Weszt

Last night revealed to me some of the things that I can now see truly make our band special. The most obvious being we don’t get phased once we’re on stage by how many people are in an audience; we play with passion no matter what. Granted the bigger the audience, the more fun it is and the more we look forward to actually taking the stage, but despite drawing the last slot and having a less-than-stellar late night Thursday turn out (there were plenty of people, bless you all, from Monkey to Zoso Penny to Dave and the guys from Fall of Envy), we went a bit nuts – in a good way. If ever you wanted to see us go balls out, this was the night. Hell Bobby played the first verse of a song entirely on his back! This is one reason we’re bulletproof (at least from the outside in): we’re going to play out hearts out and we’re going do it every time we play.

Last night also was the first time we performed a set without a single ballad, didn’t seem appropriate for an Earthday Birthday Battle. Actually that gets me thinking: why is it that Earthday Birthday in Orlando features bands that are often really heavy and inspire people to trash up the place? Doesn’t sound very Earth-friendly to me. There were film crews, beer reps (thanks Andy for all the Pabst!), DJs, musicians, fans, and friends all piling into the smoky, couch-lined, hard-wood floored upstairs rooms of the AKA lounge and it was a blast. LT, DJ for Native Noise, we love you and you helped reveal something to me, songwriting-wise, that I’d suspected for a while… hard to explain here but thank you!

Going a bit nuts felt great and I’m anxious for Saturday night when we can play three sets instead of one. We starting to explore alternative arrangements for songs and have gone so far lately as to even finish writing a song on stage. Fortunately it was only the solo part we needed to work out; the verses, choruses, and such were previously finished. We’re not that nuts. We’ve proven to ourselves that we can play the songs as written and now we’re learning to lean on each other that much more. We’re also feeling stir crazy and frustrated, restless and broke, and all these things are fueling us to experiment, improve, and to keep ourselves interested.

You know, this entry might not have the nice flow of some of my latest, but I feel really good this morning and that’s better than I’ve felt in quite a while. Laissez le bon temps rouler!