GIG
DIARY
UPDATE:
December 23, 2003
Its been a
LONG time since I last worked on this page, but since I have such
a great memory(!), I'll be completing these gigs listed below (& the
other ones
we've done since then in early 2004....
All accounts
are according
to & reported by Joe starting w/
FLASHPOINT RELEASE PARTY......
I really wish I had started this sooner, as over the past 4+ years
of playing 300+ gigs, we have experienced tons of hilarious, crazy & unforgettable
stuff that make all the crazy shit in our hometown seem normal. In
writing this, I will try to remember & put to keyboard the high &
lowlights of all our gigs from this point on. The other guys will interject
their comments here too & I also invite anyone that has attended any
of our shows to write to
me w/ their comments.
1999
Saturday, October 16
FLASHPOINT CD Release party
w/ Lucid Reality & Half Breed
Moe-Mentums - Gloversville, NY
I want to start out by saying we worked VERY hard from the last
week of May until September 5th on this disc, remixing it no less than
3 times & then putting in 50+ hours working w/ Brett Portzer on the
cover design/layout, & we looked VERY forward to this evening.
We went in the night before & set our own PA system up (which we figured
was going to work as well as it has many times in the past) & figured
this way, we could at least relax a bit before a long night on Saturday.
I should also mention that 100 discs were in transit to us via overnight/Saturday
delivery (minus the CD booklets & tray cards) as Overit sort of "dropped
the ball" (to put it kindly...) in getting us our complete package in the
time frame they promised. Although we didn't leave the club until 4am on
Friday, we were all ready to go & figured things would all fall into
place on Saturday. The events of the next day proved just how wrong we
were to think that........
I called the girl at CINRAM (company that was mass producing the
discs for OVERIT) in Alabama & was told that the discs left Birmingham
as scheduled & were going to Atlanta and then landing in Albany &
then being driven to my house BEFORE I went to the club that night. I got
a call a few hours later from one of the couriers involved & was told
that the discs missed making the plane from Altlanta to Albany!!!!!!!!!
This one STILL boggles my mind!
HOW THE FUCK DID THESE DISCS MISS THIS PLANE THAT OVERIT WAS PAYING
A SMALL FORTUNE SO THEY WOULD ARRIVE IN TIME FOR OUR SHOW???????????????????????????
I was told that they would be on the next flight into Albany &
would arrive there at 11pm! They would then have to be driven right to
the club as we would be in the middle of our show by the time the discs arrived. Surprisingly, the rest of the band handled it a lot better than
I did, but looking back, it was totally out of our control, so we just
had to hope for the best. Lucid Reality played a great set & made a
lot of new friends that night &
the same can be said about Half Breed, who showcased some of their new
songs that recorded for their upcoming CD, including a cool cover of "The
Devil Went Down To Georgia". Although I'm not exactly sure what happened
(I was out at the merchandise table explaining to our friends exactly where
the new CD was & that they could possibly buy one at the end of the night
minus all the cover art, which would be mailed to them as soon as they arrived), we lost our monitor amp right before Half Breed started & this
turned out to be the first of several other technical problems we would
experience.
We ended up losing 2 power amps & therefore only had 1 small
monitor (which was actually just supposed to be used for Jeff). Somehow,
it really didn't end up being too much of a problem as Scott & I could
hear our vocals pretty good, & Jeff did a great job without any monitor mix
back by the drums. Things started to roll ok until about 8 songs into the set,
Roman's guitar power amp decides to stop working! Special thanks to Randy from
Lucid Reality for coming to the rescue. The rest of the night rolled on without
any other problems & looking back on it now, things weren't really as bad as
I thought they were the night of the gig.
Saturday, November 6
FLASHPOINT CD Release party
w/ Lucid Reality, Mr. Downstairs & Gargantua Soul
The Third Rail - Cortland, NY
Now that we had
complete discs ready to sell w/out having to mail out booklets to people,
this show in Cortland was really our official CD release party. I was asked to
bring a band with us & immediately thought of Lucid Reality, & if you
keep reading, you'll see that we have done quite a few shows with them since
Flashpoint came out. Even though we have played The Rail about 10 times in the
last few years, I still feel we aren't ready to "headline" (which to
me just means playing last, as we definitely aren't into that bullshit of saying
a band "opened for us"), so Bill added a band from CT called Gargantua
Soul to the lineup, who have quite a few things going on, including appearing in
a movie that was made for VH-1.
