Tied For Last

Second band of a five band night.

This was not the gig I was hoping it would be.

I was really psyched for three reasons. First, I’m always psyched for a gig. There’s no describing the awesome feeling of being onstage in NYC. Second, we were playing with our friends The Heaves, and all of us in TFL are HUGE fans of theirs. Last, I was staring down a four-day holiday weekend, so I was looking forward to blowing off some steam.

Things started off well enough. We had a decent-sized crowd – especially for Acme on a Thursday. They guy at the door later told me that we had more than double the amount of people that were brought by all the other bands put together.

We were hoping to get a bunch of Heaves fans as well, but, apparently, most of them can’t come out on weeknights. Their loss. The few Heaves friends that did come were friends of ours as well, and they were damn nice.

I felt pretty bad for the band on before us. They were pretty good, and very tight, but they had no audience (and I mean none – the bartender walked out). We tried to stay in and listen for a bit, but it was so loud that it just became unbearable (not their fault).

As we were setting up, we realized that it was very dark and very hot onstage. We didn’t think it was too bad at the time.

We played the first couple of songs, and things were going pretty well, but we couldn’t see at all - not the audience, not each other, and, most importantly, not the necks of our guitars. This causes us to not move around as much, because we have to pay much closer attention to what we’re playing and where we’re standing.

Then, about the third song in (She Was Just a Girl?), I sang a part, and moved away from the mic toward John B. All of a sudden everything got VERY dark, and the next thing I knew, I was regaining my balance, and not knowing where I was. For a split second, I had blacked out, and nearly fell flat on my face.

I tried to get my bearings and pretend that nothing happened, but John B and Tom knew something was wrong. I spent most of the rest of the gig much more subdued than usual. The darkness, the heat, and the weirdness of what had happened affected our playing and we were not as tight as we usually are. On the bright side, a few brand new fans/friends had made mention of how tight we were. Hell, they should see us on an “ON” night.

The set progressed well enough until we got to Wasted. Without going into too much detail, we’ll just say that I blew it. I’m not going to lie. I’m not the world’s most adept guitarist, but I can handle the guitar duties on this song. I’m gonna blame it on my utter confusion and dizziness and hope that my band mates forgive me.

Things got better as Pat Smith from the Heaves guested on vocals for Burning Love. Then, thankfully, we did Take Janine Away and I was able to sit down and recuperate.

The Heaves set started out damn strong, but I missed their opening number, and I really regret it. They chose to debut a full-band version of their cover of Jackson (Johnny and June Carter Cash). I was walking my mom to her car (I’m a good son – got a problem with that?). they played some of their punkier songs, but things broke up for them about 1/2 of the way through their set as well. I blame the lights and heat.

Post-script: I looked up some of our previous gigs at Acme, and I realized that this was not the first time that I nearly blacked out there. I’m guessing they would have us back if we called, but, for the moment at least, we’re gonna stick with places where we can see.

Set List:
Lead You On
Sailor
She Was Just a Girl
Stay Up and Talk to Me
Achiever
Superstar
Beautiful In Black
We're Alright
Wasted (Tom on vox)
Burning Love (w/ Pat Smith on vox)
Got No Life
Take Janine Away