On Tuesday June the 6th, 2006 (or 6/6/6) my band Fighting the Shakes played Room 101 at Bar Bodega.
Frankly, I was a little nervous about playing. It was my first 'real' gig... I'd played plenty of times with my drunkass covers band The Regular Guys (or The Shut the Fuck Ups, depending on our mood)... the whole point of that band was to get incredibly boozed and then play our particular blend of Casio-keyboard drum-assisted idiocy. Good sloppily played fun, that seemed to get by more on sheer energy than say... musical competency. Hell, you can hear it for yourself if you want here!
Aaaanyway, back to the gig. I was nervous... oh yes indeed. Mostly due to singing in front of people... "singing" I should say.. it's more like semi-melodic yelling... or something. Anyway, I had utmost confidence that we as performers were okay, and the songs didn't suck and we could
play 'em tight.We got to the venue around 8ish and unloaded gear. We were playing with local band The Henderson, who'd arrived slightly earlier and were setting up their gear. Of which there was a veritable shitload. Pedals for miles, random other odds and sods. But Tim let me make use of his very nice 8x10" bass cabinet, so it's okay ;)
Anyway, they sound checked and were fuh-hucking loud... I had ear plugs in and it was still loud as shit. Then we sound checked... about 15
seconds into it, I popped the E string on the bass... the E string for fucks sake! And wouldn't you know it, the spare bass strings were at
Chets (drums/vocals) place. A swift mission there and back and the venue was starting to fill up a bit. Nervous pacing, catching up with some
friends, but feeling too distracted to be of much value, my girlfriend Meg arriving, and a couple of beers later and it was 10:30 and time for
us to play.And play we did.
Our set is pretty short. Just 6 songs, one of which is a cover of Suffragette City. I'd been mildly concerned our rendition of this song might upset the Bowie purists that may or may not have been in the crowd. It went fine, even with me singing verses. The whole set seemed to fly by and I don't have a hell of a lot to say about playing... Since I was singing a fair bit, I didn't have the luxury of
hiding from the crowd by way of staring at the bass the whole time... but it turns out it wasn't so bad... after going to so many gigs, it was
interesting to be on the other side of things.
There's no stage in Room 101 so we were on the floor and on the level with everyone else, in
quite a small space. But it was cool to look out and see people having an okay time. Plenty of blankish faces, which is to be expected at the
first gig of a virtually unknown band. Still, there was the odd grin here and there, and my mate Jonno was up the front having a bit of a
dance which was much appreciated.
Due to the restricted space set aside for bands, we couldn't move around too much... I nearly smacked Jayesh (guitar/vocals) with the bass neck
more than a few times. And then, it was all over. The room cleared out... that was it.. all up I think our set lasted somewhere between 15
and 20 mins... short indeed. But a good taster. Apparently we left people wanting more, so I guess that's a good thing. I felt completely
exhausted by the end.... all the nervous energy was gone, replaced with relief. I hadn't fucked up too many tiems in the set, and certainly not
in any major way the crowd would've noticed. All in all, things went well. People seemed to enjoy it, and when approached none of our friends
had difficultly looking us in the eye. Good sign that.
Unloaded, had some tequilas with Chet, watched The Henderson play (some of the guys were quite sick, and most of the crowd had left by the time they went on, which I felt stink for them about, but they didn't seem to
cut up) and left with Meg.
This was a bit a of a ramble, and I guess I was overcompensating for never writing in this damn thing. I'll try to find some middle ground in future.
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