Two nights before, I was overjoyed (and I mean really) to see Alex pull up in the alley behind the apartment in his Jeep Cherokee and start unloading a Pearl drum kit from the back. Thanks to some dude who in LA who played the drums for the Romantics, we had a a chance to use our own drum kit at a gig for the first time ever.
It was a mixed blessing. Though we didn't have to deal with transportation issues as much, we did have to deal with getting used to the quirks of a brand new kit. For example, we forgot to bring a carpet for the kick drum, and it ended up sliding away from Alex every time the pedal made contact. We had to stop in the middle of Taxman to fix it.
Once that was handled, there was still the levels situation to take care of, and the Off-Off guys made no offer to tweak things a little bit after we got on stage, so often there was feedback from the microphone near the drums, or the guitars were too loud, etc.
I don't mean to be totally negative, though: we eventually found some kind of groove. Dave's songs all went down really well. If and When included an unforeseen a capella vocal breakdown for one of the verses that required Alex to get off the drums and sing up front (you can see it on video here). By audience request, we played a thinned out version of I'm Down. Also, we sang into a lamp, a touch I envisioned to be an homage to the Stop Making Sense performance of Naive Melody by the Talking Heads.
There was a bit of frustration following the show about the drums and the drumming, and all the various other problems, but I know I had a good time, and it was still a learning experience despite this being one of the least professionally organized shows we've ever played. Stay tuned for other performances during the summer, perhaps at the Saturday Realism apartment complex, who knows?
More videos:
Taxman - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhOYXGgoQQI
I'm Down - http://youtube.com/watch?v=fsdY1W4VPZc
