Friday, December 30, 2005
The Rock
performed with: "Fool's Paradise," "Headtrip," and "Quarter to Seven" and 1 otherSetlist:
Smile
Don't
Tonic
Satisfied
See You Again
Sit Down
Indecision
Take Me Back
Review:
What we love about the Rock is that it has the potential to become the best music venue in Omaha. The stage is great, the sound is great, the parking is great, the setup is great, the lights are great...
What we hate about the Rock is that it's not the best venue in Omaha. In fact, it feels like something out of Footloose, with all these crazy "rules" posted on the wall, like "no dancing...except arms length apart, and at your own risk."
In other news, we're very well versed at playing high school lock-in's now, and are available for hire at a school near you.
posted by Stein # 10:17 PM
Thursday, December 29, 2005
Knickerbockers
performed with: "Last One Standing"Setlist:
Smile
Satisfied
Don't
Run Away
Indecision
Midnight
FHG
See You Again
Omaha
Tonic
Sit Down
Take Me Back
Review:
According to Ryan, this was one of our Top 5 shows...and I can't argue with statistics. We did have a few rough spots throughout the course of the evening, but that's what happens when you play Playstation instead of practice. (I'm not pointing fingers here, we all did it.) One of the highlights of the evening was a birthday dedication of "Midnight," which went really really well. That surprised us because we hadn't actually played that song in about a month, and Ryan gave us no verbal commitment before the show that he remembered the words. Big thanks to everyone in attendence, especially the OA crew (no, Lonnie, that doesn't include you), and for everyone putting up with See You Again and Omaha.
posted by Stein # 11:56 PM
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Knickerbockers
performed with: "A Daring Escape"Setlist:
Indecision
Smile
Don't
Sit Down
Tonic
Omaha
See You Again
FHG
Satisfied
Drive Just To Sleep
Run Away
Take Me Back
Review:
Look, this is the best turn-out we could have hoped for, seeing as how we got on the bill the night before. Big thanks to everyone who came out, including all the fans of A Daring Escape. Some of the highlights for this show included me screwing up the setlist, Connealy telling a "joke" and me making fun of him, stick throwing, us generally screwing up, then making up for it at the end with a ridiculous big finish courtesy of Big Finish.
posted by Stein # 11:59 PM
Friday, December 09, 2005
Shea Riley's
performed with: "3 Day Meat Sale" and "Jettisoned"Setlist:
Indecision
Don't
Run Away
*^#% Her Gently
Smile
Sit Down
Tonic
See You Again
Satisfied
Take Me Back
Review:
I've told the publishing company that I refuse to write another TOS novel while our first one is still number one, so this will be short and sweet.
Thanks to all the Omaha regulars for coming out to Shea Riley's. I'm not sure what it is, but we always rock Shea Riley's...and we always rock it fast, as pointed out by Duhn and Richard who noticed the extreme tempo that we played some of the songs at. I personally believe that the highlight of this show was either:
A) Ryan saying the name of every song we played because, "We've been accused of not saying the names of our songs when we play them, so no one knows the names of our songs."
or
B) My dad climbing behind the amps during the set to get some awesome pictures
Whatever choice you make, you're golden either way.
posted by Stein # 11:49 PM
Friday, December 02, 2005
Buena Vista University
performed with: "Jeffrey Gaines"Setlist:
Midnight
Don't
Run Away
Follow
Drive Just To Sleep
Sit Down
Smile
See You Again
I Will Survive
Omaha
FHG
Satisfied
Indecision
Take Me Back
-------------------
impromptu jam (in the likeness of The Band)*
-------------------
Knockin' On Heaven's Door^
Rockin' In The Free World^
All We Do Is Lounge^
Back Porch (tease)^
* = Jeffrey Gaines and Big Finish
^ = Jeffrey Gaines and the Ten O'Clock Scholars
Review:
Well, when you have a lengthy, one stop, "World Tour," there's just a lot of adventures to pack into one tiny review...but, I'll do my best.
