The Saga of Orbert's Band (now with A New Development)

[Orbert]

...

FlashDrive Update

Found out more about the gig.  The dive bar is hosting some kind of political fundraiser, and we're the "entertainment".  I'm not sure how I feel about this, I just know that somehow it seems to change things.  I've never liked mixing politics with... well, anything really.  I suppose if I like the candidate, then it's cool, but if I don't like the candidate, then I'm helping support someone/something I don't really believe in, and being paid for it.  That makes me something bad and evil which I can't think of the right word for right now.

I don't have any more details.  A gig's a gig, so we're doing it because we need the gig.  The money is nice but isn't the primary motivation here.  We just want to get out and play.  But I'd feel really shitty if we got there and it's some asshole candidate who I honestly don't like or want to support.  Hopefully it's just some local thing that I won't have to give a damn about.  It's in the next county over, so maybe.  Ugh.   

Please keep me posted about this... Chances are because it's there it's probably some county fundraiser, but it's probably of a political party of the opposite persuasion than my personal views.

[Orbert]

...

Well, you've Liked our page, so updates will be coming your way on Facebook, but I'll probably post some details in here as we get them.

I know some bands hype each and every gig, which is fine, but right now we're a new band without any following to speak of, and trying to get people psyched up about driving an hour each way to see us play some dive for two hours feels... embarrassing.  We had two gigs within 30 minutes of our "home turf" I pumped the hell out of those, then they each got cancelled.  John asked me to put together an Event (every gig is an Event) so I did, and of course I did it up, but it feels just a bit silly.

I know.  You gotta be shameless.  You gotta hype yourself and your band relentlessly.  I honestly don't know how much difference it makes, but I guess if the result anything greater than zero, you gotta do it.

[Orbert]

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Yeah I really hate that as well.  The acoustic duo I'm in doesn't have a Facebook page, and I have no interest in making one just to tell people we are gigging somewhere. We get paid no matter who shows up, and seeing as neither of us are in it for the glory, I don't see much point.  Sure, it can be a crucial marketing tool, but we seem to do well without it just by proving to bar owners that we know our shit, are professional and entertaining.

The other band I'm in, the page is run by our singer and some of the stuff he posts is so cringe.  'We're coming for you! radiradirah.' fuck that.  It's a fucking covers band, give it a rest.

[Orbert]

...

The thing is, there is no "promoter" for bar gigs.  You are the promoter, not the bar, and not the agent.  Last December when we first hooked up with Agent Dude (during the two days between the initial hook-up and when Steve had his pissy fit and quit the band), I read over the "agreement".  It's not a contract, just an agreement.  It outlined a number of expectations that both we and Agent Dude are expected to follow, one of which is that we must promote the gig.

It makes sense.  Why should he book us for gigs if we're not even going to promote ourselves?

If we're going to play somewhere, we should have posters up on the bulletin board at that venue a month before.  We don't just expect the bar to promote us.  We go there and put up posters with, at the very least, our name and/or logo, and the date(s) we're playing there.  I mean, that seems pretty obvious; if you're going to build a following (which theoretically is the idea here) then you want your name out there.  Do it often enough, and there will eventually be some people who recognize it, and some of them will specifically decide to go to that venue that night because they know you're playing, and you're good.  There are bands around here who've achieved that level of name recognition.  You say their name, and bar owners want to book them in their place, and people will go to see them.

Obviously we're nowhere near that level yet, but you have to start somewhere.  In addition to posters at the venues, hype each gig on your official band page and any social media you might have.  We have a band website and a Facebook page, and the gig is on there, so we've met that requirement.  Agent Dude didn't book us this one, but it sure doesn't hurt to have a bunch of past Events on your Facebook page.  It shows that you gig a lot, so you must be good, so more people will come to see you, so you'll gig even more, because you must be good, etc.

