Thanks for Coming Out

I hope you guys had a good time at Bamboo Bernies, especially Jeanne, Kevin, Melissa, Mike, Corinne, Adam, John, Brooke, and anyone else I didn’t get a chance to talk to.

Legion went on first and they’re a three piece death metal band. They were incredibly heavy and brought in a lot of fans.

I don’t really know how long I played, but I think it was around 45-50 minutes. I broke a string right at the end of “Why Now Satan?” but replaced it without too much trouble. I couldn’t hear any vocals coming out of the monitors and the sound guy said I wasn’t singing loud enough, despite my throat being cranked up to 11. Maybe my ears were still ringing after Legion. They’re definitely still ringing today.

After I finished my set with a fairly rocking version of “I’m a Lesbian Trapped in a Man’s Body,” the Dave B Trio took the stage and put on a great show with a lot of visual accompaniment. They had a VCR and a projector playing ala the Flaming Lips, although the Flaming Lips’ videos were normal compared to what the Dave B Trio mixes on VHS: Nature walks in halloween masks, low-fi space cartoons, female crime fighters/ass-kickers, and gruesome zombie attacks assaulted our eyes, poisoned our hearts, and melted our brains. All temporarily of course! They even had the good taste to include the best scene from any of the 5 Star Wars movies (haha I even included parts 1 and 2). It’s, of course, Vader vs Luke from the Empire Strikes Back.

Also, the Dave B Trio had this to say about my performance:

Ben was really good. I enjoyed hearing an acoustic version of Arctic Snow (Burning Brides) and although nobody spoke up, there were a couple known Johnny Cash fans in the audience. I think Ben even made a startling confession that he ?shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die!?

We’ve liked his originals since his crab performances and Ben also pulled the quickest string change we have ever seen. If someone broke a string during our performance I?m sure we would have declared the show over. Ben?s vocals could have been louder. I know he complained about it, but I?m not sure if the sound guy said ?I can?t put them up louder.? or ?they are loud enough, I know what I?m doing.? Either way, Ben?s vocal chords were sore from signing loud to compensate.

I think it was my bad putting him on second. The crowd was just finishing up pulling the metal out their ass when Ben went on stage. I think that was a tough shift for the crowd. For that reason, I don?t think the crowd was as responsive as they would be if he went on first or last.

Thanks again to everyone for coming out.