Get Out the Chicken Wire - it's Gig Time

My new band played Saturday night.  I have only been with these guys for a little while and have only played at some outdoor gigs thus far.  They told me the bar was a great place to play.  In fact, one of them described it as follows...

It's the kind of place where there's a fight in the parking lot and everybody walks by it like this happens every day.

I approached neutrally, figuring I'd let the place make its own impression on me.  I was not, however, prepared for the sign outside the bar:

As if this weren't enough, as I was taking the picture, a denizen walked by, looked quizzically, and started drunkenly spouting something about colors, the Eagles, several F-bombs and a smattering of N-words.  He was a very happy drunk and walked right inside.

Uh-oh.

The wife and I looked at each other with a smile.  We were home.  These were our people.  Well, not really.  But I've played in front of them frequently.

I hauled my gear in and waited for the rest of the band.  We were greeted by an impossibly perky waitress, who served us the best burgers we have eaten in a while.  This girl was all about service and we were suitably impressed.

Then we looked up to discover Mr. F-bomb actually worked at the bar.  Well, there's nothing like a happy racist.

Looking at the stage made me wonder where we were going to put the rest of the band; there are rather a lot of us and there wasn't a lot of stage.  After about an hour, someone managed to get the lights on, and when I say lights, I mean a pair of revolving red and blue lights.  I felt like the cops were after me all night.

In addition to the police lights they had black lights.  As a result, my shirt and shoelaces glowed white in the dark.  I must've looked like a dancing shirt from the front of the stage.

Most of the band noticed the waitress, who was everywhere at one time.  Most of the band made suitably rude comments about the attractive waitress.  And since most of the band wives were there, no one made any unsuitable propositions to the waitress (thankfully).

Much to my surprise, everything in my rig worked.  And all of the band's gear worked.  There was adequate power.  The p.a. was loud enough.  We had monitors.  Almost no one was sick.  It was like a scene out of a dream.  And there was no burden of being in-charge.

We played several long sets and the crowd was most appreciative.  At no point did we have to put up chicken wire (because no one threw anything).  I hear that management really likes us.  We old folks were pretty beat up at the end but it was a really great show.