[Orbert]

...

hmm.  must just work differently here.  Most bars hire bands to play weekend nights, and promote it as 'Live Music Friday' or whatever.  If you get hired to play at a bar, you're pretty much their employee.  The onus is on them to promote their bar and get punters in - its not on you.  If no-one shows up, the bar still pays you.  They didn't pull a crowd and they take that hit. 

It's different if you get the odd gig where the bar insists on you taking a cut from the door.  That's when you need to promote the shit out of it, otherwise you won't get paid. 

[Orbert]

...

It's different here, but not that different.  Lots of places around here advertise live music on Friday and/or Saturday, and there are always the regulars who go to any given bar on a Friday or Saturday anyway, or it will at least be one of a short list of options for them.  But within that, it can't hurt to play a place so often that people recognize your name, and if it's a matter of heading to the bar or going to someone's house to chill and watch the game, or just staying home, there's always a chance that someone'll say "Hey, FlashDrive is playing at Sammy's tonight.  They're pretty good, and the singer is hot.  Let's get some guys together and go."

Again, I have to figure that that doesn't happen a hell of a lot, but it can and does happen.  And if a bar owner notices that the place is busier on nights when certain bands play, they'll be more likely to book you next time.  That's why it's not just "fun" to have your friends come out and see you, it's good business.  Even if each band member brings one or two people, that's ten or more people there, buying drinks and filling tables.  When regulars come in, it's a couple more tables that are full.  That all helps build critical mass.  The place is that much busier, and everyone there is that much more likely to stay, 'cause the place is hopping and the band is rocking.

The gig in December was heartbreaking.  Not only were we going to get paid $500, but it was 20 minutes from their house, John's wife is a realtor, and she was going to set up a "Customer Appreciation Night" there and invite all her clients.  If you show up to play a place, and bring 30 people and buy food and drinks for them all night, that's a party.  You just put a couple hundred bucks in the till.  The owner is pleased.  You're coming back.  That one gig could have gone a long way towards putting us on Agent Dude's "keep these guys working" list.

[Orbert]

...

I got a little more information today about the "gig".  It's a fundraiser thing for someone running for States Attorney for McHenry County.  We still don't have a name.  Appetizers and ass-kissing start at 7, and we start playing around 8.  It's at a bar, but it's not a regular bar gig; we'll play for a couple of hours (because that's all we have).

I'm guessing that because it's a bar and it is a Saturday Night, that they might ask us to play more.  Some folks might stick around, but once they figure out that we're playing all the same songs over again, they'll start bailing, or maybe not.  Meanwhile, once the event is over and regular bar hours start, people will come in and they obviously won't have heard us before, so hopefully they'll stick around.  But I don't know.  I do know that if we start playing at 8, we sure as hell aren't going until 2 like a regular gig.  So we'll see.

[Orbert]

...

Our new guitarist/singer is named Pat, and he used to be in a band called Soda.  The Soda demo video (which is five years old) has him in it, and since the whole point is to showcase the band's various strengths, part it has Pat singing "Come Sail Away" by Styx.  He sounds great.  In fact, when he auditioned for us, John asked me to work up the intro and first verse just so we could hear if Pat still has the pipes.  He does.  (Also, I've known the song since junior high, but whatever).  Jerry and JT (bassist, drummer) also knew the song, so we fumbled through the whole song, including the A-flat bridge, despite never having played it before, at Pat's audition.  That was cool.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, JT was on his way home, an hour west of here, and stopped at this dive called Sammy's Bar & Grill to get something to eat.  The lady behind the counter, Diane, says "You're new around here.  What's your name?" and he says "James".  She says "James?  That's a nice name.  James what?"  "James Taylor".  (That's his real name, so he always just goes by JT.)  "James Taylor?  Like the musician?  Are you a musician?"  And JT says "Yes, but I'm not a singer.  I play the drums."

