Catharsis

This weekend was the Volunteer Revue Benefit concert, featuring yours truly, "Johnny Casino and the Gamblers", also known as the Grease Band. We have had numerous rehearsals in the past month that ate up a great deal of my free time, but in the end, it was definitely worth it.

We walked into the theatre Friday night, not really knowing what to expect. It was to be a dress rehearsal, but there were going to be more than sixty performers, many of them I had never met. In fact, the dress rehearsal ended up being very scary. The performances were sub-par, people had no idea what their cues were, the band members could not hear the vocalists we were trying to support, and a two-hour show took three and a half hours for a first-run. Select members of the grease band, myself included unanimously decided to retreat to a local pub to drink away much of the stress that accumulated over the course of the evening.

Last night, I arrived very early to set up my equipment. The other members of the Grease band arrived shortly thereafter, and in true Grease tradition, one of the members brought a bottle of scotch to calm our nerves. I could tell that this was going to be a night of shaky performances, and we would very likely be drowning our reservations throughout the night.

Then the worst possible news was delivered. MA, the newest member of the Grease Band, came into the theatre cursing a blue streak. That afternoon, he broke his hand while working in the yard. His hand was swollen, and he was in a great deal of pain. In true musician fashion, he picked up his guitar and managed to play the entire night, with the help of a lot of scotch.

The half hour before the performance opens, when spectators file into their seats and the curtains are closed are nerve-wracking. You pace the back halls endlessly, your mind rattles as you run through all the numbers in your head, praying that you don't blow your performance, you have to be quiet, so it's difficult to talk with one another without disrupting the stage crew. Some people love those few moments when the energy behind the curtain is electric; others buckle under the pressure.

When the curtain opened to a theatre of about 350 spectators, a miracle happened. It was a stellar performance. The band played well, and the performers nailed their parts. When compared to the previous night, the performance improved one thousand percent. The crowd loved the show, and we loved playing it.

Afterwards, about thirty of the cast and crew wound up at the pub to celebrate the shows' success (instead of drowning their sorrows). The members of the grease band sat together and drank heavy doses of their choice of poisons. I met a number of other musicians, who performed on-stage with us, and we complimented one another on the performance.

Most people would call this ass-kissing; musicians call it "professional development".

As the pub began to empty, remaining members of the Grease band realized that the bar was about to close, and it might be an ideal time to move the party elsewhere. MA decided to come over to my house for a few more beverages. It was about 4:00 in the morning by the time we decided to call it quits.

I am glad to get one project over and done with, but that just opens the door to other gigs, and other performances. I talked to MA about RH, the bass player I gigged with last weekend. The discussions MA and I had points in the direction that the three of us might have a band. I expect the three of us will be getting together next weekend to discuss the possibilities of throwing a killer band together.

If the three of us hook up next weekend, rest assured I will tell you all about it.