Tied For Last

Second band of a five-band night.

I was in a pretty crappy mood because I was coming down with a hell of a cold, and I found out earlier in the day that our favorite club, The Orange Bear, had closed down. Worse still, it didn’t seem that we were going to pull in a large crowd.

The first band took the stage, and things started looking up. It was a solo artist and his backing band. The guy’s name is Thomas Piper, and he and his band (a girl co-lead vocalist, a guy on drums and a guy on turntables) were damn good. They were also not the typical act in The Continental. Instead of the typical post-grunge whiny crap, these guys were playing soul music, and playing it well.

All of TFL – band and audience – were digging it. It was unexpected and refreshing, and it put me in a better mood.

They ended their set a little early which gave us a lot of time to set up. As we were setting up, we were joking around with the sound guy who was pretty cool. Just before we took the stage, I saw that more of our friends were showing up as well, so that was cool as well.

We decided to try something new, so we opened up with Take Janine Away – our traditional set closer. It set the mood pretty well, and we ended up being very loose (in a good way). I wasn’t very mobile because of my cold, but my voice stayed surprisingly strong for the whole set.

The audience – including Thomas Piper and company (who stayed around) - seemed to like the set, and we were having fun with it.

For the first time ever, though, we chased people out of the joint with a song. No sooner had we hit the chorus of “Lesbian Circus” than a whole table got up and left – although that could have just been coincidence.

On the off chance that they did leave because they were offended, I gotta say – how sad it must be to have no sense of humor. Are some of our songs sophomoric? Absolutely. Occasionally stupid? Intentionally so. But offensive? Nah. My favorite take on this is the women who find “A Song for the Ladies” offensive. If they bothered to listen to the damn words they’d realize that the narrator of the song is being mocked far more than the object of his words. But I guess PC police aren’t known for their insight or humor.

We normally only get to play about 10 songs at The Continental because the sets are so short. This night, because we drastically cut down on our banter, and because the sound guy was our friend, we were able to get in twelve.

We zipped through the set and had a blast. No major mistakes until the closer – “Baghdad.” Tom sings the choruses on this and he just forgot to sing at first. I started laughing when that happened and from that point on, both Tom and I screwed up damn near every vocal line. The music kicked though.

Set List:
TAKE JANINE AWAY
STAY UP AND TALK TO ME
WE'RE ALRIGHT
SHE WAS JUST A GIRL
ZIGGY STARDUST
BLOODY TUESDAY
SAILOR
LESBIAN CIRCUS
ACHIEVER
SUPERSTAR
BURNING LOVE
BAGHDAD