There's a big board that says "Live Music Saturday Nights" with pictures and the names of various bands that have played there.  JT continues "In fact, I was looking at the board there, and I've played with a lot of those guys."  He names one of the bands, names some of the guys in it, says he used to play with them in some other band, etc.  So now they're talking about bands and stuff, and she says "You know, there was a band we used to get a lot, but we never get them anymore, there were called Soda.  Those guys were great."  JT tells her that our new singer used to be with Soda.  "Pat?" she asks.  "Sailing Pat?"

Sailing Pat?  "You mean, like Come Sail Away?" he asks.  "Yes!  Come Sail Away!  What a great song, and the way he sang that song..."  So JT tells her, yes, "Sailing Pat" is now in our band, and (he bends the truth just a bit) we do "Come Sail Away".

Just then Mike (the other owner, Diane's husband) comes out of the kitchen, and Diane says "Hey Mike, this guy James is in a band with Pat from Soda!  You know, Sailing Pat?"  And Mike says "I love Styx.  Come Sail Away is one of my favorite songs by them.  Pat is in your band?"  And JT nods.  Diane goes on "Plus, he's played with (so-and-so from this band, so-and-so from this other band)..."  And Mike says "You're hired.  I'm sure you guys are great if you have Pat, and you've played with those other guys, too.  When do you want to play here?"

JT says "This is the part where I give you our manager's name and phone number."

And that's how we got the gig.  They never listened to us, didn't go to our website or Facebook page, and JT could have been completely bullshitting them, but we got the gig based on "Sailing Pat" being our new singer, and they love that one song he sings.

[Orbert]

...

Looks like you guys auditioning Pat was a good move! Things seem to finally be taking off for your band, which is great especially after all the problems you guys went through.

[Orbert]

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Thanks.  Yeah, seriously, the crap we've been through.  I have to admit, I've been tempted to just throw in the towel, but as I mentioned upthread, I don't have another band right now, I might as well stick with this one.  We're getting closer to being an actual working band.  If we can just keep our shit together a little longer...


So at our last practice, during which we made sure we have "Come Sail Away" nailed down, so we can impress Diane and Mike and at least have one regular place to play (they said if we're good, we come back and become a regular band there), JT said that this is a hell of a song, and we should make it like a complete showpiece.  Bob should jam a bit on the piano, a solo, then work into the intro to "Come Sail Away" which everyone in the room will recognize, they'll go nuts, we nail the song, and we're freakin' heros.  I was cool with all of it except for the piano solo, but what the heck.

So I jammed bit in C, went through a few changes, worked around to a G, then started "Come Sail Away".  They thought it was pretty cool.  So it's gonna be our second song.  We open with "Born to be Wild", then completely kill the momentum by having Bob do a piano solo, leading into a tune that's six minutes long already, then Anne introduces the band.  That's our opening one-two punch.  I guess it could work, but I pushed for saving it for later in the show.  They said we only have two sets right now.  It'll be one of the ones we play again later.  Whoa.  Roll with the changes.

[Orbert]

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whoa. Roll with the changes.

Will you do Roll with the Changes? That one is fun to play.

[Orbert]

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I imagine it would be.  I've always liked the piano in that song.  But no, we don't.

[Orbert]

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Roll With the Changes is an awesome song.

[Orbert]

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Orbert, how did the gig go? I was planning on going most of the week but lack of funds and daughter starting to not feel well meant I needed to stay home unfortunately. Hopefully the gig went well enough that there will soon be another gig?

[Orbert]

...

I was looking for you, but figured something must've come up.  Sorry you couldn't make it.

It went really well.  It was weird, a Saturday night in a small town, a political fundraiser at 7:00, and we start playing at 8:00.  We were there about 4:00, figured two hours to set up, sound check at 6:00, get out of the way, have something to eat, festivites start at 7:00.  That all went according to schedule, except that come 7:00, no sign of any "festivities" starting.  There were a lot of people there, however, and there was one guy in a blue sport coat and tie and great hair passing out business cards, so we figured he was The Man.  He was.  He came by our table maybe quarter after 7.

