Another weekend donated to the band.

Our first gig was at a sort of revival-type thing. There were going to be 4000 people there, according to our "promoter." I call him our "promoter" because we still don't have business cards or a website or anything else that the band might find useful, let alone a PA system of our own.

But anyway, I guess 3980 of the crowd had deaths in the family or emergency septic tank problems or hair to wash, because we waited 8 1/2 hours in the sun to play for twenty minutes in front of as many people. Our "promoter," who had organized the whole thing, is certainly no logistical genius-- after we'd already set up all of our equipment we were told that we had to strike it all and take it inside to the chapel. The sound system was awful; Scooter, our bassist, and I kept cutting out, the electronic drum set was barely audible (Bruce resorted to hitting the plastic hi hats REALLY REALLY hard, hoping that from the sound of the sticks on plastic the "audience" might glean something of a rhythm.) To make matters worse, our trumpet player/arranger/bandleader was stuck out in Brooksville, having been hired to survey forty acres Saturday, a tiring job under the best of circumstances.

We left that gig after four songs, as far as I'm concerned, none too late. We were literally asked by a drunk attendee to play "Free Bird." I don't know why the man was drunk, or why he was there at all, really. We had to pack up our two-truckloads of speakers, instruments, bales of patch cords, etc. and hightail it to the next gig, which was far better. Willy showed up, and we had an appreciative audience.

Scooter, our lovably neurotic, henpecked bassist, lent me a bootlegged tape of old Donovan, from before Donovan was who he was.

Yesterday I was lucky to speak with %%diary-floodtide%%, though we had to quit when an argument over TV loomed on the horizon. I'm surprised to find he liked Copenhagen (I wasn't a huge fan.) I may see him for the first time in four or five years this May. Heart, be still.