If you talk to any other band about embarking on a tour, this is probably not how they would say you should start out. Usually, the band piles into a van with all the gear and heads to Anytown, USA. We, on the other hand, chose to do this instead. Ryan came up to Omaha in "the mini-van" (which is actually a mini-van, so I don't really know why I "air-quoted" it...ah, there it was again...did you see that?) that was packed with all the big gear...amps, guitars, drums, what-have-you. Then, it was decided that our camera man, Duhn, Keegan, and I would just ride up to Storm Lake with Ryan because it was ridiculous for us all to take separate cars (though the night before, it seemed like a grand idea). Nevertheless, we now had to pile four people and extra drums into the mini-van...for two miles, until we met Paul at a gas station. So, we found Paul (who sounded like Benicio Del Toro in Sin City because his voice was gone) at the QT, transferred most of the drums to his car, and then went to Wendy's for lunch because we were so tired from all of the moving. This delayed our expected departure from Omaha an hour and a half. But that's not half as bad as Connealy...but we'll get to that when we get to that.
So now we're ready for the road to good old Storm Lake, IA. We thought we had everything in order, but we were wrong. As we get on the interstate, we look back and notice that Paul is not behind us, but still in the parking lot at Wendy's trying to get onto 84th street which leads to the interstate. Unphased, Ryan continued to drive. Eventually Paul caught up around Council Bluffs, and we all shared a good laugh, mostly about our the spicy chicken sandwiches. The drive up was pretty uneventful. Ryan got excited when we saw the train tracks, Paul held in depth conversations with the kick drum that was in his passenger seat, our ride-a-longs fell asleep, Ryan and I thought it would be funny to stop really fast so that the hi-hat crashed and scared the sleeping people, we enjoyed lukewarm air, and it started to snow pretty bad about 20 miles outside of Storm Lake.
But snow won't stop us from playing inside the auditorium...no sir. So we find our "contact" at BVU, and pick him up at the "dead drop," because not only are we a band, but we also like to double as international spies (not like Josey and the Pussycats, if that's what you're thinking). Since the snow is pretty ridiculous, we decided to drive our caravan of vehicles right up to the front entrance of the building where we're playing. This involves hopping the curb with a mini-van and a Saturn and taking the sidewalk right up to the front doors. I thought it was great fun until we parked and I opened the door into a large snowbank. Nevertheless, we got all the gear unloaded and our tour guide, Padilla, escorted us to the auditorium. The best part of transporting the gear from the front doors to the auditorium was that we used a large cart to haul all the big stuff, and it was so loud and echoy when we were pulling it through the hallway, that one class that was going on had to close their door to be able to concentrate. (Later, it would be learned that Paul and Ryan went back into this classroom and wrote 10 O'clock Scholars as big as humanly possible on the dry-erase board...good times.)
We arrived backstage, and, realizing that this is the only time we'd ever played in a place that had a backstage, we basqued in its glory. Then, we got down to business...we ordered our food that was being catered to us after the show. Just so everyone knows, that makes you feel cool. As we all started seting up, and talking to the sound and lighting people, we also performed a little surgery on the kick drum, and transformed it into the bandit that it always wanted to be. It's always fun to take apart a kick drum the day of your show, no knowing if you'll be able to put it back together.
Now, it was on to soundcheck, which was quite an experience. Here's the scenario: we're playing in a theatre (think plays...not movies) that is not normally hosting rock shows; the theatre has its own PA system that the sound people want us to plug into; we have only our own two monitors that we brought; there's four of us in the band. So while we're attempting to figure out the sound "situation," our camera man, Duhn, is wandering about the entire theatre trying to explain to us what it sounds like to the audience. Here's where the comedy begins. Duhn explains to us that when you're over by stage right, all you can here is Paul's guitar, towards the middle more just drums, and infront of Ryan...you hear Ryan. Not exactly what we were going for, so we chatted with the sound people and the said they had little control over the volume because the amps we're too hot. Seeing as how the amps were not that loud to begin with, Ryan and Paul had to turn them down to next to nothing, and any further volume control would be done by the sound people in the audio booth. Talk about awesome, right? No control over your volume and only two monitors...freakin' sweet. In case you haven't figured it out, here's the problem with that little situation, we can't hear anything. The guitars are coming through the PA speakers which are infront and to the sides of the stage, and, since the amps are barely turned up, we cant hear jack without a monitor for each of us...weird, huh?
