Poagao's Journal

Absolutely Not Your Monkey

Nov 05 2006

CKS Hall performance

I was late meeting Sandman at the 7-Eleven on Saturday before our gig at the circus, so we hopped in a cab to CKS Hall, which Sandy calls “Peanuthead Park”. Luckily the gray rainy weather we’ve been experiencing had yielded to sunnier skies, but without too much heat.

We did our sound check on the small stage set up in front of the opera house steps after watching a group of girls and one guy (I think it was a guy) toss tops around in an impressive manner. Their CD music kept skipping and throwing them off, resulting in tops occasionally flying in alarming directions, but it was enjoyable anyway.

After the sound check we were followed by schoolgirls in pink and white shouting “WELCOME! BYE-BYE!” as we walked over to a place along the hallway that surrounds the memorial park and practiced some songs. Before long a crowd of spectators had accumulated, and after we finished many of them wanted to take pictures with various band members, but I stayed mostly away.

We went back to the green room for some lunch boxes our hosts had prepared for us. As we had a couple of hours to kill, Slim, Thumper and I walked around looking for proper breeze-shooting environment. At first we thought we’d sit on a grassy knoll, but when Thumper stuck his hand in the grass he found several inches of worms and bugs before he hit ground. We settled for a park bench instead.

The Betelnut Brothers were up before us, and we went over the stage to watch. The crowd was larger than I had expected. David went up and played with them for one song, and they were going to reciprocate on our last song as well. Then it was time to get ready for our show.

Our set went pretty well, I though, even though the start was a bit rough. Here’s a video shot by an audience member (who also took the above picture). We’d played better in the practice that afternoon, but I think we usually play better when we’re just sitting around in circle without all the wires and mics and stage to bother with. Afterwards we were mobbed by people wanting pictures and autographs. This time I sat down for a few photos and signed a couple of autographs. It was a bit surreal. There were the usual comments, I heard later, about my solemn/somewhat threatening demeanor on stage.

The organizers of the event were putting on a party at 9:30, so Jojo and I had time to take a cab over to the Harbin Restaurant Prince Roy’s been raving about, near Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall. There we found PR and his wife Spicy Girl as well as Mark from Doubting to Shuo and their friend Martin. Of the dishes we had, I particularly enjoyed the potato/eggplant, and the lamb kabobs weren’t bad either.

Back at Peanuthead Hall, we found the boys camped out in the park drinking and chatting. Thumper sang a rousing version of “I Want a Pony!” before we packed up our stuff and climbed the opera house steps to join in the party on the spacious veranda. We met some of the other performers, including a group from Barcelona. I chatted for a long time with Chalaw, the bass player from the Betelnut Brothers, and found that he was born in January of 1969, which is the time I would have been born if I hadn’t come out a couple of weeks early.

The party lasted until the wee hours of the morning, when David, Conor and I decided to see what was happening at Capone’s, where there was supposed to be a post-Blues Bash jam going on. When we arrived, however, we found only a couple of people sitting at the bar. The restaurant was empty. After a celebratory drink, David and I shared a taxi home while Conor went on to Spaceman with some other friends.

It was a good time. In a little while Sandman and I are going to be on our way up to Xizhi’s Dream Community for our second show this weekend at the Blues Bash. The weather’s great and I’m looking forward to it.

posted by Poagao at 5:05 am  

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