99X Summerfest & North River Tavern

I'll start this post by saying it's generally a bad idea to play 2 shows in one night. The first at 99X summerfest from 9-10pm and the second from 11-2am at the north river tavern 20 miles away. Playing 2 shows in one night is very taxing on a band. Having 2 of the bandmembers go out in Athens the night before probably makes playing 2 shows a little more difficult. However, being in a band you begin to realize that sometimes you have to do things that are stressful, time consuming, and things you generally don't want to do. When we were offered the closing/headlining show for 99X summerfest we knew we had to take it. The same night we had a show 20 miles away in marietta at the north river tavern(thanks to monty and eric for their help and understanding). Normally one show would be cancelled and one would be played. In a moment of brilliance or stupidity we made the decision to play both. So in order for this to happen we get to north river tavern around 5pm and promptly set up our equipment and leave our sound guy nate to set up everything. Lucky for us 99X was bringing in a backline of amps and drums, so all we needed were guitars and drumsticks. We leave the NRT and head to the virginia highlands for the 99X show. During all this running around Brandon forgot to eat. Maybe he was just too hungover to eat. More likely we were too busy trying to get tasks completed and just didn't really think about eating. More on this later. So we get to summerfest and bring in our gear for the show. Since we are taking advantage of everything we can at a 99x show, we ask the guys running our sound where is the free beer for the band. We find out the sound guys are not in charge of credentials. Damn. We needed to get our hands on some credentials. Instead the sound guy tells us the band beer tent is down at the end of the street. So we try to meander down to the tent only to be stopped by the police telling us the festival is closed. We use the fact that we are in the closing band to get us past security with no avail. Security does not care if you are the president, when the festival is closed you can't get in. If you have ever run into rent a cops you know how these guys are. They take their job very seriously. It may be only an attempt to try and be a real cop but whatever the case they are loud and let no one through the gates. It's almost like they can't hear what you are saying. Like they have been programmed to say 2 things "festival's closed" and "go the other way". It kind of reminded me of forrest gump trying to find a seat on his bus, "seats taken", "can't sit here". Only there was no jenny to let us have our seat, or, in this case get to the beer tent. Well we were too smart to stop there. So we sneak around the security only to get to the beer tent and find out they are out of beer. So we are just SOL. Lucky for us there is a gas station selling beer across the street. We grab a sixer of tallboys and head to the backstage area and prepare for the show. We start the show and play a kickass 30 minute set of songs including some new original songs. The crowd was awesome. It was made up of thousands of people that had been drinking all day. This is when we really shine. We rocked their faces for about 12 songs. At this point we are going to play about 3 more songs. I look over at Brandon and he looks a funny pale white color. So I ask him whats wrong. He says," I don't know but my stomach is killing me and I feel like I'm going to pass out". This is what happens if you don't eat all day. He quietly walks off stage and sits down. Oh crap, what do we do now. This is one of the biggest shows we've had and our guitarist is out of commision. Quickly, we ask the crowd who wants to hear a drum solo. YEAH!!! We got lucky that everyone actually wanted a drum solo. Brady comes to the rescue with a drum solo that would make john bonham proud and perhaps roll over in his grave. Meanwhile Derek and I were trying to figure out what the hell we were going to do. We agree that we should play the freshmen by the verve pipe and end the show. Well we play it and rock it with only one guitar and no bass. Just when we think the show is over here comes rockstar b still looking sick. He decides we can play 2 more songs and tells Derek and myself to catch him if he passes out. This worries me. There is no way I'd be able to catch him due to the fact I was ten feet away on the other side of the stage. Anyway, we play the two songs and finish the show with a much needed bang. As we left the stage the sound guy tells brandon, "man that's rock and roll". We agreed and ran off stage to get in the car and head to north river tavern for the second show of the night. B had a gatorade and some crackers on the way and was still feeling bad but good enough to play the second show of the night. There is a little more to this story but I'll stop here. I feel you have a good understanding of the night of 2 shows. Plus this entry is way too long anyway. Any corrections in spelling, sentence structure, punctuation, and grammar should be sent to the notmyproblemfile@yahoo.com.
-Andyman