Show 4 is in the books. Originally planned as a 2 band bill between Planets and Chris Sloan and the Dirty Birds, a third band was added late, Of The Heavy Sun. The show was slated to start at 7pm, with a soundcheck starting at 4:30. We all thought that timing was odd as who needs 2.5 hours to soundcheck?
Evidently this club does.
After loading in and setting up, we ran through Perspective at soundcheck. I had my Orange Terror Bass and Avatar 212 cab with this band for the first time. Though I played through it in Tacoma last month with the Sunset Grooves, that was a less loud show. For this show, I cranked it up a bit and it just felt weird. It seemed like I could hear the bass from the mains in the room more than I could from my rig behind me. The room itself is a giant concrete box, and with no bodies in the room to soak up the sounds, the bass I heard was honky and all mids, not ideal. But I trusted Carlos, the sound guy, and went with it.
Though we were going second, we soundchecked first for some reason. But I'll take it! We moved our gear aside and let the other bands check. Chris Sloan's band did a chill song that was befitting his image. He had on a black fedora, black vest, black jacket and pants. He reminded me so much of my old bandmate, Emilio, who also loved to put out a badass image. Chris really backed it up, though, with some killer pipes and stage presence. OTHS was as their name indicates: heavy. Just a three piece, they were wicked loud and energetic, if a bit nascent in their songwriting abilities.
As mentioned, they budgeted 2.5 hours for soundcheck. Even with all that time, the show still started late. Go figure. But ultimately, Carlos had all the bands sounding really good.
I got a chance to catch up with some old friends from the Embers days. With COVID acceptance seemingly coming around and our bands playing out more, people seem to be coming out more. People I hadn't seen since the last Embers shows were out seeing us last night. For the first time, I had some people come up who I didn't know, asking if I was the bassist for Stereo Embers. The guy had some nice words to say about us and was excited to see us as PITO.
I spoke with the bassist for Chris Sloan, I think his name was Jake. He played a J through a GK 210 and sounded tight. He had all the riffs for soundcheck and I could tell he was gonna be a solid player. Turns out, when I introduced myself, he knew me from about 20 years ago, when his band and my band Ethyl shared a space at the Foundry! He mentioned dudes I knew, but sadly (I didn't tell him), I didn't remember him or his band. But I think that's more about my memory than him being unmemorable.
Another guy named Matt came up after the show. He also remembered me from the Ethyl days, being friends with Johnny Low and Fred and crew. He invited me back to the Substation for a show that Upwell will be playing in April to celebrate Fred's birthday. Johnny's flying up from CA for that, so maybe I'll have to stop by.
OTHS took the stage and destroyed it with their volume. For a 3 piece, they were so loud. They have a skinny guy on bass. Very wiry, very thin, playing a red Ibanez bass with a thumb pick! I'd never seen that before. It almost looks like he's slapping, but he's strumming and picking with his thumb. I talked to him after his soundcheck and he does it as he is a left handed guitarist playing bass. He played guitar with a thumb pick, so he just transferred his skills to playing bass. He had kind of a clanky, bright, new-strings sound that suited their music (modern rock), but wasn't my taste.
We got on stage and hit the ground running with a new song called Nomenclature. It's fast and I drone on the A at the 12th fret for all the verses. It's got 3 parts and we blast through it. Felt pretty good, but I need to work on the stamina and picking accuracy of my right hand. Standing still at practice, it's pretty easy to perform. Trying to be bouncy and energetic on stage makes things different.
Our second song was The Loud Silence and that went pretty well. I have started singing backing vocals on our songs now, pretty much in the last week. I realized I hadn't been listening to our studio recordings, which feature backing vox, so when I did, I started throwing them in. It adds a layer of complexity, but I love doing it.
At the end of the song, Carlos jumped up and said he was getting distortion and static out front from my signal. He had a DI into my Tone Hammer, so we removed that and went direct into the Orange. That seemed to fix the issue, so that's good.
I still had on-stage audio weirdness, but I think it's all in my head. I don't know if it was due to the new amplification or if it was being too accustomed to in-ears or what. I felt like I was either too loud or not loud enough on stage. Whatever it was, I just dealt with it and motored through the set. We did our 10 songs with minimal fuss and it was ultimately fine. I did have to jump on mic after Splinter and before Darla's Song as Robb has to set up his keyboard. So I told a story about how Splinter is our hit. It was OK and not too corny, so that's cool.
We should have some great video from this as there were several folks with cameras, that I saw. Crowd was good from the stage, we definitely had the most people there. As we got off stage and Chris Sloan got up there, the crowd dwindled noticeably to about 1/3rd of what was there.
CSATDB got up there and did their Nashville country/soft rock thing. Very polished and tight, but not my thing. But Chris, man, he can sing. He should be on the Voice or something. He's a Daughtry type guy, I think and can excel, but I don't think fronting a band like this is his thing. Then again, what do I know?
At the end of the night, I was told each band took home a whopping $66, since the club takes $200 off the top for "room rental," whatever that means. I hit up Dick's on the way home for a Deluxe and fries, got gas, and then booked it for the Eastside.
Woke up this morning with a gig offer for 4/6 at Tim's Tavern/Drunky's, which would be a fun one. Maybe this PITO thing will take off after all. Last night's turnout is hopefully a good indication. Onto the pix!
