So we finally had our first gig under our belts! It was painful, but we considered playing at the Gravel Pit a good warm-up. The following week, we were slated to play the infamous Station Tavern… THE place to play if you were a rock band. We still had the hype going, with the scores of flyers plastered on telephone poles, supermarket bulletin boards and windshields — still generating big buzz for us and I knew we’d have a good crowd on a Saturday night.
The day of this ‘one night only’ gig involved lots of planning – this was a big opportunity to get a lot of attention quickly and we needed to impress with an unforgettable show. Even though we already had an impressive sound and light system, we knew we had to pull out all the stops. We were going to dazzle them with a top notch light system and a light guy and add even more sound equipment and bring in a kick ass sound man. And for the exclamation point, we were renting a FOG MACHINE!!! It was going to be a momentous rock event.
With a couple of hours until show time, the place was already starting to fill up – the word was definitely out and people wanted front row seats. I was starting to sweat: we didn’t have all our stuff set up yet – including something called ‘The Snake.’ I didn’t even know what a snake was before this night: an electrical hub that connects everything on stage with a single fat wire to the soundman’s board so he can control the sound via the mixing board And there were wires everywhere… criss-crossing, up and down, sideways; it was implausible to me that with all those wires, we still needed another one. The most important thing I learned that night was when you’re in a rock band, no Snake means no show.
To kill some time while we were waiting, we tested the fog machine around 8:30. We created a super mystical aura onstage; with the multi-color backlighting, it was really setting the mood for the pending awesomeness that was to unfold. I have never smelled a fog machine until then – it was stinky. In a crowded club on a Saturday night, adding stinky to the atmosphere wouldn’t have been my idea. It was now after 10pm and the Snake still didn’t arrive … it was just awful. People had already guzzled extra booze and were getting suspicious, cranky and loud.. I know they were thinking we were a rip. My parents were there – and I think after their second cocktail, they had started to heckle us.
The snake finally arrived around 10:30, and we all hurried on stage as we watched our soundman connecting it to the maze of electronics. My heart started beating hard: it got hard to see – the fake fog, low ceilings, bad lighting, heavy smoke, beyond capacity crowd … in addition to my grumpy family and suspicious friends that were in attendance, there were a lot of sneering area musicians with arms folded, standing in the wings, waiting to critique our debut and… I started thinking about Grimsford Elementary again. How bad was I going to suck tonight? What more was going to go wrong?
I looked around to the guys, all apparently oblivious to any of the problems or pressing issues of the moment. They seemed so relaxed, just like we were in the basement rehearsing. They all looked just so rock and roll cool… I let Grimsford Elementary drift out of my mind and think freakin Rock and Roll, man! I had the coolest rock outfit on… I guess I was ready, I don’t know. But they were ready.
Lights on, Marshalls fired up….
And Tony on drums yells, “one, two, three, four” ….
BOOMBOOM!
click click click
BOOMBOOM -BOOMBOOM-BOOMBOOM! …… Eye eye eye !!!!
Ozzy’s Crazy Train! Yeah, this was it – we had lift off!
Maybe it was because there was so much happening at one time , or perhaps it was the blistering assault of lights and volume that stunned me, but once again, the ghosts of Grimsford paid a visit. The first minute of our opening song, the only line I could remember was the first line: “Crazy … but that’s how it goes… Millions of people ..living as foes ….
And the second line …
“Crazy … but that’s how it goes… Millions of people ..living as foes” ….
And the THIRD LINE:
“Crazy … but that’s how it goes… Millions of people ..living as foes” ….
Wait – that’s not how the song goes. Oh boy, here we go….
Since I had totally blanked out and could only remember the first 12 words of this song, I started to mumbleize them… making them sound a little different so it didn’t sound like I was repeating the same line over and over again. So this is how I modified the second and third lines:
“Crazay … but shat fa dit doze …. reelins in feeple, hiving sha roes” …
“Crazay … but shat fa dit doze … willers of reeper, riving fer loes”…..
If you bounce your head up and down and look like you’re really into it, you might just pull it off – especially if you fiddle around with the microphone distance. I’m not saying I pulled it off, because I got a lot of WTF looks from the musicians out there. But, if you look like you planned it that way, the average person might not notice.
This particular technique would become my favorite method of dealing with pesky and/or unintelligible song lyrics. It has never let me down: ‘When in doubt, mumble!’
I snapped out of it after the lead guitarist screamed the 2nd line of the song in my ear, “Maybe – it’s not too late … to learn how to love – and forget how to hate!!!” … I finally moved beyond that line and got through the rest of the song. As that first set ended, I almost felt like a professional. My parents bailed: my Mom was ready to barf because of the excruciating volume and I think my Dad got a contact high from the fog machine.
The rest of the night went much better – I forgot very little. This next set was our final set, playing until 2 am. It turned out to be a very good night. The club owner, although initially troubled by the lack of music coming from our band, was very happy with his bar tally. He paid us for the night and asked us for more dates. After we settled up with our sound man and light man, I netted 1.58 for the evening. It was simply exhilarating! People watched, they were having fun! Many were dancing. Several lingered to hang out and meet the band … and some wanted to talk to me! I felt like someone special that night: I was basking in the glow of getting paid to do something I just loved! I felt I was on my way and it was only a matter of time before being discovered.
Crazay … but shat fa dit doze.
theclubsinger 