I crawled my way past a major gas leak to Guitar Center, found a couple of cables that would work for what I needed (always a slow process - especially if you don't want to pay $35), discovered that I need to recount my cash (I was supposed to have $100 left. After paying, I had a couple of ones), bullied my way home through traffic, threw everything in the car (OK, for the main rack, "slowly and painfully staggered it to the car"), and got to the bar as fast as I could.
Which got me there at 7:30pm. Which is exactly when I want to be there for normal setup. Unfortunately, I still had the new amp to install.
Which I did. It took a while mostly because it seems that finding the right set of screwholes while holding up a 31 pound device with one hand is just a teensy bit clumsy. I had to undo it twice, and even managed to strip a couple of screws in the process.
I got it in there and hooked up by about 8:10pm or so. Then I got to set up my stuff, which took until 9:00pm.
And of course, this was a night where there were enough people there on time.
How it goes. On the other hand, I could actually tell a difference in the sound quality. Much, much cleaner. You could make out a lot of the highs that were missing before. On the other hand, this amp is much more powerful. I had to turn it down a couple of times. Since it's powerful enough to blow out the small speakers, I'm waiting to discover that Wayne will have done exactly that this Saturday.
A couple of songs in, and I had
So, yeah. My last night in a dress. It's actually quite a nice one, if someone would find a cute, y'know, woman to wear it. On me, well...
I wish I had a recording of his expression...
On the topic of recordings, the only picture taken of me was on
Just to add to everything, we had quite a number of new straight groups come in last night. Hopefully they'll be back. I was kinda worried that I might scare them away.
It never got particularly busy, though apparently the bar did quite well from the people we had. A result of the dress, for all I know. I finished the night about a third of the way into the 8th round.
Several notable people, including
Of the new people, we had Sarah, who sang a couple of country songs extremely well, and Sydney, who completely rocked Not Ready To Make Nice. The single best rendition of that song I've heard.
Shutdown took a while, in part because I had trouble removing the dress, but also because Paula wanted to talk. Some interesting changes going on.
Then off to the Mini for some late night food, and home to bed.
A couple of final things. One, Paula has finally stopped charging a cover for Thursdays. This is supposedly "for the winter," but hopefully, unless things really pick up, a few of us can convince her to just do without.
Also, I did, finally, during the show, finish putting in all the info for the new disc. As usual, everything's updated on my songs page.
Not that anyone I showed the disc to last night even recognized any of the songs. I have another disc coming that may show up before Sunday that I think more people will be excited about...