Comet Tavern - 01/19/11

So yeah....we played a show at The Comet Tavern last night. I kind of have a love/hate relationship with playing there but we'll stay off the hate side of that to keep things positive. Despite my worries we had a great show and it was an awesome night of rock.

Let me rewind to the beginning of my day. I woke up in quite a fog. See, the night before I had ventured out with a friend who was having a rough time. Unfortunately, I decided to not eat any dinner. After some cider, two red iced teas(kombucha, cran and vodka), a tulip of Ichtegem's and a split 750ml of Cascade Kreik I was spent. I went home and had a pb&j before hitting the pillows.....which brings me back to the fog. I was wiped all day.

After work I decided to hit Brouwer's for a couple of Belgian ales to smooth things out. Selena was tending bar. Her and I always shoot the shit about misc nonsense when it's dead in there and it's sort of what I needed after having my mind numbed with mail. We had a "who's more tired" contest and I was out to get ready for the show. I hope she got some sleep and that her week of dog sitting doesn't drive her insane.

I drove home and relaxed for about an hour then headed down to the practice space. Usually, everyone in the band loads out and loads in. Daniel, our new bassist, could not be there due to his showing of a mockumentary he has made with a friend. That left Jon, Jer and me to do the grunt work. We loaded up and headed to the world's greatest dive bar.

Load in was uneventful. I found premium parking in front of The Comet. Daniel popped in before heading to Chop Suey for the mockumentary. I was tired. I was nervous due to my penchant for being antisocial. Nonetheless, I relaxed and took it all in stride.

The first band up was Ten Suns. They're a local three piece post rock/metal/psych band with plenty of fog and enough lighting to scar your retinas for life. They fucking KILLED!!!!!!! If I could change two things about their set it would be me not having to worry about playing and I would have been stoned out of my gourd. They were tight. Their drummer was awesome. Nice rolling bass lines with perpetual motion. Tons or reverb, gain, delay and loops on the guitar.

After a short moment of drama wondering whether Daniel was going to make it to The Comet to play, we set up. The Comet used to have a riser in the corner for the drums and the rest of the band was on the floor. Recently, they put in a stage that goes across the back wall. After seeing Kinski there I can say that it sounds 1,000,000 times better. I figuered there would be more room on a full stage but was soon to find out otherwise. Daniel and I were crammed together on one side of the stage. Actually, I feel for Daniel. he's playing through two pedals and I have seven plus my amp switch. Those pedals take up some real estate on the stage. We dealt and got passed it. Funny side story....Daniel plugged his pedals in backwards and the sound guy had to point it out when he wasn't getting a signal. I told the sound guy it was Daniel's first day....and really, it was!

Despite some misses, pedal drama, bad notes, ass to cymbal trauma and bassist capery(actually, the cape was a nice change of pace from the BS we got from our original bassist) things went well. We all had fun. We got to crank up out volume. Response was really nice. I have no complaints to be honest.

The next band up was Hail the Sun from Chico, CA. They were 4 young kids playing proggy punk a la At the Drive In. Awesome band. The drummer was their lead vocalist. I was very impressed with his ability to play complex beats and front with the charisma he had. Both guitarists were high energy. There was some table jumping involved. Their bassist was feeling under the weather but he powered through. I hope their evening in Salem, OR tonight treats them well.

So, yeah...........it was an awesome night of awesome rock. It was good to see some of the people that were there. Dan Brown, Dan Holt, Dani Banani(although I didn't really get a chance to talk to her) made it a "Dan heavy" evening. It's always good to see Lori even though it's no surprise when she shows up. Meeting some of Daniel's friends was nice. There was a very jovial feel to the evening on a whole and that I like.

It's good to be playing out again. It's good to be in a band with everyone on a similar page.