Monday, April 4, 2005

Rock the fuck on!
Madness. Utter madness.

Our first show ever was fuckin' sweet. This is going to be a looong post so sit tight people. Here we go.

March 31st

Early Morning:
I woke up around 7:00am. I had slept for about 5 hours because you know how it is. The excitement keeps you awake. I was supposed to arrive at the place at 9:00am for a quick rehearsal/sound check. Since I had time to kill, I visited the supermarket to buy a case of water and some energy bars. I wanted to eat a big breakfast but I couldn't really. I thought I could at least choke down a fruity energy bar so I don't die onstage.

9:00ish am:
I met the rest of the band in the auditorium. I set up my drums in about a minute and forty-six seconds because the sound check/rehearsal was about to begin. We went in the order we were supposed to. Our band was second last to perform. This worked out nicely in the end.

When we heard the bands the previous night for rehearsal, the bandboys and I got a bit paranoid. What if they were acting like they sucked to psyche us out? What if they were really good? Whatever it was their plan was working... ...until we saw them at rehearsal the day of. They still sucked and so we had little to worry about.
Other than us, three bands stood out. One band played Iron Maiden. Their guitarist was technically skilled but lacked stage presence. His band was also off tempo with each other. They sounded alright. Another band played "Dead Disco" and "Combat Baby" by Metric. Their instrumentals were alright. They weren't that loud but that was because of the extremely good vocalist. The last band who stood out was obvious the super band I mentioned before. The three people with centuries of music experience.

I had a pretty good conversation with their drummer, my elementary school friend and one of my drumming mentors. He showed me some practices and rhythms to work on. He also kept telling me that he is still very much impressed with my skills as a drummer. He also said if I continue to develop my bass drum skills, I can become as good (if not better) than him. This is only the first of many compliments and praise.

12:00pm:
The guest bands from out of town arrived. So on center stage, there were two professional bands and us. One band (or duo) were to do an acoustic set. They did their sound check and such. The second band from out of town consisted of six members. A big band. They have got talent. I'm fuckin serious. They did a quick rehearsal while the other bands ate lunch. Holy shit. They scared the piss out of us. We were a couple of acts after them. We thought, "Dammit. Why us?" In the end it didn't turn out that bad.

1:00pm:
One hour before show time. People were still dicking around with their instruments. The bandboys and I were pacing back and forth backstage. I brought some travel speaker with me and in a quiet corner of the stage; we listened to a bit of AWK. The first band took their places on the left and right stages. Showtime in ten...

I don't know about the rest of the bandboys, but one of the one thing going through my head was Pixie. I didn't want to see her in the crowd but at the same time I did. I chugged about 4 water bottles before the show started to I ran and took the longest piss of my life.

1:50pm:
People started flowing into the auditorium. Amoungst the faces, I recognized a few friends while peeking through the curtain. No sign of Pixie yet. I decided not to watch her come in so I could concentrate on keeping my sticks in one piece. I did, however, watch the emcees walk front and center to start the show. Shat. Here we go.

2:00pm:
The show started off nicely. The first band started their set. Their vocalist is a friend of ours. They started with "Zombie" The Cranberries. Unfortunately, she didn't hit a few notes and a few assholes started booing. Her faces started turning redder than blood. The rest of the band started to lose tempo and eventually stopped playing because of the damn crowd. Their set was over.

The next bands did alright. They got some good cheers after their sets. I peeked out and saw that though the cheers were loud and excited, more than half the crowd were standing silent. That scared me even more. I didn't dare tell the rest of my bandboys. They had no idea how big the crowd was.

The acoustic guys from out of town were next. They were fuckin' good, man. The harmony in their vocals owned. The band following them did pretty fuckin' good too. I think it was the amazing trio of musical geniuses (including my mentor/drummer friend). The big band from out of town followed them. I cannot even start to explain how much they rockeded. Their guitarist had this one move where they would pause for a second in the song and pretend to cock rifles in the air with their guitars. Holy shit. That was awesome. The band after them was the band doing the Metric covers. The vocalist did really good. Her band... ehh, not so much.

Then we were up.

"Whatever time we played" pm:
The emcee people made up some funny little introduction for us. Since our bands name is "Something Else©", they had something good to work with. It was corny but good.

Mic on.

Amps cranked.

A stick in each hand.

"Let's do this." I whispered to the bandboys.

I counted Mr. Bassist in with my sticks for the Haruka Kanata intro. I was so pumped, I felt like I was going to break my sticks on my cymbals with the first hits. Fortunately, I didn't. The stage lights were blaring but I could faintly see the crowd banging their heads to the song. I'm guessing they automatically liked our sound because it was something different for once. Not just your same-old cover. If you're familiar with the song, you know the quieter part with only the rhythm guitarist playing just before the chorus? During that part, I heard the cheers louder than I ever could imagine. TWICE! (Because there are two quieter parts before both choruses) At the end, I did my drum roll bit (really hard and loud, I must add) and with went out with some mad bashing on my cymbals. The crowd went wild.

Our next song was Meister's "My World Down" from Beck, the anime. It was an easy drumbeat for me so I played around by winking at the people backstage and a few people who could see me in the crowd. Mr. Guitarist's solo was amazing! Ahhh. AS a band, we were worried he would just stand there and pick his strings. He needed movement. During the live. he felt it. He was rockin' out like the madman we know and love. For me, it was more of a break. My arms needed rest for the next song which required non stop arm movement. Again, our song ended with a good bang and the cheers flooded the place.