By this time, everyone's met Mike and Diane, the owners, and they're great, really nice people.  After The Man wandered off to kiss some more asses, I asked Mike if he still wanted us to start at 8:00, because I thought things were gonna start at 7:00 and I couldn't tell if they had or not.  He said he wasn't really sure about how this works, having never done it before, but yeah, we should start playing at 8:00.  I said that that meant we'd be finishing up before 11:00, so how does that work?  He said the place usually starts clearing out by Midnight.  This is not a huge place, and it's a tiny town.  No crazy headbanging until 2:00 AM here.  So okay.

Five minutes to 8:00, we start gathering, doing some final checks on stuff, and The Man asks if he can just say a few words before we start playing.  Sure, we figured that was the deal.  He introduces himself, some buddy of his running for Commissioner of something, and some other buddy running for Circuit Court Judge or something like that.  Asks everyone for their support, then introduces the band.  That was the extent of the political activities during the night.

We totally killed 'em.  I mean come on, this is Huntley, Illinois.  We were the best thing they'd seen/heard in a long time.  We played a little over an hour, took a break, came back and played our second set, by this time it was pushing 10:30.  Diane asked if we could play a little more.  We told her that that was actually all we knew; we've only practiced together four times.  "Four times!"  She was blown away.  But we whipped out Johnny B. Goode in A, stretched it out, everyone took solos, then we repeated Born to be Wild, and did Come Sail Away again (even better than the first time) which is Diane's favorite song.  I did my piano solo thing leading into the intro, John did the Tommy Shaw solo at the end and took it a bit farther, then the big ending.  It was actually a really good rendition.  Diane looked like she was gonna cry.  She said we're definitely invited to come back.  So that's cool.  I'm not a fan of the hour drive out there, and playing two counties away doesn't do a lot to build a local following, but a gig's a gig.  They like us and are willing to pay us, and it's good practice for when we start doing more high-profile stuff hopefully not too long from now.

Now we just gotta get a third set together and we'll be ready to go.

[Orbert]

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*gig write up*

Sounds great, Orbert!

[Orbert]

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Thanks!  It was a good time.

Our next gig is two Saturdays from now, a private thing in another tiny little place in a tiny little town.  Somebody rented out the bar for a birthday bash and will pay us $300 to play.  Sure, why not.

So John wants to get together this Saturday to practice, brush up a few things that didn't quite go right the other night, and also learn "Birthday" by The Beatles.  As much as I'd rather have a Saturday to sleep in, it wouldn't hurt to practice a bit more.  I already know "Birthday" (having learned it and arranged it for the praise band a few years back) but it'll be cool to whip it out at the gig, since it's a birthday party.  Also, there's always a chance that someone will be out celebrating a birthday, so it'll be a good song to have in the bag anyway.

[Orbert]

...

it'll be cool to whip it out at the gig, since it's a birthday party.

I predict this will be the last gig you get.

[Orbert]

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Hey, we don't know what kind of birthday party this is, at all.  It could well be what gets us many gigs in the future, though perhaps of a slightly different nature.

[Orbert]

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You got me there. In that case, rock out with your cock out.

[Orbert]

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[Orbert]

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If they are renting out the bar, it's possible that the manager of the bar may also be there, and if they like you, well there you go.

Where is the gig? Obv since it's a private party I won't be going, but just wondering for geographical purposes and what you mean by tiny town

[Orbert]

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The town is Wonder Lake, on the shore of... Wonder Lake.  Population 4000 as of the 2010 census, but in 2000 it was only 1300.  West of 31, east of 47, north of 120, south of 173.  I've never heard of it before now, but that's not unusual.  There are a zillion little lakes around here.

[Orbert]

...

The town is Wonder Lake, on the shore of... Wonder Lake.  Population 4000 as of the 2010 census, but in 2000 it was only 1300.  West of 31, east of 47, north of 120, south of 173.  I've never heard of it before now, but that's not unusual.  There are a zillion little lakes around here.

