It was a great night.
The turnout was huge, lots of folks from the Electrical Audio message board came out to see The Columbines, Whales, Begin By Gathering Supplies, and us. Some folks from ifihadahifi drove down from Milwaukee, and an Electrical fan drove up from Missouri, man. He's booking The Bitter Tears in Champaign and St. Louis in a couple of weeks. Chicago rock show archivist Aadam Jacobs recorded some of the events. People were wonderful.
The Nurse Novels followed. Most of The Bitter Tears were there. Alan asked me if was nervous. I admitted so. I felt an expectation for us to be a funnier band with more theatrics, unable to avoid the shadow of Let's Get Out Of This Terrible Sandwich Shop. I want to get away from being a comedy band, and was hoping people would be receptive to us just doing music and just being us.
So how did it go?
All things considered it went well.
Our first chord was loud!
Louder than I had expected us to be.
There was no sound check beforehand.
There were also no monitors.
So from behind the drum kit all I could hear was Thea's guitar and muffled vocals.
People cheered after the first song, "War."
I sang the next song about my time living on a cruise ship called "Sea Day."
I could not hear my vocals and had to scream and guess about the notes.
People cheered after that one, too.
The rest of the set had its ups and downs. We went without a set list for some reason. During "Monsters 'n' Moldies" we got lost. My vocals on "Inside A Car Wash" were embarrassing. It's a song that I would like the girls to sing but we haven't practiced it like that. A drum stick bounced off of my floor tom and brushed Nicole. Not cool.
Thea's rocker "Catalyst" went well. Tom's complicated "The Pelts To Prove It" had no hitches. "Little Boy" got the cross dressing man moving. People seemed to like the lyrics to "NIMBY," a song about auditioning for shitty commercials and ridiculing shitty condos.
Overall, we got a good response.
The Columbines bashed out that glorious cave rock. You could hear them well in the mix, too. War On The Bullshit!, a Begin By Gathering Supplies alter-ego closed the night with My Bloody Valentine slow jams that were surprisingly ass-shaking. The Jamaican man in the 69' Memphis Elvis jean jacket loved it.
It was a great night at Quenchers.
I felt it was a good preview for The Nurse Novels.
I think we'll do another preview type of show at Cal's and then make our opening at a venue where we will have a soundcheck and monitors. We will probably have a set list by then.
Shit, we might even practice!
Verdict: Win
If I show up it better be a win.
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