Show Stories. Pt !
The Job have had a good amount of show experience, but some shows will stand out from the rest of them. We havent gotten to the point as a band where we can say that weve played our best or worst shows. We are still a growing band and getting better and more comfortable with each other as time goes on. Weve seen ultimate lows in each other pleanty of times and weve learn to accept it. It had made us strong enough as a dedicated team to move on together for better things. The band is becoming easier the more we play and the harder we work. Nyles was saying one practice about how the band was similar to a boiling pot of hot water and were only mearly at the point you first start seeing the bubbles forming at the bottom. What we need to do is boil over.
Worst Show
Now, just over a year or so ago we had a show in Guelph with Dct. Dct (dirty chinese thieves) and The Job both rented cars and shared the gear in order to save money and space. We drove into Guelph with high hopes that we were going to draw as good of a crowd as we did at the first show we played at Jimmy Jazz. We were in for dissapointment. The show had been poorly publicized. The poster for the show was a black and white picture of Bruce Lee with crooked letters for writing beside him. You could barely make out what the poster was for and when you did realize it was for a show, i guarentee no one who saw that poster was interested. Ontop of that we had to share the bill with this band The last true gentlemen (http://www.myspace.com/tltg). TLTG had been double booked with our show so we agreed to share the spot with them. Dct to start and TLTG to follow them up The Job was to headline the show. That sort of caused a problem due to the fact that TLTG didnt have as hard of a sound as The Job or DCT.
So DCT went on and were wild as usual. Darren was running around singing while showing off the tshirts at the merch booth encouraging people to buy. There was no one in the audience besides the bands that were playing and some people who worked at the bar that were there to see them, so they didnt end up selling anything. but they stole the show completely by being a buncha roudy no gooders.
The Last true Gentlemen went on and played an ok set, I think. They went on for longer than they should have, but i dont blame them. They had absolutly no one watching thier set. It must have felt like a practice to them.
While TLTG were in the midst of thier set I was on the back patio watching Jay get into an argument with one of the promoters that we had invited to see us and talk about getting on the bill at Bayfest. All of us had been drinking, but Jay had been drinking most the day, and was really moody because of the turn out. These promoters were asking for his cigarettes, Jay took it the wrong way, and before you know it they all started bickering at each other. By the time Nyles, Danny and I calmed the whole situation down we had to go onstage because TLTG were just finishing up. The whole thing got out of hand so easily and could have been avoided if we didnt smoke or drink... but we do and bad habits die hard.
Right before we went on we looked around and saw that no one had come into the bar at all during TLTG's set. We were playing to a graveyard. In the middle of setting up i was stepping over Jays petal board and some how the microphone fell into his mouth and chipped his tooth. Jay started swearing like a sailor and i felt bad, but it was completly unintentional freak accident. We were not in the mood to play at all. We stuggled through the set and even played "you played the wrong note" live. We had joked about that song at practice and said that we would play it for fun if we ever had a botched set. Well The opportunity was given so we remained loyal to our own stupidity.
The drive home was horrible. everyone had to piss every two seconds for some reason. Jay and Nyles argued the whole way home, I honeslty thought the band was going to break up. Unfortunalty Dirtz Mckay was in the car with us and had to cope with all the drunken bitching and complaining. We got home depressed and more in debt. We didnt make a red cent on that show. We did not even have any good progress at that show, it was a big backstep that wasnt getting us closer to boiling over. in fact that show was cooling us down rather than heating us up.
Obviously not every show weve played has been that bad. Weve seen some bad ones though, I wont lie. Im sure we will see more of those shows the more we play in small bars throughout canada and outside of Canada. But im kinda glad we hit rock bottom to show us a lesson or two about promoting and setting up good shows.
Best Show
One really good show we had a while back was at the Richmond in London, Ont. The bill was Invasions (myspace.com/invasionsmusic) opening for DCT and The Job headlining. The Richmond has thing about not charging at the door which worked out perfectly for us because we packed the place in no time.
Invasions started things off with thier edgy garage sound. Back then they were a 4 peice. They had thier old drummer Mike and had not added thier new organ player to the band yet. THey were not as refined as they are now, but that didnt mean they didnt rock it. They put on an awsome show with great sound. Ladies took to it pretty well and were throwing themselves at them after the show.
The DCT rampage was soon to follow. there were glasses flying and i mean full pints of beer getting smashed. People were moshing around with darren and the rest of DCT and becoming part of the show. THe stage at the Richmond is really not a stage. Its a floor that has been risen up maybe half a foot, so making the audience area part of the stage was not a challange at all. DCT used this efficently and made the show hype!
When the Job when on things were still stircrazy from DCT. DCT cut it short because they didnt have enough material, or long songs for that matter, to make a legnthy set. So we got on as soon as possible. We opened up with our Howl original 'House', and the Richmond blew up. There were so many things that happened during that set. I will explain them
During the set I was off as much as I was on stage. I was running around in the packed audience playing the bass moshin around with the fans. I was hitting the PA speaker that was hanging from the ceiling with my bass. Jay was singing with a overhead drum mic and some one bumped into the end and made him practically eat the microphone. Jays mom got near the mosh pit, someone stepped on her foot and broke her toe. There were more beers on the ground smashed than coolin off in the fridge to understand what the atmosphere was like. There are windows at the front of the Richmond that are right beside the stage. During our last song 'Fighting fucking and cars" I managed to jump in and out of this small window.
We had one of our best shows that night in my mind because it was the start off of good relationships between bands. It was one of the highest paying gigs we have had yet, due to the sales at the bar. It was just one of those killer crazy nights that you wish you could have over and over again, but you know its only going to happen every once in a while. We played just as good as we partied that night.
More stories to come.
Mark Job.