Friday, February 1, 2008

One of us was tired, the other two were drunk, or at least *sounded* drunk. Those who were there probably wouldn't be able to tell which was which.

The show started around 9:30. "The Blood Shot" opened up, and the crowd was still a little scarce. My experience is that the first act of the show is like that. Play and they will come. People filtered in as the night progressed, dropping a $5-er to get a look.

32nd Day was in the middle slot, starting around 10:30, and pulled off a great show. They've been playing out a lot more than Jagged Spiral, and it showed. A large group of fans came down to hear them play...

...and a handful left around 11:30, as soon as Jagged Spiral started up. Not surprising, since we are quite different than 32nd day. I like to think we're quite different from everyone, and I don't take offense to anyone leaving. I give bands a '3-song rule' myslef, because I think it takes that long for a band to warm up. By the middle of the third song, you know if you like them or not.

My one-word review of Jagged Spiral's performance is "Ruff". Not Rough, but Ruff like a dog barking.

For those who want to have the audio experience of the event: the bootleg of the show is here, courtesy of Reid Rejsa.

The visual experience is here:

The emotional experience would be like getting your hand caught in a blender, then realizing it wasn't as bad as you imagined it would be. I could feel every screwup echoing out across Minneapolis, and making even people in Golden Valley shudder.

Listening to the audio, it sounds Nowhere Near as bad as it sounded on stage.

We got off to a bad start when I hit the wrong note starting into Black Sabbath's "Children of the Grave". Ick. My only excuse was that I really couldn't see my fret markers onstage. Once the song got going, it pulled together nicely.

During "Horrorcloud" Colin and I both got lost and stopped at the exact same point in the song. Had either one of us known which way to go, we could have recovered fine, but we both completely stopped. Then we both tried to recover at the same time, each of us playing something different. Not good. I decided to wait and let Colin get the car back on the road, and I caught up with him eventually, although I was completely lost for a while afterward, and stopped singing because I wasn't sure what part to sing.

Although there's been a few explanations/excuses for that micro-disaster, the root cause was that the song was changed too many times in the past month, and wasn't practiced enough to be played out of habit. I don't know if it's this way for other people, but if my hands 'know' the song, then my mind is free to focus on other things; the upcoming change, moving around on stage, the lesbians making out on the dance floor, did I leave the hair-straightener on at home... But for Horrorcloud, I still have to focus 100% on the playing, my hands simply don't know it yet. The song is WICKED hard to play; strange, stuttering timing shifts that defy the laws of Physics, yet Colin makes them look quite simple, and if *he* got it mixed up, I didn't stand a chance.

What kept the boat from sinking was Josh. He kept playing throughout, like an oarman on a viking longship, he kept rowing right through the chaos, and pulled us through to the other side. My philosophy is that screwing up the song isn't quite as bad as stopping altogether, so kudos to J-Man for pulling us out of the maelstrom.

The rest of the set was better. Even through I couldn't really hear my vocals during the Sisters of Mercy cover, "Temple of Love" it sounded OK on the recording.

Thanks to Reid for coming out and shooting some pix, and getting the bootleg of the show. The guys in The Blood Shot got some video of the event, and if they send some my way, I'll be sure to post it.

Labels: Concert, Jagged Live