This show marks the last time our bus was ever used for a road trip, as the head
gasket was blown earlier in the summer & even after replacing it, on our way
to the show, the bus died about 25 miles away from our practice place & 100
miles from the club. Roman's girlfriend was following us just in case we had
problems & as soon as it died, Jeff & dave got in her car & went to
get their vehicles to haul our gear while I called AAA & sat there with
Scott & waited for the tow truck to arrive. I surprisingly learned that when
you are on a toll road, the tow trucks have to move a whole lot faster to get
there & get you off the road, which led to an interesting question: would
Jeff & Dave wait for us to get back to the practice place w/ the bus or meet
us on the Thruway?
As the tow truck was there about 10 minutes after they left, we had no choice
but to go to the closest exit on the toll road, unload the stuff & hope they
figured Scott was there with the gear! Once I had the bus back home, (sadly for
the last time), I immediately got into my car & headed out to the club &
stopped by to make sure that the guys found Scott & our gear (which they
did). It was still about 4 hours away from the time we were scheduled to play,
BUT I had promised Ray (Lucid Reality bassist) that he could play through my amp
& can imagine he was quite nervous as my gear was not going to get to
Cortland AFTER their scheduled set time. The bass player in Mr. Downstairs was
cool & let Ray play though his amp, so things ended up working out for him.
Our set
went quite well & made all the running around we had to do to get there seem
worth it. All the bands on the bill are well received & it was cool to see
several friends of ours that had traveled to see us, (including a guy that was
in one of my previous bands who is very hard to miss as he weighs very close to
500 pounds! - No, I am NOT joking!!) ;-)
Friday, November 25
w/ Dinasty
The Wolf Inn - Syracuse, NY
We were invited to play this day after Thanksgiving show by Joe from
Dinasty, who was coming in from Cincinnatti to record their debut
CD. Anyone that knows us pretty much knows what we think of playing at
The Wolf Inn (our last gig was back in June of '98, the infamous biker
fight which is talked about in our interview w/ Ken Boyd) , but we decided
to do it, as we wanted to play a local show for our good friend, Dom &
also catch a killer meal at The Dinosaur BBQ. It rained like a motherfucker
all the way there & as usual, The Dinosaur was packed well beyond fire
code, BUT it is a "MUST EAT" place when you are in Syracuse. It was great
to catch up w/ Dom on everything that has been happening lately & this
man has been a great advisor to us w/ a legal aspects, as well as being
one of our biggest supporters!
Onto the show..... NOTHING at all has changed at The Wolf Inn, but
we knew what we were expecting before we set the show up. A 3rd band
was added to the bill & because they told the club that they couldn't
get there until midnight(!), they were playing last by default. We decided that we
would play first as Dinasty had driven so far. Our set consisted
of every song on FLASHPOINT & "Dear God".
I have to admit being totally uninspired that night & although I put
100% into my playing, I just sort of leaned against the wall. Everyone
else was in fine form that night & we made the best out of a lousy
situation, which is usually the case, as we seem to find humor in everything
that would make some people wonder why we even bother playing shitholes
like this one (but that is not to say we think we are above place like
this!)....... We made a few new friends that night & were
told that The Lost Horizion (The once premier club in Syracuse) is once
again running local shows, so we will be looking into playing there in
coming months. As far as the last band goes, we didn't even catch
their name & were on our way home after Dinasty finished their set.
2000
Friday, February 25
w/ Ion Vein Delusive Dream & Antithesis
Revolution - Cleveland, OH
This
was our first show in OH in a city that has quite
big metal scene. Since we were bus-less since the Cortland show in November, a
dilemma as to how we were getting out west was settled in the 11th hour as Scott
hooked us up with a great SUV that we were able to rent from a friend of his as
opposed to getting one from a car rental place that wanted a king's ransom. As
much as I loved the bus, I must say that having a vehicle that was 1 year old
& seated everyone comfortably made this trip much more pleasant. It was
about 7 hours door to door from the band room to our hotel, so we definitely
needed to ride in comfort as we learned just what a big state NY is (but more on
that later after the Chicago show!).