And every lake has a town. Round Lake, Grayslake, Third Lake, Lake Villa, Lake Forest, Lakemoor, Lake in the Hills, Crystal Lake, Fox Lake, Gages Lake, Island Lake, Lake Barrington, Lake Zurich, Lakewood... And half of those towns are in Lake County.

[Orbert]

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Seriously.  Lakes all over this damned state.

[Orbert]

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Thanks to Splent and Cozmo for their support!

[Orbert]

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In other news, my band has a gig tomorrow, and try as I might, I just can't get fired up about it.



It's the second gig with the new guitarist, and he's great and the gig two weeks ago rocked, and we finally seem to be getting somewhere.  But tomorrow's thing is at a place even more remote and nowhere than the last one, the venue itself has no website, and their Facebook page (which is apparently their only official web presence) looks like shit.  No logo, no picture of the place, just a semi-bad picture of the sign hanging over the door taken by a patron and submitted to the page.  Other pictures taken by patrons and submitted reveal a tiny little place frequented by 100% white rednecks.  User posts rake them for being racist assholes and implore them to at least come into the 21st century.  For obvious reasons, I'm a bit sensitive about racism.  Interesting that the posts are even there.  Either the people running it don't care, aren't savvy enough to remove them, or some combination of both.

Yelp reviews aren't all horrible, but the second one mentions the bartenders getting high right outside the front door so people have to walk through the smoke to get in.  Real classy place.

Our drummer JT took a trip up there to do reconaissance, and says the place is about 2/3 the size of the last place (which was tiny) and has a stage.  A stage might sound good, but it's actually not.  It means that we have a predefined place to set up six people, and there's no way to push out even two inches onto the dance floor.  And we were pretty crammed into the last place.

So it's basically a shithole out in nowherefuckingland, and once again will do nothing to help build our local following because it's an hour away.  I told John all this in an email and that I realize that we have to start somewhere, but shouldn't we at least try to have some standards?  He acknowledged my concerns, and joked that hey, as long as they check for weapons at the door, we'll be fine.  The next email from him was the official announcement to everyone that we had accepted the gig, because Agent Dude (the same guy who got us the shitty gig last November) got it for us, and he's in with The Man, and we want to make The Man happy, because he's the one who'll get us the real gigs.  Whatever.  I do love to play.  I'm just having trouble getting excited about this one.  The last gig was a nice place that just happened to be really small.  This place really does look like a shithole.  We're not even getting paid as much as the last gig, and this time we're paying a sound man, too.

[Orbert]

...

Well...

Yeah

No seriously I hope you guys do well there. Yeah you gotta start somewhere but I hope you can start playing at some venues closer to where you guys are.

I don't know of any places by me that do live shows, there are some bars that do karaoke but I don't know if that means they do bands or not.

[Orbert]

...

I know we have to start somewhere, but the idea is that it doing it will lead to something.  What's next, birthday parties for 10-year-olds?  The only reason I can see for playing this gig is because playing live gigs will help solidify the band, work out some kinks, etc.  That's always good, but driving an hour each way, setting up and tearing down in middle of nowhere, is not necessary.

I told John that we don't have to jump on every gig they offer us.  Agent Dude is, by all accounts, an asshole.  JT and Steve have both met him and confirm this, but more importantly, they also both say that we don't actually have to kiss his ass.  It doesn't hurt to keep him happy, of course, but he's basically The Man's lap dog.  We're already in with The Man.  Last band meeting, John asked us if we thought we were ready to call The Man and tell him we're ready for real gigs, and we all said "Yes!"  The Man had us booked twice last December before Steve had his hissy fit and quit, one for $500 and one for $400, and we're better right now than we were last December.  We're getting $300 for this nowhere gig, a fucking redneck birthday party, and our sound man comes out of that.  It's time to cut out this piddly shit and play some real gigs.

