Saturday finally came around after an arduous work week. I was so anticipating this gig all week. Hoping to purge the stress demons out of my system. My band decided during the week to run practice before the gig.
So at around 6:00PM, Briggs passed by for me and we proceeded to Pipeline Studios on Jupiter St., so we can practice. The others were late as always, but it was fine because there was some showband occupying the practice studio at our timeslot. The people running Pipeline at the time thought we were those guys who showed up first. So after waiting until 7:30PM, the rest of our band showed up and we started our practice.
I decided not bring out my gig bag and set up my rig. I just pulled out my congas and just imagine practicing playing all the toys that are supposed to be hoisted on my rig. I usually practice like that anyway. And it's just less hassle given that there are just so many parts to my rig that I have to clamp on like chimes, jam blocks, cowbell, etc.
Our practice ended around 8:30PM, so we all decided to part ways first and meet up in RJ Underground at around 9:45PM. Balot came along with me to hang at my place. Love that guy. Always cool to hang out with Balot. Balot got into playing Medal of Honor on my Nintendo Wii, when Briggs called saying she's already there. So I had to pry Balot away from my Wii so we can head for the gig venue.
We arrived at the gig venue and the place was only 1/3 full. The drink stubs only got you Pale Pilsen. So I had to just chug on that. But the organizers were nice enough to reserve a table for us to sit at and stash our gear. For some reason I was zoned out the whole time. I didn't really notice anybody in the crowd other than my bandmates. My apologies to the people that called me out and I didn't pay any attention to any of you. I suppose 5 Pale Pilsens hits harder than it used to be. Gawd, I'm getting old.
We played our set. It wasn't one of our better sets. But I was having fun playing. My congas took a beating that night. They were the receiving end of a catharsis or purgation of stress stored up from the past work week. Sorry my babies. But good job on taking that beating. One of the MCs was trying to interview me as I was packing up. To be honest, I was getting kinda annoyed. I hope I wasn't rude with my answers to her questions.
I finally ran into Jhonjee, Vince, Ivan, Blue, and lo and behold Kreta and Angel from Flipnation. I wasn't expecting any of them to show up. So it was indeed a pleasent surprise when I finally saw them there after stashing away my gear in some corner.
The group decided to relocate to some bar in QC. Vince was okay with stashing my gear in the trunk of his car and giving me a ride home after we were done in QC. So I decided to tag along with them and drink some more.
We got to the bar and just kept drinking and talking about all the drama/fun that goes on in Flipchat. Everybody sharing their thoughts about stuff that happened in Flipchat was hilarious. You get their thoughts that they didn't mention in the chatroom itself. So that added perspective made the story-telling much more entertaining.
Russel joined us after a while coming from another gimmik. It was nice of the Lord of the Flips to join us. We tried as much as possible to reserve our comments and feedback about Flipnation for Russel's sake. But we ended up telling him what we thought anyway. Poor Russel.
At around 3:00AM, we called it a night. Vince displayed his drunken driving prowess on the way home. But instead of gripping the handle of the car door tight and getting stressed at the fact that we might crash. I just let go, enjoyed the music and the breeze coming in due to the speed.
After the grueling task of lugging my percussion gear back up to my appartment in my drunken stupor, I logged in online in true Flip-Addict fashion. I watched the latest episode of Bleach and Naruto Shippuden. But I passed out and ended up not finishing the Shippuden episode I was watching.
Apparently I slept like a baby because I woke up around 1:00PM-2:00PM. Fellow Flipchatters were already there talking about all the stuff that happened last night. I needed that gig, all the story-tellling that came after, right down to letting go of my fears in the car ride home. I felt alive. I need more of that.
END OF LINE...
No comments:
Post a Comment