THOUGHTS BEFORE THE SHOW:
Hometown gig..... gotta kick ass!!!
THOUGHTS AFTER THE SHOW:
The show itself was pretty cool - OK crowd, great sound (thanks Ed and Joe! Digisound RULES!!!) Aside from a few minor problems the performance was OK. All my friends were very impressed with Nate, Jerry, and Dan.
DRAMA AT BARTIME:
After the show I almost immediately started tearing down (as I usually do). While working hard to get tore down I hear what I thought was a bouncer rudely herding the crowd out (as most places do). I then hear my wife explaining to the "bouncer" she was with the band. The "bouncer" was unmoved by this and continued to treat my wife like the rest of the cattle. When I got a chance I asked "Who is kicking my wife out?"
The dickhole (who I assumed was an over zealous and clueless bouncer) said "I am."
"Are you sure you want to do that?" I asked.
"Hell yes, it's bartime"
"Where is Zach?" i stupidly asked.
"I'm Zach"
"And you're kicking my wife out?"
"Yup, she's got to go - we ain't having no after bar in here"
"That's your choice I guess - pretty lame, dude."
Then I walked away. Zach continued to press. "We're gonna talk about this" he said.
"You've just kicked my wife out into a snow storm. You don't need to do this, but you have."
So then he proceeds to talk down to me. "Do you own a bar? Do you know the law?"
"I know in the six years my wife and I have been together not one bar has kicked any band member's lady out of the bar."
"Well I know the law and you gotta do what I say."
"Allright, enough said."
Soon thereafter my wife comes back in to see how long I'll be or if she can help (this is the only fault I can find in our behavior) . Zach continues his power trip and rekicks my wife out. She said "You're fucking rude!"
Zach then blows up telling us we will never play his club again. "Do you know how many cover bands I could get to play here? I don't need you guys." (Obvious - we don't need him either, duh.) "You need to control your wife."
"You clearly don't know my wife at all!" I joked, which seemed to piss him off even more. Most guys would have thrown down on his ass at this point but that's not my way and I still wanted to play at his club. I appologized profusely but he would have none of it. I also explained that even if I could control my wife I wouldn't want to - "I'm not her keeper, we are partners." This made little sense to him. He then gets completely uptight and demands we get all our gear out immediately (which was contrary to our original agreement - we didn't have the vehicle space to do this and left the drums and lighting rig there. To Zach's credit the drums and light poles were still there when they went back to get them.)
After I was completely done I approached him once more and asked that he reconsider. "You got a nice bar here and I'd really like to play here again."
"Nope, NEVER."
"That's you're choice. It's really too bad."
What a knob.