Last Friday night we had a show at a club inside of the Seaport Marina Hotel in Long Beach. Sound check was slated for 6:45. Amy does not even get off work until 5:30, and leaving Los Angeles for Long Beach at 5:30 on a Friday is much greater time investment than an hour and fifteen minutes. Thus we all left work about half an hour early hoping that would do the trick. It of course didn't. Even with careful planning and rushing about we still did not manage to get on the road until 6... By then traffic was horrid. To make a long story short it was a hugely stressful drive until we hit the fabulous 110 freeway, from there it all opened up and we were allowed to feel like the happy band of a band that we are. We arrived about a half hour late, which was fine because we had told them that we would. Our sound check made me nervous, They had the hardest time even getting sound coming out of the monitors, in fact we spent so much time just trying to make it all actually make sound that very little regard was given at all to how it sounded. Finally after a very frustrating half hour we managed get on stage a volume and sound structure that seemed at least comfortable, but I had a nagging suspicion that once we left they would change everything for the acoustic guitar girl who was opening.
We decided to get a room in the hotel to make matters easy for ourselves and after sound check we headed to the room to get prepared for our show. The room was nice and everyone had a good outfit ready to go.
Earlier in the week my annoyance with a certain now resigned Drag King go go dancer had reached a peak, and rather than deal with extraneous drama in my life for the sake of drama I just let it go and took a day long communication break. I was not sure how my laspe of speaking had treated my feelings, but when I walked into the room and saw her I felt better, I didn't feel as strongly as I had I was aware that my good feelings for this person were once again stronger than my negative feelings, in short I let it go. A problem arrived when she asked me why I had been ignoring her. I thought for a moment weather I should tell her or not, but deciding I didn't want to gloss things over for the sake of it, and since it really is only fair I told her. In short it got a little dramatic in our hotel room, and she felt bad and not prepared for what unfolded, to this I say don't ask questions you don't want answers too, but that is over simplified. We tried our best to put everything back in place, but time would show that it wasn't.
A nice cherry on top of the entire event was the show itself. When we climbed onstage what I feared may happen did happen, the sound people apparently not knowing that you should take notes of all settings used during sound check, otherwise there is NO POINT IN DRIVING DOWN TO LONG BEACH FROM LOS ANGELES DURING RUSH HOUR TO SOUND CHECK AT ALL. The sound was completely different then what we had decided on during check and some the keyboard was missing completely from the monitors. This flustered me and Devin a bit, but we recovered. For our part we performed well, but for the crowd not so much can be said. As we played we watched in shock as they slowly song after song filed out the door, in the end leaving just one table of Lesbians remained.
I could rehash all the thoughts that I went through, but that took me all night, and I'm not in the place to do so any longer. My mind feels fine about what happened, after initially feeling like maybe our band actually sucks and that our songs are not good enough I came to a different conclusion. I remembered watching the audience during the opening performer, looking at them, every one of them rapt with attention as one woman with an acoustic guitar belted out the same same exact same old that they have belted out since woman kind has stood up and shouted "I am Lesbian, hear me folk!" This was not my target audience, these people do not have record collections I want to be stranded in, they are not seeking something new, they want something else from an entertainer, and that is fine, more power to them, there is absolutely nothing wrong with knowing what you like... I'm not going to feel bad if you react negatively to our music, in fact I'm now taking it as a sign of accomplishment. We are not aiming anywhere near safe, and Friday night I feel like we must have hit pretty close to our bull's eye.
Monday morning upon arrival at work Devin forwareded me an email, it was a very kind and proffesional letter of resignation from Daddy Wild. I'll miss the fun we had wish her luck in future endeavors. As for me I'm more excited about the future of our band than I've ever been and I feel like certain things happen exactly when they need to for all parties involved, life makes of relationships what it will, it's up to each person to make of their life what they do.
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