Sunday, April 23, 2006

bad gig

Dan walks up to the mike which seems about a mile away from me and begins strumming a sullen tune. It's the first song in the set and I'm wondering what it is, I'ver never heard it before. I look over at Keith and he gives me a shrug as if to say "I don't know what it is either!". Dan says "It's on the list!", but I don't have one. I get up from my stool and start looking for my sticks, they are in the cymbal bag nowhere to be found. Dan gives me the eye like it's time for me to come in and I reach down and grab a couple of pieces of broken sticks from the night before. They are shredded, split and hardly playable. They finally come apart and I'm left with what might as well be toothpicks. Dan is furious as his song completely falls apart in front of the mumbling crowd that is starting to pour in. I'm bewildered. "Where in the hell are my sticks!" I get up from the stool and start to look in the dark, wasting another 3 or 4 minutes. I find more leftovers from the night before and tell him, "Play something we know!..What are we waiting for?" He starts that one about 90 miles an hour and being that far away from me there's a time delay and I'm having a hell of a time hearing him with what might as well be an AM radio for a monitor hanging over my head. We finally finish an absolutely dreadful version as the sticks again are a problem. I get up and go get in my van and drive up the road. I decided to turn around and go back to try to make the best of an utterly disastrous gig. But when I walk back into the club the line is long as patrons are getting their money back. I look on stage and everything is packed up, including my drums, and ready to be put back in the Suburban.
It is at this point this morning that I woke up in a fright and was really really glad that it was just a dream. God! It seemed so real!

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