Why "the fucking"? Because the conventional wisdom for many years in this town was that only grandiose mainstream tribute acts were allowed to play at BB. Ya know...Whitesnake, John Cougar Mellencamp...crap like that. The kinds of bands that get $1,000 guarantees and bring in hundreds of people for reasons that are entirely baffling. If you were a little known local act playing originals...or even covers in, say, a punk vein...forget it. You weren't playing Badger.
So last night our punk-pop-ish little originals band played BB with two other punk bands. We were compensated a $50 bar tab per band plus a rumored $100 split three ways (not yet confirmed). But still...we were there.
Sadly, apparently their soundguy ran away with the Obama campaign after the last Madison rally sometime. So they posted on CL for a soundguy...and got an answer at 4pm day of show. In a pleasing twist, the guy did a great job. He pieced together his own equipment and ours and really made it work. Here, a note that I'm shocked that BB doesn't have a sound system of its own. Bizarre. One wonders if the old owners took it with them when they left (apparently it is under new management).
The load in there is nice, straight to stage left, and the stage itself is large. A huge dance floor which no one really used, but chose instead to hide in the shadows of the seating areas. I don't know how many people showed up...we'll say more than 10 and less than 50. It was hard to tell in the shadows and with the interplay across the porous boundary of bowling alley and bowling alley bar.
I think that we played well. I couldn't hear my bass drum very well. I put in ear plugs because the guitars and vocals were really loud...and it kinda killed my ability to hear the low end of the bass drum. This threw me off more than I thought it would. I kept wondering if I was playing the bass drum right. It was weird.
I had a stressful few days at work leading up to show...but good sleep and ate appropriately. I had 3 waters and 2 Odoul's before, during, and after the show. I am becoming aware that a pitfall of sobriety is that I've begun to notice that halfway through the night everyone's breath is HORRIBLE. Sour beer mixed with cigarette's. And they get a little drunk and want to talk really close to your face. I literally nearly barfed once last night when this happened.
A note that we sold the very first copy of our "new" cd (the cd that was recorded 3 years ago but was finally printed last month).
UPDATE: Oh shit, I totally forgot to mention that this happened:
Right before "Movin' On" RS said "This is a pull your pants down and run around kind of song." So T from Damidol and the sound guy did.
Setlist:
Sent It
At the Door
Bodies R Burnin
Jack
Whole Damn World
Going Down the Drain
Fire Burns
Gotta Tell U
Better N Better
Gun in Your Grave
End of the Drive
Haven't Seen U Lately
Movin' On
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