It's rare that I get the opportunity to review my very own show. But here I go! August 15th was a very sticky and warm day. My band members and I met out in Franklin, WI around 11:30 to set up the drum kit, mics, amps and monitors. We also did a quick sound check too to get the correct levels on everything. Our bass player's kit came with his piccolo snare which is fine for our practice sessions, but it wasn't near loud enough for this outdoor venue. So my new Mapex 14 x4 snare was the perfect solution.
After running through a few songs, I was already pretty sweaty. How am I going to blast through 30 songs in this 92 degree heat!? Luckily, when it started to get slightly darker, the heat died down a little and a light breeze swept Farm Fest.
The opening band was Mohr. Ave. They started later then they were supposed to, but it wasn't too big of a deal. A good buddy of mine arrived for our set just before we were starting so he would have missed just about everything. Mohr. Ave played a few covers along with their originals. We played second. The mosquitos were horrendous and feasted on all of us throughout the night. It was extremely difficult to keep time on a drum set while the bugs were draining whatever blood they could find in the back of my ear! During our first song "Everyone Again", the hi-hats started acting fishy and I couldn't open them towards the end of the song. Luckily, I fixed it in time for our ska number "Modern World". This song started well, but on the outro, I accidental counted incorrectly and slowed it down, but luckily, I kept the time and the song ended decently. "So Real" was the next one I believe. No problems there. Everything sounded good. "When The Glitter Fades" followed that. That's our song resembling "Why Did We Ever Meet?" by The Promise Ring. Thankfully, it worked out quite well. It's also one of my wife's favourite songs. Along with our originals, we also tackled Elvis Costello's "Oliver's Army". Unfortunately, Pat, our second guitar player's mic wasn't turned up very much so the crowd had a rough time hearing him. Of ALL songs!! I haven't seen the video tape my sister made of the night yet, but I imagine he's hard to hear. The last few songs went alright. The Lobster Boys followed us. They played jam-style songs, Phish covers etc. etc.
So overall, our first show went alright. I think if the bugs were out of the picture, the night would have been a little better. I look forward to the next show we play, and working on adjusting the ska song.
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