So, we've powered through the soundcheck and will make due with that, and it's about fifteen minutes until scheduled show time. Notice how I haven't mentioned Connealy up until this point. That's because he wasn't there. Just so you know, it's always nice to do a soundcheck without your bass player...kind of makes it a surprise when you start the show, you know, a "what's Connealy going to sound like tonight" type of thing. Now, it should be that this was not the first time we thought about Connealy's whereabouts. We called him right after we got the gear unloaded at 4:40, wondering if he was close, or lost. When we called him then, he was just he was just crossing the river to Council Bluffs...lets see, it takes 2 hours to get to Storm Lake from Omaha...minus ten minutes for being in Council Bluffs...carry the five...= Connealy's not going to make it in time for the show. This, we find somewhat disturbing, seeing as how he's in the goddam band. Luckily, there was a time mix up, and we actually didn't start until 7:00, so Connealy didn't have to get his beatdown that day (but, mind you it will come one of these days when he misses the start of a show and we play with no bass for the first 3 songs).
Almost show time now, so we make one last trip around the campus cafeteria (where we actually played our show the last trip we made to BVU) in a desparate plea to get people to the show. Most of them were scared of us, but we did have success with four ladies who were leaving the cafeteria. We believe they stayed for all of one song. Keep in mind, this is all on tape, as Duhn is convienently located around every corner. So we head to our dressing room, stand there like we have something to talk about, don't actually talk about anything, and then head to the stage.
We decided to open the show with Midnight, in an attempt to be "big time." Our idea was to milk the beginnning, mellow part of the song with the lights low, and then have the lights come up right as we hit the chorus. This would have been glorious...had it worked properly. It didn't. Ryan hadn't tuned his guitar yet, so we couldn't just go out there and start. Plus the lights were pretty much up already, so there went that plan. (In retrospect, we probably should have had Duhn run the light board too...if only Richard, who ran lights for our CD release party, would have come like he said he was going to.) In fact, we probably couldn't have started our show in a more disheartening way. The kids wanted rock, and we just mellowed it out for 4 minutes. Oh well, they got what they wanted eventually.
It wasn't until about four songs in that the crowd really got into it, and we started adjusting to playing collectively, while not being able to hear anyone else. Once we hit Sit Down, we had effectively said, "If you don't like this, you don't like us...please, please like us." And crowd responded with clapping and swaying (big props to the boys who stood in the front). Everyone seemed to be having a good time, and our Cake version of I Will Survive went over well. The boys in the front we calling for Omaha, so we played it...correctly, which is far different than what happened the last time we played it at BV. But we did "flash it out" a little, by changing the opening line to "Buena Vista" instead of "Omaha." Then I left the stage because I was looking at the setlist and FHG (our Tenacious D cover) was next up. Apparently, no one else understood why I left, so it took a minute before they decided to play it. But they did, and we got the most applause after that song (which is usually the case because people just love to see Ryan and Justin sing that song while looking deep into their eyes). We then went on to close with Indecision and Take Me Back, seeing as how those our the two songs that people who know our music seem to love in a live setting. And, of course, we rocked it out at the very end of Take Me Back...which will come into play in a matter of minutes.
I've skipped those minutes, so that it will come into play right now. After we finished we go back stage and Jeffrey Gaines is there, after just recently making it through the blizzard into town. And he says something to the affect of, "Nice job guys, way to rock at the end there. Look at this guy right here, Big Finish on the drums. I like it. Rock school 101...finish big, and you did it, man." We BS with him for a few minutes and then he takes the stage. And before he starts playing he's like, "Give it up for the band, and how about Big Finish on the drums there." So, I now am known to most everyone at this show as Big Finish (how cool is that...freakin Jeffrey Gaines...a 3 time Grammy Award Winner...gives me a nickname). Gaines opens with his cover of "In Your Eyes," and the whole crowd is singing along. He plays a couple more tunes and then goes back to the drums (because all our gear is still on stage and we're just tearing down after the entire show) and is keeping beat with the kickdrum while playing his song. After this song, I yell out, "I can do that for you if you need me to," and Gaines says, "Big Finish, is that you? Aliright, I'm going to hold you to that." I'm thinking to myself that he's just being cool and what have you, but then, later in his set, he calls me up to join him, asks me if I'm familiar with The Band (I say, "Yeah, like The Weight.") and then says, "Well, we're not going to play any of their songs...but this one's like that." Needless to say, I'm not sure what's going to happen. All I know is that I don't want to screw up. So he starts playing, and following his lead, I start jammin'. And it goes really well. I'm flowing through fills, and following his transitions, even though I have no idea what song this is or what the hell is going on.
