Tied For Last

Second act of the night.

We had made special 4-song cd samplers to be given out at this gig as a one-time-only promotion. We didn't have a great showing though, so the Rev. Caroline handed out the cds to everyone in the place. There are a lot of people who never met us who are using our cds as beer coasters right about now. Hopefully, they threw the thing in their player first...

We followed a solo acoustic NYU singer-songwriter chick. She was the type of girl who's certain that she's way more hip than say - Jewel, but we all know she still has Jewel's book of "poetry" somewhere in her collection. Good voice and all, but, on the whole, unsatisfying. To top it off, she had to leave the stage 3/4 of the way through her set so she could "go pee."

Typical between-song banter: "This one's about a 13 year old girl I taught last year who was in love with me."

So, of course, we decided to open up with "A Song for the Ladies." Nothing like a good, strong palette cleanser to clear the room of all the NYU undergrads with fake IDs.

There wasn't very good sound onstage, so we didn't feel like we were sounding all that great. We probably looked a little more tentative than usual because of it. I later listened to the recording of the show, and we actually sounded a lot better than we thought. It's good to know we're staying pretty much on key when we can't even hear ourselves.

I also made the fatal mistake of forgetting to bring water (If you look at all the pix of us, there's always a big bottle of poland spring at my feet. I should ask 'em for ponsorship), so my throat dried up and sounded raw real quick. Luckilly, my big brother Chris was there (as always!) so he brought me some water from the bar which helped a lot.

By about the fourth song in, we got used to the onstage sound, so we were able to get a lot more confident in our playing, and by about the time we did "We're Alright," we were pretty damn tight.

The show was a lot of fun, and it was really good to get our sea legs back after the 3/7 show at Acme. The staff at the Elbow Room is just awesome ("Just leave your equipment here. We're watching it, so no one's gonna get to it. Go inside and get your drink on"), so we were able to hang out and watch our friends in Epic without worrying about who was trying to steal our gear.

It was also cool that we saw some new faces in the audience - including Mike (Otto), a guy I previously knew only through e-mail, who decided to put off driving home to Allentown, PA so he could come and hear us play. I hope we were worth it!

Set List:
A Song for the Ladies
Party Dress
Lead You On
Live In
Wasted
Beautiful in Black
Superstar
We're Alright
Eve of Destruction
I'm Not Fine
P&L
Take Janine Away