Set:
| Poet (Who Didn't Know It) | Last Night | I'm a Bad Mamma Jamma (Who Works at Wendy's) | M'Lady | Lady Madonna [The Beatles] | Clone You | The Date | Chosen Ones | Good Vibes | Aphrodite | Jumpstart My Rocket |
We had a show last night and we had a show tonight. There's a bit of a personal story that goes along with tonight. My (tony's) family is in town for awhile, but not for anything fun. My niece is undergoing some pretty serious surgery and everyone's here for that. Well, we (my family and I) spent all day at the hospital while she was in surgery and the plan was that at about seven o'clock or so, I would leave the hospital, grab a bite, load my drums and head the 400 Bar. My body had other plans though, you see.
Many of you may or may not know that I have had a history of recurring testicular pain issues. Well, today while I was at the hospital, I got hit hard by it, and out of the blue. Each step I took felt like a kick to the groin. The pain was so bad, I nearly vomited. Normally, when this happens, if I sit completely still, it subsides and eventually goes away. Not today.
Well, what better place to have a medical issue than in a hospital? I sat in a wheelchair and my wife and mother accompanied me to the emergency room. I sent my mom back up to the rest of the family, and Liza stayed with me. I looked at the time and realized it was getting pretty late. I was really cutting it close if I wanted to play the show. The doctor thought he knew exactly what it was. After an examination, he diagnosed me, but said that I would need an ultrasound to determine whether it was something more severe and urgent. The clock kept tickin'. I texted the guys and told them what was up. They were really cool about it, saying that they'd make it without me and wished me luck.
Long story short, I underwent a scrotal ultrasound and everything checked out. It just turns out that one of my guys has a tendency to twist and the doctor gave me some tips on that and remedied the pain without drugs.
Anyway... enough about my balls.
After I was discharged, I got into my van and called the boys, who were obviously at the 400 Bar. I said I was on my way, but I had to stop at home for the setlist and my sticks. I asked if it was possible to use a drum kit that was there, since there was no friggin' way I was going to be able to load and set up mine in my condition or this amount of time. Nick talked to Burnin' Hyder who was onstage at the time of the call, and worked it out.
I pulled up to the 400 Bar, found some parking (which may have been illegal parking) and booked it into the venue. By the time I got there and got inside, Dustin, Anthony and Nick were all onstage, finishing up their tuning and nearly ready to go. I hopped up on stage, took off my coat sat behind Burnin' Hyder's kit and was ready to go.
We ripped through an energetic "Poet" to start out the set and I addressed the crowd. "I just had my testicles ultrasounded. What did you do tonight?" Anthony added that this was not a sexual euphemism. I further added that this was correct. "I actually had the blue goo on my balls while the dude at the machine ran the instrument over them."
But... enough about my balls.
We played a killer set tonight. We really did. It was full of energy and you would have never known without seeing the hospital bracelet on my wrist that only twenty minutes previous I had been a patient in the ER. We ripped it down something fierce and everyone had a good time.
I'm a professional, dang it. Ain't no twisticle gonna keep me from rockin'.
We returned again to the Turf Club. The Turf is a weird place. It's a really fun venue and we love playing there, but it's kind of hard (for us) to draw a crowd in that room. But play we did. And loud.
Tonight was our first time at Christensen's Big V's in Saint Paul. It was good. Before the show started, Cody arrived with his laptop and held the world premiere for our "Last Night" music video shot earlier this month. About twenty people huddled around his screen and applauded when it was over.
The comedy stylings seemed to be flowing tonight, apparently. Dustin announced that he had to pee. He then asked for a bottle... specifying "something little." Anthony ranted about hump day (since it was Wednesday) and said that this crowd didn't want to be mistaken for a Thursday crowd or just sit in a chair like all of those lazy Tuesday #$@&s. Dustin interrupted and said, "those lazy Tuesday farts. My mom doesn't like that kind of language." To which, Anthony bafflingly replied, "Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'."
Once again, the members of Junebug become victims of our own punctuality. What I mean by this is that we almost always show up on time in a world in which virtually nobody else does the same. When we're told load-in time is 8:00 p.m., we show up at 8:00 p.m. Crazy, right? We were left sitting in wait for some time.
Our first performance at Cheapo Discs in Uptown Minneapolis went swimmingly, as they say. Sadly, there was a miscommunication and the camera crew was not there to tape for the television broadcast. He is on vacation, we were told. However, we were told it would be totally fine to reschedule another show, since the taping was one of the main reasons we wanted to play this particular show. So be on the lookout for that.
An observation I (tony) had was that good, energetic, fun sets are pretty much the rule now, not an exception. It seems that probably 95% of the time we come off stage and congratulate each other on how great the show felt and how awesome the energy was and how much fun we had. Even when there aren't a lot of people in attendance. Each time this happens, it feels as if this show was an oasis in a desert of suck, when in reality, they all have been feeling great. It was just something I noticed, based on my own feelings, of course.
We returned to the Uptown Bar tonight. We were slightly worried about turnout since the news was reporting that the roads were treacherous and slippery, when in reality they really weren't bad. Turnout was actually pretty decent for a Tuesday night.
This was Junebug's first time at Station 4 in Saint Paul. I (tony) had never even been there before. So when I first walked in to the bar it seemed very small, with a diagonal wood floor back in one corner. I mistakingly thought that was where we would be playing. So I was pleasantly surprised when I was led into the actual venue area. No, it's not just a corner of the room, it's a fully functional show space.
At any rate, we had fun. The sound guy did a nice job too, with monitor mixes and house mix and such. And Carp, the drummer for My Lady Four, said that my kit sounded really good. My kit doesn't usually sound good...so kudos to the sound guy for that. And personally, I love playing on a stage that has an actual drum riser.
