Spot Gig

Last night the Hounds played at The Spot in Seneca. This was the second gig where I got to use my new drum throne from SoundSeat and my new Zildjian A Custom cymbals. I think the cymbals sound much better than my old cheapo B8s. I guess casting really makes for better sound than stamping. I would still like to replace my splach cymbal and add in one more fast crash and I think that would do it for a while. The SoundSeat is pretty comfy and the gas shock makes for much easier adjustment than having to rotate my old seat. The backrest provides additional support that helps out my lower back. We played four sets last night and I think I managed to maintain much better posture than on the old round throne.

Playing at The Spot was certainly different from playing at 356. Club 356, composed mainly of a college crowd is somewhat detached. The crowd's there, they seem to like the music, they dance, but one gets the impression they really couldn't care less what band was up on stage. At The Spot the audience was much smaller—I'm not sure why; I've been there before on Fridays when it was packed—and older. And it felt like they were more critical. You got the impression that if we stunk they'd be sure to let us know. A scene reminiscent of the country and western bar in The Blues Brothers movie...if we played something they didn't like I'd half expect them to start throwing stuff at us. As it happened the few people that were there liked the blues. A couple of people reallly got into it. I thought we were being heckled but I think the guy was just getting into it. And yup, they got up and danced here, too.

Our first set wasn't that great, as usual we had some sound problems. I had no lead guitar in my monitor. I think it took me a set and a half to warm up and get over the jitters. By the end of the night I think we sounded ok. Below is a bit of our rendition of My Little Machine (click on the image to get the movie clip). It's a pretty long clip of about a minute and a half, weighing in at 8 M, so be patient.