So here was Colin and I, at the crack of midnight, with Sean and Phil following, having more difficulty with the visibility through the rain than navigating through the maze-like directions, dealing with Friday night traffic, half soaked after loading up the car in a mini-typhoon and all more than slightly antsy for our first performance together.
The first real adventure of the night came when I accidentally turned the wrong way down a one way street. I didn't notice until I saw three rows of headlights growing larger and larger at an alarming rate. Immediately, I slammed on the brakes. Colin shot up from his slouch, placed both hands on the dash, dropping his drink and literally shrieked. I quickly made a three point turn in the middle of the road and sheepishly looked over to Colin, who was coiled up in his seat. More embarrassed than scared, I couldn't stop laughing at his reaction. He didn't find it so funny.
We finally arrived at the venue. Needless to say, with 40 bands playing on five different stages, it was packed. We double parked in front of the main entrance, put our flashers on and started unloading the gear. Colin and Phil started bringing things in through the packed doors (but not before being hassled by the door guy for I.D.) and came out a whole five minutes later, almost exasperated. "There's nowhere to put the gear and we can't find Oski."
You eventually get used to little 'teething snags' like this (especially when touring,) but to us at that moment, it was another thing gone wrong. Eventually, we ended up having to lug our pile of guitars, amplifiers, drums and drum hardware upstairs (in multiple trips) and right into the middle of the audience of the band right before us. It seemed there was nowhere else to go.
Slightly riled, Phil and I tried to calm our nerves, dry ourselves and get into performance mode. As a precaution, I bent down towards the pile to double check that we hadn't forgotten any critical equipment in the car.
That's when I was almost charged with my second 'band manslaughter' case of the evening.
I accidentally lifted a cymbal stand I thought was shorter than it actually was RIGHT into Phil's face just as he was bending down. He popped back up like a spring, shot both hands to his face and I thought I'd just blinded my drummer for life.
Styles Also Gotten Better...
With the death metal band on stage slowly deafening the entire room, I made him remove his hands to reveal a knot the size of a small molehill on his forehead. Within seconds, Phil had gone from looking like a completely normal human being to slightly resembling a baby unicorn.
I asked him if he needed a hospital but clearly less frazzled than I (probably because he couldn't see the welt), he said something like…"No Tristy. I'm a drummer. Let's ROCK!"
At this point, you wouldn't at all blame Sean for walking out the door in fear for his life, but he stayed strong. With our showtime approaching, we gathered ourselves and got ready to play.
Finally, at 3 a.m, under hot pink lights, guitars in hand, our fingers blazing, drumsticks slamming, dripping sweat, we felt like men together. For the first time, Tristan Clopet & the Juice tore through their best six songs and left absolutely everything on stage.
We celebrated with beers for our fantastic friends who so kindly would "show up at anytime" to support us, and luckily, I managed to secure a cd recording of our performance from the sound man for twenty bucks. Soon after, we loaded up, once again, but this time much more enthusiastically.
****
As I look back, the only thing more unrelenting than us that night was the rain. We drove back with our wipers basically panting from exhaustion utterly overjoyed and after transporting the gear for the fourth time, we gathered inside, put the recording of our set on the stereo, collapsed on the floor together and listened to our work well into the early morning.
Sure, it was twice as fast as it should have been. Sure it wasn't played with much precision or dexterity but it was full of vitality. It was full of excitement.
We were a band and for at least one night, nothing could stop us from feeling on top of the world.