[Orbert]

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What's next, birthday parties for 10-year-olds?

I believe next is an Air Force base, then some kind of jazz exploration in front of a festival crowd.

If you had a few more gigs under your belt and a small following, I'd start to get more selective, but for now I'd just take it as experience with the worst to prepare you for anything that comes later. So basically what you said.
I shall wish you good luck though, and pray to the rock gods that nothing more goes wrong.

[Orbert]

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Request:  A thread called "As the World Orberts"

The only thing worse than moving slowly is not moving at all.  I'd just power through the gig and treat it like a very important gig.  Pump up the crowd (patrons).  Get a local fan to record the performance for facebook or similar posting.  If you are worried about somebody sneering that the gig is a joke, that just gives you the opportunity to respond that the band treats every gig like a no holds barred event.

This can then become your calling card (or link) for local gigs.  Perhaps some similar hole in the wall local gig will think "Hmm.  I like band's that would treat my place like the greatest gig ever offered."

It sounds like you've passed the worst part of a startup band.  The band itself.  There are so many factors with the players.  Not aligning with the band direction.  Not showing up to rehearsals.  Talent and ability.

Heck, one band (with original music - so even tougher on direction alignment) I played with was great.  We all got along great.  We all were supportive of one another.  Rehearsal was a fun event, so calling for a rehearsal was as easy as "have free time to rehearse tonight?" answered with "let's do it."  All were very talented.  But they were more the garage band type (mentality).  When it was just us jamming, we pushed each other to perfection.  If we had to quickly rehearse something before a class, we knew the songs so well we could play a 6 minute song in 3 to 4 minutes.  And other musicians would always look in the door window and tell us it sounded great.

But ever rehearsal would end with me or the other guitarist saying "let's play live".  I understand the hesitation.  We were talking about playing in front of a ton of top notch musicians that could be the "arms crossed observer" x10.  It was strange though because prior in high school, I'd always form the bands that played in front of the whole school.  And I had enough muso friends to say "Christine from the Drama department asked me to have us play as part of their big production."  We could have same day prep and go in with no fear.  Now I'm at a musicians school playing with top notch musicians and some of them freeze at the thought of playing live.  What if they mess up?  So what?  And that's all in your mind because you play flawlessly when you didn't even these musicians are watching you through the door anyway.

After so many rehearsals, my friend and I just scheduled the time and told them we were playing instead of asking.  They said no at first, then agreed.  We played and the intro was great.  Then a few bars in, the bass just dropped out.  And that is a big frequency range drop.  Then the other guitar dropped.  Thankfully the drums kept going.   It caught me by surprise, and I turned from the audience to the band and thought I was going to mess up as well ... but the ungodly amount of rehearsals kept me playing and it was like somebody else was playing as I talked the drummer into not stopping so the others could find their place and come back in.

After we were done, they were adamant that they weren't ready to play again.  I said it wasn't their rehearsal prep, but their stage fright and they just conquered it.  If anything, we should play again the very next night.

It was a strange thing because we played smaller stages around town and even in front of the MI teachers as part of the curriculum where it wasn't about cheers, but always about critique on what we could do better.  In other words, unless you were the best, most perfect band ever created on the planet ... you were going to get feedback / critique.  And it was done without a hitch.  But go up on the big stage and these insanely good players freaked out.  It almost made me want to call up the less stellar high school buds to come play just so I didn't have to deal with people that had no reason to freak out ... freak out.

And you are past all that.  Where 800 factors of band dynamic are checked and in the rear view mirror.  Don't cancel the upcoming gig.  Own it and push really hard for more gigs.  If you aren't concentrating on why this gig is so bad and possibly cause another bandmate to lose enthusiasm, you can concentrate fully on the other gigs.

Especially the jazz exploration gig.  (BTW, I know I'm not telling you anything you haven't thought of.  But sometimes it is good to hear)

[Orbert]

...