This
show was originally scheduled at The Agora Ballroom, but it got bumped as Queensryche
ended up getting booked there. Initially I was a little concerned that this
would affect the turnout, but that wasn't the case, as Antithesis has a good
& loyal following that didn't seem too interested to see the once mighty
band from Seattle. Revolution (which is owned by a guy that is currently the
guitar player in Warrant), was a cool place & the square dancing poster I
saw in the window upon entry just represented how diverse the club
is.
The sound guy got to the club late & due to his tardiness, things
ended up running late & therefore caused our set to get cut from the
45 minutes we were promised to about 30, which proved to be
disappointing to several people that had driven from different parts of
the state to see us. I guess it could have been worse, as there was
originally supposed to be 5 bands on the bill & on this night, being
the first band on the bill didn't really hurt, as there were almost as
many people in the club when we played as there were when Antithesis hit
the stage. Looking back, it ended up being a good night & all bands
on the bill were very good & it was a great warm-up show for us, as
we were all looking VERY forward to playing in Chicago!
Saturday, February 26
Chicago Powerfest 2000
w/ Talamasca, Syris, Ion Vein & Antithesis
We
got up early & ate a quick breakfast before hitting the road for
Chicago & planned on being there by the middle of the afternoon,
which would give us a few hours to chill out at the hotel before the
long night ahead, but it was definitely a night I was looking very
forward to, as over 20 people that I only knew via the internet were
going to be in attendance. The weather was unseasonably warm & quite
nice for February, which to me was a very good thing, as I can only
imagine how much fun this trip would have been if we had to deal with
snow.
As we arrived in Chicago, it was raining out & we were all looking
forward to going to our room & were VERY pleased to see that the
hotel was literally 20 feet away from the club. Whoever thought of
putting a club there was a genius & I am very sure many a bar patron
has avoided a driving while intoxicated charge due to being able to
stumble into a room. we stopped over to the bar to pick up our room key
& then plopped down on the beds for a couple hours before we decided
to walk over & eat at the club (who served really good food for a
bar.) We found out what time to come back over to the bar & went
back over to our room for more relaxing before what was definitely going
to be a fun filled evening.
People
started filing into the club & many stopped over to the table &
introduced themselves. It is always great to put faces to names
& to me, it is always interesting to see how close I am to picturing
what a person looks like based on their online demeanor &
mannerisms. I met the guitar player from Talamasca & saw there was
no other place for him to set up their band merchandise, so I offered to
share our table with him & sell discs for him when they were
playing. As show time got closer, I got more psyched & could already
feel the energy of the people that had traveled as far as us to be
there.
Talamasca kicked ass & got things started in a very powerful way. We
were up next & were VERY ready to go sick. As soon as the show
started, I saw a lot of the people I met earlier, taking pictures,
videotaping us, banging their heads & singing along to our tunes. I
guess I got a bit over-inspired, but I was banging my head harder than I
ever remember doing in the past & discovered a few hours later that
I had in fact ruptured a blood vessel in my left eye, which caused it to
bleed internally. Even though I wasn't too happy knowing it was going to
take a long time for it to clear up ( I actually had surgery on my eye
in November 2000 to totally clear it up!) this show still rates as my
favorite. Syris was up next & was great. They did a Iron Maiden
cover that got all the guys down front singing along. Ion Vein was next
& totally dominated the place! Antithesis closed the show out in a
powerful fashion, opening up their set w/ a King Diamond tune.
Morning came too soon, as we all stopped in at a few of the parties that
were happening. I convinced Jeff to put in his "Billy
Bob teeth" when we popped in on Ion Vein's party, which to my
surprise, only a few people in the room thought they were funny. One guy
(who shall remain nameless) was VERY consumed in talking about business
at this party & to me it is cool to be concerned about being
successful with your band, BUT there is a time & a place for
everything & in my honest opinion, I was not in the mood to hear how
to sell a few more CDs at 3AM! The ride home was in excess of 13 hours
& was definitely a VERY long one, but playing a gig like the one we
just played made every minute of being in that vehicle VERY worthwhile
to me! I hope we are able to do another show out there in 2002 & are
actually in the talking stages of setting it up now! Stay tuned......
