Blue Light last night

We played last night at The Blue Light in Lubbock. I was really excited to come back to my old college town and play on the same stage I watched so many great bands play on. The ride down was nice, but we had a hard time squeezing the RV into the back alley to unload our gear from the trailer. I forgot how much colder Lubbock is in the winter than the Midland/Odessa area. We got off the RV and it had just started drizzle thin bits of frozen rain and snow. We unpacked and set up stage with little trouble and the sound guy was a friendly one instead of those run around yelling and throwing cables kind that you sometimes get.

I set up my mic, pedal board, and amp up on stage and turned everything on. The second the light went on in my amp all you could hear was a nasty buzzing. After some troubleshooting I found the junk was coming from my mic cable. The bad news was that I play with a vintage Shure 545 microphone which is out of production now. It's so old it uses the ancient four pin XLR connection rather than the modern day three pin. Idiot that I was I never got around to ordering a back up cord since the one I had was a little shaky. It finally decided to die and at least it did so before we had started the show. Troy who runs sound and roadies for us grabbed an Audix instrument mic for a fill in for the night. I had some trouble playing on a new mic because each different mic reacts differently to an amp. Some feedback like crazy to the smallest hint of gain or overdrive. Others are bulletproof and can handle full ten gain and volume. Then there are the thousand possibilites in between.

We sounded in got monitor levels set and then loaded back on the RV for some food and time killing before the bar officially opened. The show was great all around. There were more than a hundred people there at one time and it was pretty full for the size of the venue. Lots of people danced and I even saw a few singing along with our songs knowing the words, which is always good to see. I let the mic issue get in my head and kind of phoned in the first set, but I was able to shake off some nerves in the break and had a great second set.

Good show and a fun trip. I didn't see any cameras set up so I doubt I'll have a video to link here from the Blue Light's website, but maybe next time. The staff liked our show and were promising a return gig in the future.

Tonight we're playing at the Hog Pit on comfortable ground. It's going to be the St. Patty's day celebration with a bunch of drink specials so it should be a fun full crowd. We slept in the RV behind the bar last night giving our hotel room up to Cody's mom who had recently fractured her hip. There were seven of us and we all had a bed, but six snoring guys in one place makes for light sleeping. So I think I'm going to try and squeeze in a nap before sound check.