The weather’s playing mind tricks again. Friday wa…
The weather’s playing mind tricks again. Friday was a warm summer day, but today we’re back where we started it seems, with cold and damp. My windows are opaque with condensation due to the temperature difference. I’m sure this is going to do wonders for the remnants of my cold.
The weather was still hot and muggy when I caught a ride with Sandman and Jojo down to The Living Room yesterday afternoon. We all stashed most of our hot performance clothes and took our instruments to a nearby park to practice a song or two. Or we would have, if we could have found a nearby park. The roof was occupied with construction, so we settled on a nearby alley. Periodically people would pass by and give us strange looks, but none of us, I think, are unused to strange looks. I was just hoping the building next door wasn’t a neurosurgery or something.
Later, back at Corbett’s, we got dressed up and did some jumping shots for David’s girlfriend Robyn, who’s into that sort of thing. It was fun. You’d think musicians of all people would know how to all jump at the same time. We eventually got one, though.
There weren’t many people in the audience when we opened with the St. McJug Stomp, but within about two songs, almost magically, the place was packed. Corbett kept bringing up chairs to the front, creating a rising tide of audience members so thick that there nearly wasn’t any room for the band.
After a set, Duncan, Zoe, Jez and Dana performed a couple of sets, while we watched from the Curiously un-Green Green Room, and I took shots of various instruments. I played bass for one of Jez’s songs, which was interesting. After a short break, we got back up and played some more. Sandman had to bow out early due to a headache, but the rest of us went on in our tribute to Dana, as she’s leaving our muddy island for greener shores. We played until about 3am. We played old songs, news song. We played “Song of Our Homeland”. We played St. James Infirmary and I played my fucking heart out on the solo. I was, and still am, feeling kind of loopy due to cold medicine, but I managed to not only not pass out, but did a decent job on both instruments and one vocal song without hocking out a loogie. The whole band felt really tight and polished; we were hot that night. David’s got us scheduled to do quite a few performances at various venues, including The Wall and the Blue Note, over the next month or so.
In other news, I finally managed to rent out my parking space, thus relieving a bit of financial stress. Tomorrow it’s back to work, and another wintery pothole on the road to summer. Who knows how many false starts this spring will give us.