Saturday, April 8
w/ Pull & Zero Hour (NY)
The Third Rail - Cortland, NY
The
funny thing about the weather in the northeast USA is you never really know what
the hell to expect & the weekend of this show was no exception (I HATE
WINTER!!!!!). It drizzled / rained
all day & the weatherman predicted it was going to turn to snow & dump
in excess of 10 inches which seemed quite ridiculous in April, BUT for once in
their lives, the national weather service was unfortunately correct! Predictions
of a storm like this always will keep people home, but Pull has a great
following & their friends all came out to support them for their CD release
party, so the attendance went much better than anticipated!
The Rail is a great place to play at, as people do generally seem interested in
original music there, there is a good in-house PA system / lights & a good
sound guy that knows how to run it, so all of those things really add to
making the drive out to Cortland in shitty weather worthwhile. The show is one
of the smoothest running that I remember playing there. Zero Hour did a great
job starting the evening out & were quite progressive, but still really
heavy. Pull really plays a great show & has a special guest, John West
(singer of the band Royal Hunt) do a cover of "Jailbreak" with them
that really gets the place jumping. Sort of funny too, how this bar ALWAYS lets
bands crank out music well after the official closing time of 2 AM. I've never
been to another place where people just do not want to go home and the bouncer
actually has said every time I've been to this place "You don't have to go
home, but you can't stay here"
Jeff & stayed at a friends house & make the drive home in the
morning, while the other guys in the band decide to brave the storm & as I
was told the next day, had a lot of fun battling the drifts & shitty roads
from Syracuse to Albany (about 130 miles). Sort of
ironically, Cortland / Syracuse didn't get all of the snow that was predicted
(about 6" fell in central NY, which, looking back was a good thing as it
didn't keep people home the night before), BUT as we got on the highway, the
closer we got to home, the more snow there was on the ground & Jeff got his
van stuck in over 12" of snow (!!!) at the parking lot of our rehearsal
place. Have I mentioned yet how much I hate snow & cold weather, but still
live in the northeast USA? Maybe I am as dumb as I look........
Saturday, April 29
w/ Pull & Lucid Reality
Moe-Mentum's, Gloversville, NY
I
think we all learned a valuable lesson the last time & didn't want a repeat
performance of PA problems, so we had all decided well in advance of booking
this show that we were renting a system. It was a BIG relief to just be able to
arrive at the club on Saturday night, instead of spending the entire night
before down there setting up our system & I am willing to bet that we will
be renting a system for every gig we do here from now on. Pull has had us up to
Cortland a few times now & we wanted to repay the favor & bring them to
Gloversville. I also asked Randy from Lucid Reality if they were up for playing
& already knew their answer before I asked.....
Looking
back on this particular night, I have to say it was a much better show than the
Flashpoint CD release party, as there were definitely a lot more people in
attendance, (about 260 came through the doors) & not having to worry about a
PA system failure just made it a much more enjoyable night for all of us. Lucid
Reality debuted a couple new songs & were promoting their brand new recently
released 3 song CD, which is VERY powerful! Pull impressed with their originals
& also doing a few cool covers (Godsmack, Metallica).
Our set included a few songs from Flashpoint that we didn't play the last time
& also our cover of "Cowboys From Hell" as the Pantera tribute on
Dwell records finally came out in March. We had always talked about doing a
cover in the past, but never did, and are now realizing that it is probably a
good idea to occasionally play at least one song that people are actually
familiar with! I can't forget to mention my favorite part about playing here:
NOT HAVING TO DRIVE HOME FOR HOURS!!! Sort of ironic though, as it is usually
daylight before I get to sleep every time we play here even though I live less
than 5 minutes away from the bar!
Saturday, May 6
w/ Piece of Mind
Connections, Clifton, NJ
It
had been a while since we playing in NJ & our friend/promoter, Dave
Price called & set up this show, which actually sounded a bit more
promising than a few of our other gigs we have played in the Garden
state, as we were going to be booked with a tribute band that had a good
reputation & was known for getting quite a few people in the
door.
