chirp... chirp... chirp

Hunh? Blog? What blog? Oooooohhhhhhh. That blog. Yeah. Gotcha.

Sometimes, the week slips away with nary a spare moment to tap out a public missive. Alas. Last week saw some rehearsing, a couple of shows, and just too much to do.

The shows went well. Thursday in Joliet was one of those shows that by all rights should have sucked. For one, it was at Harrah's Casino in Joliet. Natch. For two, we had to be down there around 7:00, which meant leaving the city in miserable rush hour traffic. For three, as we were loading in to the show, I heard a noise from my amp and one of the vacuum tubes that creates that warm rockin' sound came rolling out the back, broken. Right.

Actually, the whole night showed me how far I've come as a professional performer and how far BRB has come from some of the previous projects I've been involved in. In the past, a setup like the one described above would have resulted in 1) moping, 2) panic, and 3) a disastrous show. Oh. I forgot one thing: we couldn't drink at the casino. Not kidding.

So after load in, we ducked out and ran to a bar down the street to let off some steam. I managed to get my amp up and running, albeit at about half power, and a strange thing happened: for all the trial and travail, we started playing and sounded pretty good. Not great. But we just got up there and played. And had fun. I think that set a good tone for Saturday's show at Double Door.

I got my amp to Todd, the guy who does work on my musical equipment, on Friday night at about 8:00, and he had it ready for me at 5:00 on Saturday. The Double Door was already pretty full as we started playing, and it continued to fill up during our 45 minute set. In terms of performing, I thought it was as good a show as we've played. We all seemed relaxed and energetic. Our tempos were solid. And I personally felt like I fronted as good as show as I've ever fronted.

Musically... well, you just never know. There's always a weird balance between energy and accuracy. I know it wasn't my cleanest show musically, but I felt like the performance aspect outweighed whatever mistakes I made. And a few people, my "barometers" for our performances, were overwhelmingly positive. Which meant a lot.

So, after a show like that, this week was bound to be a bit of a let down. Plus, I just have too much to do. This morning, I've got to run the dog to the vet for his yearly check up, go to rehearsal, go to the gym and grocery store, and then get up to Deerfield to teach. Ugh. 

At least I'll sleep well tonight. Thanks to Ambien.

jbg