It's Sunday morning, I'm having my coffee, and I'm now ready to relay my recollections of the events of Friday night. Ya know how I know I'm old now? It's taken me this long to recover from the marathon of Friday night.
Having learned on Friday afternoon that our start time was actually 8 o'clock, I arrived at Apps and Taps for soundcheck at 6:00 PM. The trailers for both the headliner and my band were backed up to the rear loading entrance. I started hauling my gear in, which took me three trips. The headliner had already done their soundcheck, so we proceeded to set up our backline in front of them onstage.
The guys in the band That Arena Rock Show were all milling around, dressed casually, by which I mean not in their stage cloths. I was already wearing my stage cloths. The guys in my band freaked out over my outfit, asking where I got such cool cloths, to which I bluntly responded, "The woman's rack at the thrift stores." Where did they think the New York Dolls, or Twisted Sister, or all the other bands had got their cloths? They made me promise to take them shopping with me. Sure, back in the day I used to go to Trash and Vaudeville and the other shops on 8th Steet in the Village to buy threads, but even back then I knew that the best and cheaper clothes were to be found combing thrift stores in the "boonies." I had friends who've since become world famous stylist who would take road trips to buy things at those places and then sell them at a 1000% or more mark up to their clients.
Once onstage I inspected the headliners backline and quickly recognized that the stacks of Marshall were actually just stage props, much oversized from real amps. I asked one of the guitar players what they really were playing through and he told me it was a Fractal unit. I asked if he was the guy who played the awesome Kramer Nightswan, and he replied that that was a previous member, the guy he had replaced in fact. He also showed me a guitar that smoked like Ace Frehley's.
My rig.
After soundcheck before the doors opened. There was a line of people waiting out front.
After we did our soundcheck we had about an hour to chill out. The doors of the club weren't open yet, and the only people in the venue were band members, their road crews, and employees of the venue. The guys in That Arena Rock Show all sat together at a table eating their dinner. I was standing with a couple guys we had hired as roadies when a dude I recognized from the photos and videos of my band walked up to us. It was the bands former guitar player. He came straight up to me, asked if I was the new guitar player, to which I responded, "Yes." I acknowledged that I knew who he was. It was cordial, though at the same time a little awkward. It had been my understanding that he had quit the band of his own volition and moved out of State. When I spoke with other members of my band they told me they were equally confused by his being there.
The other guitarist in That Arena Rock Show approached me and asked if I was the guitar player in our band. He told me he was a Les Paul guy too, but wanted to show me a USA Custom BC Rich he was playing that night. I could tell that he was so proud of it. I don't know BC Rich models that well, but it was all black, LP style, neck through body, with an ebony board, a marker only at the 12th fret, maple binding, EMG 81/85 combo, and Imperial style tuners. It was a gorgeous guitar, quite heavy, a real man's instrument. I told him I had owned a Gunslinger model BC Rich back in the 80s, and he proceeded to rattle off all the BC Rich guitars he owned, adding that just a few weeks previous he had talked to Traccii Guns. He was clearly a serious BC Rich guy, in the same way that
@PsychoCid is a Kramer guy. I really wished I had not only been able to see their show, but that I also had more time to talk with these guys, especially the guitar players. If I had to guess, I'd say they were maybe in their late twenties or maybe thirty.
About five minutes before we went onstage the four members of my band, including myself, congregated at the VIP bar for the pre game "pep rally," as I've done with so many bands. Every band has it's own rituals, a prayer, locking arms, what have you, but doing a shot together is a common rock and roll liturgy. It makes you feel loosey-goosey when hitting the stage. The former guitar player stood right next to us, just outside the periphery of our tight circle, interjecting an occasional comment. Again, it was a little bizarre. The bartender, who was a dead ringer for a young Debbie Harry . . . my God, what a living doll . . . poured out four shots of Fireball, one for each
current band member, and we made a toast. I actually felt bad for the former guitar player. He was either having serious quitters remorse, or he was a voyeur, or a masochist. The other guys in my band were kinda ignoring him and seemed uneasy with his presence.
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The very opening of our set was when my first Spinal Tap moment happened. The only entrance to the stage is up a stairway and across stage right, right where my gear was set up. My pedals, including the power chord to them, the guitar cable running into them, as well as two separate chords running to my two amps, were all right in the middle of where all the performers and techs trod across the stage. Being the opener, and knowing that as soon as finishing we had to immediately tear down and haul ass across town to our own headlining gig, we did not tape down anything. Everything had worked fine for me at soundcheck, and my tone with the two amps and my pedals was truly awesome. I had it dialed in so sweet, my Bogner Ecstasy Blue overdrive pedal pushing my amp until it sounded like the best hot rodded Plexi you've ever heard. But when we went into our opening number, which was "War Pigs," I had no sound. In about five seconds my mind raced through and eliminated every trouble shooting scenario: Standby on the amps was ON; my chord was plugged into the guitar; the volume on my guitar was turned up. I realized that there must be an interruption somewhere between the input of my pedalboard and the amps. Not having time to debug it, and with a crowd of people pushed up against the barricade and watching, I did the simplest fix I could, which was to plug straight from my guitar into my main amp. It worked and I was immediately back in business. It wasn't the "God tone" I had at soundcheck, I'd lost my tuner from the the signal path, and I wouldn't have my MXR Phase 90 for "Ice Cream Man," but the upside was that going straight into the 65 AMPS LONDON is the sound of a cranked hand wired Marshall JTM 45, so I'd be a putz to complain.
Our one hour set went by in blur. It was like I blinked and it was over. There were no other snafus during the actual performance and we got a great response from the audience.
The second Spinal Tap moment was a wardrobe malfunction. In the back of my mind I was worried that the leather pants I was wearing might rip open during the show. They were tight! They survived the performance, but during the Chinese fire drill (am I allowed to say that?) of tearing our gear down after the set, while kneeling down to unplug my chords, I felt a rip. I glanced down and realized that my balls were dangerously close to dangling out in front of the crowd in front of the stage. I carefully, gingerly finished packing me gear, walking oh-so-carefully to my vehicle, where during a final powerful heave hoisting one of my cabinets the crotch of the pants finally totally gave way. Luckily it was in a dark corner of the parking lot and nobody was there to see me exposed. Anticipating that scenario, I had brought a change of trousers, and quickly did a wardrobe swap in the front seat.
From there I followed a convoy of about five vehicles to our next gig.
The band
That Arena Rock Show onstage immediately after us on Friday June 27th. Very cool guys, low key, no attitudes, professionals who understand what a rock show is all about. Thanks God there are young guys like this keeping the torch burning and showing the younger generation real rock and roll.
I'll continue the story in a bit, as I've got to go scoop a litter box and refill my coffee cup.
