Worst Clairmont Show #2
In my last post, I showed you some video footage of one of our top three worst shows in the four year history of our band. As far as where in the top three that show landed, I’d have to say it gets the bronze medal.
First of all, the reasons for this Louisville show being one of our worst are because:
- There were maybe 10-15 people. (This does not always determine a bad show, considering we have had our fair share of small crowds)
- The fact that we made a four hour trip to get there
- The venue in which we played was in fact the back section of a Fina gas station.
The other two shows made the list for entirely different reasons. I’ll go ahead and tell you about #2.
The Stadium Sports Bar – Houston, TX
A lot of the shows that we play are by invite, meaning that we don’t book the event ourselves. Instead, another band will invite us to be on the lineup either because we have a good pull in the area or they are just really wanting to play with us.
When this is the case, we are always a little weary of how the show can turn out. Because we are not in charge of setting up the show, there is no guarantee of what can happen once we get there.
For example, there may not be any promotion done for the show, which usually leads to a very small turnout. Also the lineup that we are promised could be subject to change.
For this show we got both.
We pulled up to the bar and started unloading our equipment. It turned out that this was going to be an outdoor show on their back patio, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing as long as the venue is not in a strip center.
…which it was; right in between an antique shop and a moving supplies company.
We then quickly fiound out that the show was going to start a little earlier, and on top of that, the band that was going to open was running late. So who gets nominated to take their spot? (two thumbs pointed our way)
A lot of times we really don’t mind opening a show. We realize that sometimes we may have the smallest pull in that area, so it makes sense for us to have the worst time slot. Most of the time we are fine with that; however, in this case, we were playing in one of our hometowns, and it turns out the show was set to start at 6:00 p.m.
Has anyone ever gone to a bar at 6:00?
The answer to that is no.
Anyways, we put on our happy faces, finished setting up our instruments, and prepared ourselves for a dud show while we waited for six o’clock to roll around. We had about an hour until we needed to go on, so I immediately took advantage of our time to kill at a sports bar by catching some of the Astros’ game that was on. (I’m a huge Astros fan)
Well after about five minutes of this, a waitress, who was on the downhill trek from her physical prime, comes up to me and asks to see my drivers license. I was 20 years old at the time, but I figured she was just going to stamp my hand to signify that I was under the legal age to buy drinks. Most clubs and bars do this when we play shows there. But instead, this is the conversation that takes place:
“I’m sorry, you are going to have to go sit outside”
“Haha, what?”
“No I’m serious. If you are under 21, you can’t be in here. You need to go outside. I’m sorry.”
I glance around to see an empty bar room at five o’clock in the afternoon. A disheveled older man, retired or unemployed, is the only customer present.
At a table across the room, the bar manager is conducting a job interview with another potential waitress.
I turned my attention back to the waitress in front of me.
“Oh, well we are just waiting around till the show starts. I really just wanted to watch the game. I’m not planning on buying any drinks or anything.”
“That’s not my problem. This is our policy. Please go sit out on the back porch.”
Flustered and downright pissed off, I stood up, walked past the waitress and her missing teeth, and made my way outside to the TVless patio.
Six o’clock finally rolled around, and we headed up to the stage to do a quick sound check. As we had feared, there was obviously no promotion done for the show since there was a total of about eight people present, two of which were the sound guys and the rest being the other bands that had shown up. We rolled our eyes, did a quick sound check, and then started our set.
At shows like these, we really try and take advantage of the lack of an audience and try to think of it like a practice session. So instead of being really careful to play the songs flawlessly, we feel a lot more freed up to mess around with our parts and try to improv some sweet new riffs or beats. (You’ve got to do something to make it worth your time)
We played our first song, and of course, out comes the bar manager to tell us to turn it down. How foolish of us to forget that we were playing outside of a strip center where the other stores around us were actually still open for business.
You wonder why it’s so hard to treat being a musician as a real job sometimes…
Anyways, we played through a couple more songs, and the sound guys started to really get into our music. They were clapping, whistling, and doing anything else they could to show their approval, and we appreciated it very much. We eventually finished up our last song, which the two sound guys apparently adored, as we were “showered” with shouts of praise.
Things were looking up. We played a great set, got a couple new fans, and we only had about an hour and a half drive ahead of us before we got home. We expressed our thanks and started to pack up our equipment when all of the sudden we hear one of the sound guys say:
“Alright, well you guys will start in about 30 minutes. Is that cool?”
We all looked at each other, our mouths literally dropped.
“Um, we just played our whole set.”
“Oh, man! We were wondering why you guys were playing so many songs for your sound check.”
To this day we are still dumbfounded by this. Why, when we had already done a quick sound check at the request of the sound guys, did they think we were still sound checking through six whole songs? Why, when we were obviously putting in a lot of energy and movement during our “sound check”, did these guys not say, “hey, you guys aren’t supposed to start for another 30 minutes”?
Unfortunately we’ll never know, but it’s very perplexing.
Anyways, the sound guys said that we had the option of playing again in 30 minutes or packing up and heading out.
No less than ten minutes later, we were back on the road and off to find some food. All we could do was laugh. It really was funny despite the fact that we were still pretty embarrassed, but like I said before, every band needs to have experiences like this. It’s all a part of being in a band, and it keeps you level headed; for the time being anyway…
Here is a short video of us to help promote our new album that we are recording right now. If you want to read/watch more about our time in the studio, go to www.clairmontonline.com
