Saturday Rock was throwing a party. He went all out. He made a ton of ribs and wings and his mom supplied any non-meat related dish. Band Mom and I got there about 5 and Scott and his girlfriend and a few others were already there. Slowly people started showing up. The plan for the evening included the debut of our new band and a performance from Keyz’s new band Desendsion. As soon as we got there the Spinal Tap-ish events started.
The first thing I had to do was get the new power amps that Rock and I had picked up a couple of weeks ago. Well 2 things we didn’t think about. 1) Getting patch cables to connect the crossover to the power amps. I got around that by using 20′ cables to travel the 6 inches I needed. 2) The new power amps don’t have 1/4 inch outputs just Twist-Loc and banana clips. What kind of cords do we have to connect the monitors? Thats right 1/4 inch cables. So I had to use an old amp that was still partially working for the monitors. No big deal.
Then we all grabbed some grub and started setting up the stage. Rock had a goose-neck trailer that we played on at a party last year to act as a stage for the evening. Now the original plan was that the first band should start playing around 7pm (while its still light out). It was getting to be around 7 and the first band (Desendsion) wasn’t even there yet. Which was okay for now since we didn’t have the stage ready anyway. Suddenly here comes a group of cars that we don’t know anyone in. Yeah! Its Desendsion. Except Keyz isn’t with them. Turns out Keyz (the only member of the band that has ever been to Rock’s) got off at the wrong exit!! He ended up getting there about a half hour later.
Okay well lets get this thing rolling. Travis brought a generator to power the stage. It looked kinda small and I was getting nervous that it wouldn’t be able to supply enough power to run the stage and lights. Boy was I mistakin’! It actually was pushing way too much voltage. The power conditioners instantly went into safe mode and I couldn’t turn on any of the stage equipment. Who’da thunk that this dinky generator would push over 130V (should have been 120V) per outlet. Okay now what? Well Rock’s brother took off and went to his house and got a ginourmous extension cord that we then ran into Rock’s garage to power everything.
Now its dark and we need the lights. Oh goody both light bars are busted so they don’t raise above 4 feet or so. Well at least everyone will be able to see our shoes. It actually wasn’t that bad, but it was a bit dark on stage. Desendsion got up and played a very energetic set. The guys in the band were very cool and were able to self censor since they weren’t really expecting the family show atmosphere that we had. They played mostly originals which was very cool. Hopefully they all had fun. (We did and I think we will hopefully be playing more shows with them in the future!)
Now it was our turn. I must admit, I didn’t think I would, but halfway through their set, I started getting butterflies. This would be the first time that I had to front a band for a whole set. For years I have come out from behind the sound board to do back-ups here and there and the occasional lead vocal, but this is the first time the whole show was on my shoulders. Since I wasn’t behind the board, Band Mom ran sound for the night. With a little help from me, Bill, Sal, and pretty much every body else (thats the joy of running sound, everyone’s an expert and is going to let you know it!) she did a great job, especially considering it was pitch dark at the sound board.
A little back story here: A couple of weeks ago Travis got himself injured and was not medically allowed to play for a while. So last week we practiced with Pete so he could sit in tonight. Travis was medically cleared to play on Wednesday, but we still wanted to get Pete up for a few since he did put in the time to learn the tunes. So we started the set with Pete on drums. My nerves were shot. Our first song was one that I (know now anyway) probably shouldn’t be singing much less opening our set with. After that I slowly got more comfortable. After two songs we got Travis up to finish the set. It was fun. Could it have been better. You bet! Having our first show at Rock’s party with a friendly crowd was definitely a good idea. We were able to see where we have issues, without too much hassle.
I definitely needed to get one show out of the way. Hopefully now I will be able to loosen up on stage. I probably could have put a card board cutout of me up there and sang from offstage and the crowd would have gotten the same stage show out of me. That’s something I’ll definitely be working on from now on. One good thing is we ended strong. Our final two songs are two that I definitely love to sing and the band loves to play. Godsmack’s Bad Religion and Rage Against The Machine’s Killing In The Name Of. I had to change some lyrics because of the family show, but they were still fun. Thing 1 recognized Killing from Guitar Hero and Thing 2 was head bangin’ down front and throwin’ me the \m/ horns.
After we finished we got a jam going for the rest of the night. First we got the second guitarist from Desendsion up on drums with Keyz on bass, Rock on guitar and me on vocals to do a few. Then Bill jumped up on drums for a couple. The next switch was Donnie from Ruff Creek up on bass and some lead vocals. Later we got Sal up on guitar and Santi up on drums. There was a flashback to the Initial Contact days! The jamming was a ton of fun, even if Jason wouldn’t get up and sing a few!
After that we slowly tore down everything as people started leaving. After everything was down, there was still a small group left. We hung out had a few more and BSed about everything. Pandora did a little palm reading and was pretty darn accurate at it!
Well the first show is out of the way. There is some work to do. Keep an eye out ’cause now its on. We will be working out the kinks and gettin’ our asses out there soon.
Thanks to everyone who came and listened to us. Thanks for all of the feedback! We intend to take it all and use it to our advantage.