Weeks turned into months and the only gigs we were getting were little bars. Small stages, bad lighting, dreadful bathrooms, the money was terrible… we were definitely paying our dues. I was enjoying every minute of it, though: the band had developed a following and I had a small cadre of fans already! Other than learning new rock songs and practicing, my other priority was to focus on my wacky stage wardrobe. It was part of my daily routine to be on the lookout for something wild for stage wear. My mini-following appreciated my unpredictable sense of style and I’m pretty sure many of them were unaware that half of my outfits were plucked from my Grandmother’s closet and tweaked.
We finally got a break we were waiting for: the Emerald Lounge. A humongous night club (A NIGHT CLUB!!) situated just off a massive air force base, it was open from 10pm to 6 am with two bands playing each night. We drove up the night before our opening night to scope out the situation, and we couldn’t believe it – the place was enormous: it looked like at one time it may have been a supermarket. The décor was minimalist at best; other than the bars, tables, chairs and the stage, it was a supermarket. The fluorescent lights were spread out across the entire ceiling and beaming… I was thinking to myself, they’re going to turn these off at night, I hope. The place was a huge, rectangular space with very high ceilings – they had an immense square parquet wood dance floor in the center; the opposite end loomed a gigantic elevated stage – it was five feet above ground level! Too cool! On the way to the stage we passed a huge bar, then there was the dance floor, and to the left and right of that, two more bars. We got to the stage, and viewed a ‘bump out’ runway in the center – this place was the real deal for some serious kick-assing rock and roll. This stage was cartwheel-big. Taking solos and going down the runway ,,, ooh yeah! There was even a backstage! With dressing rooms!! By golly, we were on our way …this was a giant step in the right direction of rock infamy, and my insides were doing flip flops.
We had heard rumors that Cosmo, the Emerald Lounge’s infamous owner, was ‘connected’ and you didn’t want to piss him off. Other rumors involved guns, shooting out sound systems and making people disappear. He also supposedly fired bands he didn’t like. On the spot. We were sweating this one and so not to make any mistakes, we arrived plenty early Friday for our two night gig with our truck, soundman and lightman. We were on edge, as we hadn’t met Cosmo yet.
For the next two hours, we were all quite busy – everyone had an assigned task during setup, and on this particular occasion, there was no dilly dallying. We hooked up every possible sound and effect equipment, our light show was tested, the sound system was tweaked for the room and we were officially ready to go by 8:30 that night. They dimmed the fluorescent lighting! They fired up their house music – and I was starting to think I was in a concert hall – not a supermarket. One of the bartenders who specialized in hand signals indicated for us to come over, and then he informed us that Cosmo wanted to meet us. I wasn’t thinking good things – why would he want to meet us already? We hadn’t played yet – what did we do wrong? Was our sound check grounds for firing? Those darned Marshall Stacks!!!! Uh oh….
He pointed us to an ominous black metal door, tucked behind one of the bars. It had a big sign saying ‘NO ADMITTANCE’ in fluorescent red at eye level. I tapped on it, and waited for something bad to happen. Within a minute, Cosmo opened the door: a petite, gray haired, smiling gentleman of Italian descent, in a snappy charcoal leather jacket and coordinating loafers …I was initially surprised by how ordinary and friendly a businessman he seemed. I wasn’t sensing a crazy ‘YOU FIRED – YOU FARGIN BASTAD, AH GET OUT’ kind of thing from this guy.
He graciously led us into his office, and my opinion of him changed once I saw that his office staff consisted of two Doberman Pinschers. ‘Oh, ah don’t ah worry– they ah won’t ah bite’ … this was not something I really bought into. They were big and grumbling beasts, and I swear these dogs looked you in the eye. We all just sort of stood there frozen, on the brink of pissing ourselves. He began to speak but was startled by the way he used his hands with every word he spoke. I never saw someone so animated before. His avoice ah went-ah yup-ah anda down–ah … he ah, was ah, so so so so so so …impossible to understand! Those hands were flying everywhere – up, out and around – it was all so distracting; he looked like he should be wearing headphones and holding bright orange glow sticks.
After a couple of minutes of what I believed were some basic instructions on his part –he was talking gibberish and those hands were flapping around wildly… I heard ‘a four to five ah’, and ‘volume-ah’ and heard ‘break ,ah’ and ‘ah too much ah noise and I ah go ah crazy’ . Unfortunately we were all too intimidated and confused by the moment to say, ‘excuse me, Sir?’, or ‘what you say?’ or ‘can you repeat that in English, please?’ We just did a lot of nodding and smiling, and keeping one eye on the Dobermans. Although I could only understand every tenth word, I thought the meeting went well. So far, so good. He didn’t fire us or complain that we were already too loud. I think he liked us; I was grinning so much my face hurt: I smiled constantly, at him and his dogs. Once out of his office, we sought the hand signaling bartender for a translation – and a drink.
We learned the way our night would work is band number one played their 45 minute set and then band number two would go on and do their 45 minute set. And the bands would rotate back and forth until the final set at 5:15 in the morning, with band number two finishing up at SIX A.M. At 22 years old, this was stupefying. Just thinking about it now is making me tired. We also learned we’d be band number two. I was already thinking that band number one must be the better band … they were FIRST. They looked better. The name of their band was The Answer. They did a ‘Who’ tribute! They smirked, they swaggered, they were all bandanna’d up in their rock star outfits and looked cool, and they ignored us totally. Uh oh. Things were looking grim…
And so the night began at 10pm, as ‘The Answer’ started their set with a twenty minute medley ‘Who Tribute’. Wow – a band doing The Who. Ouch. We had to follow them?? Taking full advantage of that huge stage, they were doing flying drop kicks, prancing around in their studded leathers with those guitar strap feathers; bopping their big hair heads and making the right kind of faces – they looked awesome. These guys had a great song list so far and they all knew the words! But they left out an important detail – the music. After a few moments of being dumbstruck by their whole stage look, I started to listen to them …. and they just sucked. It was as if they all got together earlier in the day and decided to learn a bunch of Who songs and literally slap them together. The chords were quite wrong. The arrangements were awfully wrong. EVERY NOTE was wrong. Maybe these guys were high. Really, really high. Or imposters: perhaps the real band was tied up in the back…. who knows? But Cosmo knew one thing that night, since people started asking for their money back at the door…THEY WERE OUTTA THERE. At the end of the ‘Who was that?’ medley, he stomped right up to the stage, hands flailing up in the air, signaling to wait one moment, and he yells, “Getta your equipment offah the stage-ah right now and getta the hell outta here – you’re ah fired!”
Wow. Just like that. The rumors about Cosmo were right. Like nothing ever happened, he just turned around and calmly walked back to the front door. Then I thought what if he didn’t like us, too? OH MY GOD – would he actually fire all of the entertainment for the evening? Now I was really sweating.
The Answer took another 35 awkward minutes to get their equipment off stage. For some reason they were still smirking and swaggering, with ‘hey it’s your loss, buddy’ looks, as they were dragging their amplifiers, drums, guitars, and paraphernalia off … what the heck was up with these guys? That remains my question for The Answer…
In the meantime we were busy hyperventilating backstage. We were strategizing how to proceed with our set list. Terrific material was necessary and we had to maintain sound control – no exceptions, I thought. Too much volume could result in gunfire…or worse?? I knew we’d better knock Cosmo’s socks off right away so he and those Dobermans could relax. With the unexpected scheduling change, we were slated to go on by 11pm and somehow, some way, we’d have to perform until six a.m… and rock the house… it was going to be a long and unforgettable night…
theclubsinger 