What's next, birthday parties for 10-year-olds?

What's next ? A gig for ANTS?!

[Orbert]

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Calvin, you are spot on.  Treat every gig like it's an event, treat every crowd like you're there just for them, because you are.  Every one of us has done this enough to know how it works.  By time we get set up and sound checked, the adrenaline will be flowing and I'll be ready to rock.

There was exactly one gig, back in the 80's, that I didn't give the proper treatment, and I regret it.  We were to be the "special guests" at some multi-band thing an hour south of where we lived.  The problem was that we had a gig the night before, two hours north.  This was in the days of three-day and four-day gigs all over northern Michigan, so driving two hours each way was okay because it was an extended gig and good money.  Well, $700 in 1982 money, which wasn't too bad.

Anyway, we decided to tear down and pack the bus the night before, get some sleep, then hit the road when we got up the next day.  We got started late, traffic sucked, and we got lost on the way there.  We were still there half an hour before we were supposed to play, which was good, but that's when we found out that being the "special guests" was a euphemism for "suckers who we got to fill up a set".  Our guitarist and bassist had to plug into the "host" band's amps.  Drummer had to use their kit, and I had to use the keyboard rig.  Seriously?  In the half hour we had, I went up there and tried to quickly learn everything I could about some other guy's setup.  He gave me a ten-second summary, then disappeared, because he didn't like the idea of someone else using his gear any more than I did.  Nice stuff, but it was all backwards.  Synth on the left, organ on the right, piano in the middle.  I always have the synth on the right (it's a fucking lead instrument, of course it's on the right if you don't stack them) and my choice would've been to have the organ on the left, but I wasn't allowed to move them around or anything.  I'd never played a real Hammond with drawbars and everything, and it would've been nice to actually have even ten minutes to learn, but we weren't allowed to make any sound during the break, I guess because people wanted to hear the shitty jukebox music.

I was tired, sore, felt screwed over, and was trying to navigate someone's else rig.  "Special guests" my ass.  I decided it was okay to let it show on my face.  Yeah, we sound like shit, sorry, we're not happy about it either.  Later, the other guys asked me what the deal was.  Apparently they all had problems and I was the only one who actually sounded good, but I looked bored/unhappy/whiny the whole time.  Even their sound man said it was cool finally getting to mix a keyboard player that knew how to actually use all that awesome gear.  It was just a shame that obviously it wasn't easy for me, but it sounded great.

So... never again.  Every show is an event, every audience is special.  I'm a professional (even if I'm just an amateur) and I'm gonna act like one.


Sorry to hear about your experience playing with great musicians but never really getting to go live with it.  I love playing music, and just jamming with other talented guys is great, but ultimately, playing for others is where it's at.  Our band was originally formed because John has a huge basement and plenty of disposable income, so his idea was to buy a bunch of gear, assemble a group of capable musicians and have a freaking awesome time rocking out in the comfort of his basement.  Like me, he hadn't played in a "real band" since the 80's, so the idea of gigging wasn't even in the picture.  That changed when we realized how good we are.  It's already great playing with these guys, so going live is the next level.

Oddly enough, just thinking about this is starting to get me kinda fired up.  Or maybe it's the coffee kicking in.  I think I'll go make another cup.

[Orbert]

...

I completely understand not feeling on top after all that you described about that gig. I'm not sure I would have been able to keep up my enthusiasm either.


I'm both nervous and excited when I think about playing live with the band some day. Nervous because I have aspergers, and am nervous as shit around people in general. And excited because we have some really cool music, and I think it'll sound really good live. And I do like performing music for people, despite my otherwise nervous nature, so I'm sure it'll be worth it once we get there.

I expect it will be really difficult finding an audience for our weird prog/metal/rock where we live, but we will certainly try our best.

[Orbert]

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I completely understand not feeling on top after all that you described about that gig. I'm not sure I would have been able to keep up my enthusiasm either.