Last song in our set. Turning Japanese. We wanted to end with a catchy semi-popular tune. It began.

Newr newr newr newr newr newr newr newr newr!

For parts of the song, I was to hits my cymbals one after the other in succession. I did some weird octopus thing where my arms would flails about. People loved it. Some girl in a Chinese dress went wild for this song. Everybody moved to it. The security guards, the band people backstage, the coordinators, even me. Well derrr...

As soon as we finished our song, we collapsed on the floor. I fell off my throne. This was planned by the way. So crowd saw us die and the lights went out. The cheers and screaming roared. Perfect ending, dude.

So in the darkness we walked off stage and were greeted with high fives, handshakes and hugs. Most of which were from people we didn't know. Almost everyone had thought we were playing for years. Even the professional out-of-towner bands thought we've been playing as long as they have. It seems we have performers energy and presence.

I received sooo many compliments. Directly and indirectly.

"Whoa. Mad skills!"

"You were seriously rockin', man."

"Where did your face go? All I saw was your hair!"

"I loved you guys!"

"That was sick..."

"Have you had lessons?"
"No."

"How many years have you been with your band?"
"0.25 years, dude."

Yeah. That was a mostly what I heard. While walking through the crowd to get outside for some fresh air, I overheard alot of "Look! It's the drummer!" and "Drummer guy! What's your name?" "Can I have your sticks?". It was unreal. My bandboys met up with me outside for some air and we high fived each other alot. They too, received alot of praise and compliments. We went back in to see the last band. Well, I don't mean to sound cocky, but it was bad enough they followed us. A few people left actually. It was kinda sad but it was their fault. Their set was so slow. Especially compared to our set.

Thankfully, it wasn't a competition. We would've lost to the guest band. We didn't get to do an encore song either then. However, that didn't stop us. We learned Yokan for a reason. To perform it. So when the show was over and the other band we're packing up their stuff, we were still center stage and we just jammed away. We played "Hit In America", "Hell March", "Yokan" and did a 20 minute random jam just for kicks. A good portion of the audience stayed to watch us and the other bands watched us when they were done packing. It felt real good. I threw 4 of my sticks in the crowd. I didn't really expect anyone to pick them up and keep them. I was going to run out and pick 'em up again.

By the way, Pixie did make it to the show,. I looked for her in the crowd while walking around. I'm sort of nearsighted so I couldn't see her that well. I saw her for a bit but she was walking around (probably looking for me). She left before I had a chance to talk to her. All these people kept holding me back and trying to talk to me. Dammit. I'll see her soon though.

My arms were dead. But I still had to pack up my drums and bring them home. So I did. The bandboys stayed at the auditorium to wait for me to come back. When I did it was party time.

6:00-ish pm:
The bandboys and I went to Mr. Vocalists house to rest a bit before heading out to Korean BBQ. We had some apple juice then we played manhunt in Mr. Vocalist's maze. Yeah. He's has a maze. Well, it's a building on his property with long corridor and three floors. It's the perfect place for laser tag, paintball, a water fight or even a simple game of tag. Man, it was fun just running around hearing footsteps echo.

7:00pm:
We got tired so we head out to Korean BBQ. We ate and drank (Iced Tea) until about 11:30pm talking about how we felt and all the compliments we received and all that stuff. I know it seems a bit big-headed to go on and on about receiving compliments and such but this was out FIRST live. I think we have every right to do so. C'mon. You would too, wouldn't you?

Around 11:00pm Mr. Rhythm Guitarist had to leave for home. The rest of us (Mr. Bassist, Mr. Guitarist, Mr. Vocalist and myself) went out for some late night bubble tea.

We had 2 bubble teas each but we stayed at the shop for over 2 hours. There must've been something in the tea because we laughed our asses off about the stupidest things. I guess it was just the feeling of success...

...and crack.


April 1st

The bandboys and I met again around lunchtime with Mr. Anime Teacher. We had a pizza and continued talking about last night. After that, we decided to head to the music store to check out some new instruments and equipment after seeing the stuff that the other bands had. Both Mr. Guitarist and Mr. Rhythm Guitarist found themselves new guitars that sounded close to perfection, Mr. Vocalist was checking out some microphones and music books, Mr. Bassist became infatuated with a fretless bass and I. Well. I'll just say that I need $600 right now. I want a new bass drum pedal, new drumheads, a boom stand and a crash cymbal. None of us had money that day so we didn't buy anything. Except Mr. Guitarist. He bought some cleaning solutions for his guitar. That's about it.

We still lacked sleep from the night before so we went our separate ways to crash for the night.


April 2nd

Fuck. I was supposed to work and I didn't know. Oh well. Money is money so I arrived late.

I found this amazing (and quite freaky at the same time). The hour the they announced the popes passing, there was rain, snow, sleet, thunder and lightning outside where I was. All at the same time. Earlier on, the weather was doing just fine. Whatever you believe in, you have got to admit, that had to have been more than a coincidence. Rest In Peace John Paul II.


April 3rd

I woke up late just stayed in bed for most of the day. I had no reason to go anywhere. I'm still pretty fuckin' tired.


Today

I'm probably going to try to see Pixie. Otherwise, meet up with MR. Guitarist and see what we've got planned ahead.

Have a sweet Monday.

Cheers.

- nine -
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