And we get done and the crowd errupts, and I'm thanking him, and plugging the after party to the crowd, all the while thinking, "that was sweet." And, the rest of the band came up afterwards and gave me props, so that makes you feel good too. Now I know what you're thinking...it can't get bettter than that right...wrong. After a few songs (and ridiculous stories about Shaq) Gaines says, "Alright, lets have some fun. You guys want to have some fun? Lets bring the band back up here." We're all like, "Huh?" and head to the stage to see what's going to happen. So we get up there and try and figure out any songs that we know, that he also knows. And, much to our surprise, he knows Knockin' On Heaven's Door and Rockin' In The Free World. However, he didn't remember the words for Knockin', so Connealy fed him lines during the entire song. And it was glorious. Then, we go into Rockin' and about halfway through, Ryan and Jeffrey Gaines switch guitars. Now picture this...not that I want to offend anyone...but Jeffrey Gaines is a rather large man...Ryan, not so much. But when they switch guitars, this becomes even more apparent. Ryan is playing Gaines acoustic guitar, which the strap is so loose on, that it looks like he's Billie Joe Armstrong, playing the guitar down at his knees. And the strap is so tight on Ryan's guitar, that Gaines just slings it over his right shoulder and starts wailing a ridiculous solo. That, was also glorious.
But, it still gets better. Now, Gaines is ready to show off his drumming skills, so he tells the band throw down something funky for the ladies. So, Ryan plays our old "porn music-esque" riff from our very old Surf Song #3. Now, seeing as how I'm the only one on stage not doing anything, I seize this oppurtunity to rock the mic. So I grab it, and inform Ged that I'm going to rap All We Do Is Lounge to the funky, fat beat. That's right, I'm the vocalist now, and I'm rappin' like a mo'fo' and selling it to the crowd, and letting Jeffrey Gaines throw down a little drum solo. That, was...wait for it...wait for it...glorious. Talk about something unexpected going off pretty much without a hitch. We did attempt to do one more song, but, in hindsight, we probably should have just stopped after AWDIL...showmanship, you know. We tried to play Back Porch with Gaines on drums, but it was slower than expected and none of us really knew what was going on. So, we threw me back on drums, but it still seemed lackluster because Gaines didn't know the song. But who cares...we rocked with Jeffrey Gaines, man!
After the show, we're definitely riding the high all the way to our free food (remember, that's how cool we are). Ryan gave an interview to the local paper (which ended up in a great review of our show in the Storm Lake Pilot Tribune). We chatted some more with Gaines, took some pictures by the wooden horse that was back stage, rolled out to the after party.
The after party was great. Lots of people. Lots of free alcohol. Lots of newspaper. Lots of fun. We ended up going to Muhlarky's, the hot spot of Storm Lake, and dancing, playing pool, and losing Ryan. We did end up finding Ryan back at the dorms...so that was good. We also had a few entertaining scuffles on the way back from the bar. Superfan, and his brother, Los, had made the trip up with Connealy, and they were being dumb after we left the bar and were waiting for the "drunk bus," so when Los tried to take me down in the snow, he fell to, and I got up and shoved his face in the snow for a good ten seconds. Then he was going on and on about how he couldn't believe "I owned him" like that. Then, after the bus ride back to the dorms, Los took down Duhn in the snow for saying he liked Iowa State. I was having non of this, so I took down Los again in the snow, and we proceeded to tussle until he ripped my G.Love sweatshirt. Then the tussling turned to me "owning" Los, again, and about ready to clock him (my guess is that I wouldn't have, but you never know...I like my G.Love sweatshirts). Once we returned to the dorms, Los couldn't let it go that I owned him twice, and Ryan joined in on the fun, saying that he could also own Los in a sober fight...to which Los made up a fake contract and made us sign it...which we both did. Then Ryan ripped it up and Los got mad and made another one. Good times. The good times came to a close at about 4:00, when most of us grabbed a couch or a bed and went to sleep. Others...well, they didn't quite do that...but I'm not responsible for everybody. We do have some great pictures of people "sleeping" on the floor...and various couches.
All in all, it was a great trip, and we need to do it again sometime...we'll just keep better track of Connealy.