Since our bus was gone, we have been taking several vehicles to our
gigs, & surprisingly, everyone in the band arrived early or on time,
so we had plenty of time to hang out & relax by playing pool &
talking to a guy that worked at the bar that played as Phil Lynott in a
Thin Lizzy tribute band (interesting to me as Lizzy is one of my
favorite bands). I also meet up with the girl that does the booking at
the club (whose name escapes me at the time of typing this) & find
out that the Iron Maiden tribute band was going to cancel as
"Bruce" was too sick to sing, but she convinced them to at
least show up & do the show without him so we didn't get screwed
over & play to 3 people. Cheers to the band for sticking it out, but
more on that in a minute!
There was another band on the bill & I can't remember their name,
but it also might be that I wanted to forget it, as they got there about
15 minutes after we did & the keyboard player in the band played his
Hammond organ for well over an hour before they played their set! Maybe
it was this band's first ever gig or something, but it amazes me to this
day that no one in the bar said anything to him about turning down &
playing at a reasonable volume. Needless to say, I had no desire
whatsoever to watch this band play & took a walk & then stayed
in the other room until they were done. Thankfully, the sound guy cut
their set short as people were leaving 2 songs into it. I must say that
other than the keyboard guy, this band wasn't too bad, & I wouldn't
be too surprised if he wasn't in the band anymore, as I wasn't the only
one that commented on this......
Our set went pretty good, although, we could hear the bottom end of the
PA cutting out throughout our set & a few of our friends commented
about it to us after we finished. I guess it could have been worse, as
we have had a lot of worse things happen to us when playing (including
having a cop walk right up on stage when we played a bar in Waterford,
NY ordering us to stop or else!!) We sold several CDs & it was nice
to hear that WSOU was playing both
"Victim Of Thought" from Flashpoint & "Cowboys From
Hell" form the Pantera tribute, as several people told us they came
to the show after hearing the tunes on the radio!
The Iron Maiden tribute played next & started out instrumentally,
but then one of the guys in the band's girlfriend got up & sang a
few songs. She was obviously very nervous, but did a pretty good job,
especially for being put on the spot to do it. To me, it sort of sounded
like Pat Benetar singing "Flight Of Icarus" which was
definitely an interesting twist! People in attendance cheered them/her
on, & it didn't hurt that she was good looking too!
Dave
informed us that the club wanted to have us back in a few weeks & we
would be playing with no less than 3 other bands that totally packed
this place & one of them was even having a CD release party that
night, so it would be great exposure for us. We had fun & I told him
as long as the band w/ the keyboard player WASN'T playing, we would be
there! We got on the road & after getting lost in downtown Clifton,
we finally found the highway & headed home.
Friday - Sunday, May 26 -28
Ultrasound 2000
w/ Vicious Rumors, Steel Prophet, Leatherwolf, Agent Steel,
New Eden, Towne Cryer XXI & Jag Panzer
Alexis Park, Las Vegas NV
Saturday, June 3
THE ZANE FEST 2000
w/ Gargantua Soul,
King Norris,
Madhat
VFW Pavillion,
Prospect, CT
Saturday, June 10
w/ 40 Below Summer
Connections,
Clifton, NJ
Friday,
June 23
w/ Boiler & Fromunda
The Third Rail, Cortland, NY
Saturday, August 5
WSOU STREET PATROL
LIVE
w/ 9 other bands
Birch Hill Night Club,
Old Bridge, NJ
Saturday, August 12
Virgo's,
N. Brunswick, NJ
Saturday, September 16
The Fireside Chat,
Bath, NY
Saturday, September 23
w/ Ion Vein & Lucid Reality
MoeMentum's, Gloversville, NY
Friday, December 22
w/ Bloodstone, Lucid Reality & Violent Knight
Northern Lights, Clifton Park, NY
2001
Saturday,
January
w/ Pull & Cheeze
The Third Rail - Cortland, NY
Saturday, March
Saratoga Winners, Latham, NY
Saturday, April 23
w/ The Roman Singleton Project
MoeMentum's, Gloversville, NY
Saturday, May 19
Filming of "These Days"
The Fireside Chat. Bath NY