Well, first off, I'm in a much better mood today than I was yesterday. That should tell you a little how last night went, right?
After the issues on Friday's show, I asked everyone to show up early Saturday. I wanted to make sure we had plenty of time for a good sound check, make sure we worked out any bugs from the previous night. I showed up around 6pm... right as a big ole storm exploded over the place. I didn't know how long it was going to last. It had pretty much popped real quick. So, I had a beer at the bar and decided to give it a few minutes to pass. It did and I was able to load in without getting soaked. Shortly thereafter, Heath, Cisco and Brian arrived. We got setup and had everything in place well before we were able to do sound check. I was relieved.
As for the performance, it sounded about 75% better than the night before. As I've said in previous posts, this is an odd gig. You don't get a lot of interaction with the crowd while you're playing, mainly just afterwards when you're walking around is when you get feedback. I was in a pretty good mood and I guess it showed. We had quite a few people playing along with us for beads, had a girl decide she needed to sing a Pat Green song - so we let her, I had some fun on the mic with the staff and my favorite off-duty police officer / security guy (not really sure which he is - guess I should ask next time). Oh, and I sang a pretty horrible version of Happy Birthday twice. I should have never learned the words to that song. I'm going to make sure I forget those lyrics by the next gig. I will gladly wish someone a happy birthday on the mic, but we're not TGI Fridays - and it messes with the flow of our show (in my head anyways).
Speaking of crowd manners and asking us to do stuff while we're on stage, it's so interesting to see how crowds change over time. Back when I was attending a lot of shows (rather than playing them), no one would have ever tried to interrupt a band on stage. I mean, while the girl wanting to sing Pat Green was fine at this particular place and I was in the right mood for it, if that would have been during a regular "concert" show, she would have never made it close enough to attempt it. Most bands, especially us, have the evening set list pre-planned. There's an art to designing the flow. We often learn words and songs, plan guitar switches, plan tunings, etc. based on that flow. You mess with the flow and it can throw the band off. Even more so when the band is trying to build momentum and alter the various moods of the crowd.
For example: We start out these long nights with what I call "the beach set." It's an hour or so long and has some "beachy" stuff. If we play Margaritaville that night, it's going to be in that set along with songs like Carry Me Home. By the end of that set, we've introduced a little more country. The second set, which I call "the main concert" is pretty much that. We play a couple hours without stopping. We start out high energy and keep building it. The sound gets louder, the guitars start distorting more and it's designed to work the crowd up and up. If you've never been there at the end of the night when we close with a certain song (no spoilers for those that have not been there), we pretty much sound like a rock band, very little country at that point. Guess that's why we're alt-country LOL. Anyway, back to my point... There was an article in one of the Austin papers recently about how inconsiderate concert goers have become in recent years. It spoke of the "I paid my money, it's MY night" folks. I remember seeing Jack Ingram at an acoustic show in the Boston area a year or two ago. You couldn't pay attention to the show because of the drunk girls having their girls night out. People asked them to keep it down, the girls would tell them off. Finally, management cut them off and they left. I like loud, rowdy and drunk. I really do. Don't get me wrong, but take it to a Creager show, a strip club or somewhere appropriate for loud and rowdy. Think of this, even if you don't care about how the band feels about it, do you really think anyone (other than your table of friends) wants you disrupting things? Um... they paid to get in as well. Oh, and if you want to make requests... do us all a favor and go somewhere with a jukebox. Ok, enough on that, it was a good night - I just got off on a thought and kept typing. Sorry. Let's move on...
Like I said, we sounded a whole lot better and had a lot of fun and look forward to doing it again on November 16th. If you haven't been to see us there before, it's only $10 and includes 2 hours of unlimited bowling with your cover charge. Also, pitchers of Bud Light are only $7.50 - it's one of the cheaper nights out and I highly recommend it.
At the end of the night, I was pleased and slept a whole lot better than the night before. Oh, hey, and Brian got some new jeans. Check them out below - he was really proud of those jeans :)
Stay gold and I'll talk to you next week,
RFH
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