we got through it at about a "5" (out of 10) rating. The crowd response was "nice."
Second song was a cow-punk number that I went through on dull auto-pilot just trying to establish a more realistic physical pace for myself and a friendly-guy rapport with the audience. That being said, I remember spitting all over the stage at every opportunity (that's what got the Eat banned from the Agora, remember?), and spitting is such a nice, friendly thing to do (and in front of my son, no less).
Third song in was Heads Up, Heels Down and by then I was partly out of tune. Couldn't use the low-E to make the chorus churn-out low. While trying to stay on string sections that were in tune, I noticed very much that the amp was just not coming back to me with long sustain or feedback (MY MISTAKE). Also, I perceived that the audience was indifferent to us to this point.
Against his wishes, Eddie had agreed to do I Led Two Lives and play it on guitar. I bailed out to get one that was in tune but Eddie led everyone through it like the true professional that he is (not trying to be funny here, Eddie might hate it, but the truth of it is that he is a professional). "Led Two Lives" was the highlight of our set even though I blew on backup guitar and missed every background vocal. So glad we played this for all our friends that flew down.
I had planned to do an Eat chant and tried to get one going. Either our crowd wasn't loud enough and/or the regular folks were unmovable, but I didn't hear anyone chanting so I figured that we were really going downhill with the regular crowd. Normally, that is no big deal to me, just slog on and try some different things. But here, I didn't want to set a bad tone/atmosphere for the rest of the show/bands so I figured, play If This is Love, and get off.
I was oblivious to one important aspect at this point, that is, that Barry had flown down to play If This with us. Flew down to play ONE song ... and he had his adult daughter in the audience who had never seen him play. While I had planned a nice intro and set-up (something like, this is the guy who started our band and we'd like to give a shout-out to Kirsten, etc.), I had also planned to play a slide number after If This and then have Jimmy Johnson pie me (this I thought would be big fun for Ty - he is ten). The pie trick is something I saw Critical Mass do at the Agora and I'd asked Mick Fazz if he minded me stealing it for Da Show. Anyhow, because I'd decided to shorten up our show, I'm looking for Jimmy to sign him to do the pie on If This and mind-farted on Barry's introduction, forgetting it altogether.
I start If This is Love and still can't find Jimmy. I old-man my way through the first two verses, do an unconscious and very unceremonial, "Take it away Barry," find Jimmy, and come back to the mic to try to wind it up. I try to say something appropriate about Sheila Witkin, and then try to leave on a high note--a sing-along on the chorus of If This (believe it or not, I've got out-of-town audiences to do this occasionally). But I forget until the last minute that I haven't sung the last verse yet and that Jimmy is standing behind me with the pie. So I skip the last verse, try for the sing-along (unsucessfully), get pied, and we slug our way out of the song and leave.
I get Ty-boy to help clean up the pie remains and the stage crew was mad about that mess. Only much later did I realize how stupidly and thoughtlessly I had slighted Barry--no intro, no "spotlight on," and also doing the pie trick during his only song.
In addition to my regret over the foregoing re Barry, I regret that I hadn't played through my smaller amps. The natural verge of feedback that they deliver helps get those easy natural rythemic (sp?) drives going. Without near-feedback, it is just stroke, stroke, stroke, stroke, stroke. Like I said, I had planned to play a slide number and maybe a slide verse/chorus of Amazing Grace but squashed both as they would be just loud and blare-ry--no amp-driven overtones.
Because we played a "5" to a "4," on its way to a "3," I was not too personally disgusted. Disappointed, but not disgusted.
I watched Critical Mass, Slyder, and (most of) Z-Cars out front with Penny and Ty then went backstage to watch Tight Squeeze, Kidz, Romantics and jam-out because the house sound-man was giving me a heart murmer, separating my skull, and loosening my fillings with his bizarro-loud kick-drum oriented mix. (More on the bands later). Bruce Witkin waved me onstage during the jam-out at the end. I went up and Johnny Depp gave me his guitar line. (BTW, he must remain a pretty nice/thoughtful/considerate guy to fly from England to do this show--a charity event in honor of Bruce Witkin's mother, Sheila). Anyway, I thought to myself, "Oh great, I bet the crowd is real pleased to see me replace Johnny Depp." To make the switch, he put his Marshall on standby, I did not see it or recognize it for some time. Chris Bacon is next to me and I keep trying to figure it out while telling Chris, "I got nothing on this amp." I mime playing guitar (the Hello Kitty, I believe) and help sing backgrounds on Route 66. During the switch-off leads, the Romantics singer (BTW, a nice guy) slides over to me and asks if I know the words. I tell him, No," (and I don't--I know only about a verse and an half--the same one he's already sang twice). Coz considerately "cobra sways" (CindyJ) his way over to me to see if I want to play a break to which I reply, "I got nothing on this amp," like the full-on idiot that I am at this point because a few seconds later, I REALIZE THAT THE AMP IS SIMPLY ON STANDBY. Duh, I switch it on, get some sound, and the song ends. I look around and Depp is standing at the stage stairs. I say, "Hey man, c'mon and take this thing back," he does, they continue to rock out, and now I've had it--too much personal stupidity for one day.
I know that this posting is "all about me" but I'm just telling about a big day in my year from my personal point of view. Not trying to cover anything other than the personal/subjective about what we/I played Sunday. Apologies to all, especially Barry. Hope this post explains some of my errors that led to an "ehhh" show and provided some post-show amusement. In the end of the day, my son thinks I'm an even greater hero than before and that means a lot to me.
11:53 AM
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