My friend, Ian, had been working on a rock opera for a school project this past year. It was more than just a school project though, it was a way for him to create music that he loved. He had been writing it for the whole year and here and there me and him would play some of the songs. The rock opera was called Eternal Child and it is a fantastic story that is told through the music and lyrics. Ian told me and our friend Alex, who is also the drummer in our little band, that we would be performing it at the end of the year. That performance was last Friday.
When all the people that were there for the show started coming in we were a little stunned. We were just hoping for a younger crowd and it turned out to be a lot of older people, with younger kids scattered about. But regardless, we had a crowd and it was of a decent size. The show started out with the opening band, some of our friends, called Ann Street Pier. They played a cool set made up of a bunch of covers.
Then it was our turn to play Eternal Child. First off, I have to say I had the most fun playing that show than I had in a long time. However, due to my own wackiness I made a few mistakes. First, I decided to use a bass amp that I knew was having problems and during the first song it shut off on me. I pointed to the kid in the audience who had played bass in the band before us and told him I needed his amp. While this was all happening Alex is in the middle of a drum solo that was supposed to be around 2-3 minutes. We made it about 6 minutes while we dragged this HUGE bass amp across the stage and hooked it up in the middle of the set.
The rest of the show went pretty decently with minor blips here and there, mostly due to everyone being so busy that we didn’t get enough practice time beforehand. Then came my NEXT problem. Here’s what I originally thought happened. I was playing the bass and jumping around and then my guitar stops making any noise from the amp. I instantly thought, since this is an old guitar, it finally crapped out and I needed to borrow the other kid’s bass. So again I motioned him up to get the bass and I made the switcheroo and finished the set. He talked to me after the set and, little did I know, my guitar was fine and all I did was step on the cable which unplugged it. He said he just plugged it back in for me and then sat down in his seat. It turned out that he was not the only one who noticed that, apparently a lot of people saw exactly what happened, except for me. There were some cool pictures taken, and I hope to get those up soon.
We finished the set and the last two songs ended the show on an incredibly high note. Ian kind of panicked a little and called it the end, but everyone cheered for another and we definitely had another. It was an awesome encore.
I learn from all these dumb mistakes of mine, and I make sure they don’t happen twice. I’ve had everything from being oblivious to an unplugged cable, to getting my guitar snapped in half because I loaded the van wrong. One day I’ll get things right.
