What A Dud

...and a disappointment at that. On friday, I was suppose to be playing my first real show. By real, I mean more than playing a cover at my high school's coffee house last year. The fact that I was on at midnight didn't help either. All of my friends who were suppose to come backed out due to work/school/whatever on saturday morning. Yes, some of my loser friends actually have school on saturdays. I was really disappointed. Nobody made an effort on my birthday (blog to come) and while I know 12 is late, especially all the way downtown, I was just really upset. On top of that I was concerned that I wouldn't be asked to play any more shows after selling only two tickets. I was asked to aim for 30. I got to the venue and was told "There's a good amount of people in there." I swallowed hard. I'd been losing sleep over this day. Not eating, having panic attacks, hot and cold flashes. It was a big deal to me. But I just needed to break the ice and then I'd look forward to playing many more gigs in the near future. I walked up the flight of stairs and into the room where the stage was. I had to be there an hour and a half before my set time.

I anticipated going to chill back stage, maybe have a beer. Just calm down. I was told to lean my guitar against the wall and go watch the show. I walked in to find the venue, which probably could have held 1000 people, with MAYBE 60-70 people lingering around. MAYBE. There was no reason for me to be there early. There was no backstage, no soundcheck, no sign in, nothing.

The band that was on when I got there was The Light Division. They are a signed band that the promoter Supernova brings out to show "Look what we can do for you." I didn't realize this at first, but I did realize that they really had their shit together and the instant I walked into the room I felt out of my element and ready to cry. The crowd was small, but the stage, the lights, the venue... "This is all bigger than me".

The bands that went up after them where terrible. Every single one of them. They were kids, like me, and although my ears started to bleed, at one band in particular, I felt much more at ease.

By the time 12:15 rolled around there were 30-40 people there. I got up on stage, banged out my set one out of tune song and lame joke after the other, jumped off the stage and went home. I had to be at work for 9am saturday morning. The dumbasses at Supernova forgot to collect the money from me so I gave my friend his $10 back. The whole thing was pointless. I played to a bigger, more responsive crowd in my high school cafeteria last year, and this did nothing for me in terms of preping me for real shows. This wasn't a real show. It wasn't worth the stress, or panic, or loss of sleep and calories. It wasn't worth the gas wasted on going down to fucking Queen St. It wasn't worth the disappointment and upset I felt towards my friends who bailed. And it certainly wasn't worth getting 4.5 hours of sleep before working a whole shift the next day.

If Supernova did call me back and ask me to play another show, I'd say no. It's not worth my time/effort. Nothing was accomplished from it. In fact, it was totally pointless.

To all those kids who want nothing more than to play music, and can't get into a bar yet, Supernova isn't the way to go about it. Don't waste your time.

Because I Am A Geek

This is the simplest, most awesome idea ever. I have all my ticket stubs, from everything. My birthday is on thursday.... just sayin'.

Come Say Hi

"Yesterday was the worst day ever, and tomorrow won't be better..."

Or at least that's how I felt when I woke up Friday morning. I have this habit of not taking things seriously when I should, but then getting SO stressed out about small unimportant things, that I lose sleep.

Thursday, I took the day off work because I had to go downtown to attend a meeting about my upcoming gig. If I didn't go to the meeting, I couldn't play, it's that simple. The meeting was called for 6 PM and was only suppose to last around half an hour. I had a guitar lesson to teach from 3:30 - 4:30, and I knew that I'd be cutting it close, but at 4:30, I took off and ran out to Yonge Street to catch the bus.

Long story short, I got stuck in rush hour traffic and at 6:10 had just made it to Queen and Yonge. There was a bunch of construction and I admittedly underestimated how far down the road Douvercourt was. At 6:30 I was still a solid 15 minutes away from the venue and that's when I got a call from the promoter. I explained the situation and although I had missed the meeting, one of the staff members waited for me to give me the paper work and tickets. When I finally got there it was a quarter to 7 and I was beyond stressed and aggravated. I got all the flyers and tickets and everything else which took about a minute and I was sent on my way. 2.5 hours of travelling in each direction for that. Needless to say, I was pissed. Why couldn't they just mail it all to me. Ugh.

So it's now 7:00 and getting dark, and I'm standing alone on the sketchy corner of Queen and Douvercourt waiting for a streetcar/bus/anything that will help me get home, when some big Persian gangster guy whistles at me. I turn to look at him. He winks, throw a gang hand sign, and blows a kiss at me. At this point, I nearly shat myself in fear.

9:30 and I'm finally home, eating dinner and panicking that I have to be at work at 9:15 AM. Of course everything worked out just fine, but I really need to stop sweating the small stuff.

"Hey suburbia, hey suburbia, hey suburbia, we're in love with you."