the Listening Room

when i showed up around 5pm last night
to the listening room
it looked like the wreck of the Hesperus
a couple of guys on tall ladders trying to hang the PA speakers
workers everywhere
painting
hammering
carrying things
drills going off intermittently
construction debris everywhere
absolute chaos!!!
we have a show in ummm...let's see...
3 hours!!!!??!!!!

so we started our frantic push to get the room looking half decent by 8!
vanessa ran to target for cleaning supplies and standing fans
manuel and i started cleaning up
ben was hanging lights
mark, the soundman, methodically set up the PA
the crew kept painting and hammering
by 8 we actually had the place looking all cleaned up
we were still tweaking the lighting even up to the last minute
rip on a ladder by the stage
the cleaning guy racing to find a colored bulb for the light over the bar
it was hectic but we made it
the people gathering in club dada were let into the listening room just past 8pm
winslow and hank went on at 8:09
not bad considering the state this place was in just a few hours earlier
the room looked beautiful
open
spacious
relaxing
ben and i nearly passed out from relief!
i gotta say he did an amazing job decorating this room (which had been a pit for years!)
tiger bamboo floors
a granite bar top
nice relaxing dark green paint
and cool art scattered throughout
he kept the cool-as-all-get-out brick walls intact too
you don't see walls like this anywhere!!
the sound was already really good from the start
mark is a badass
much better than i'd expected for the opening night
stu dicious and vanessa peters played half hour sets
to a packed and appreciative house
then chris holt and i were on
we were under a bit of a time crunch because chris had to get to barley
for his show there by 11

no matter how cool a room is i always wonder how it will
feel from the stage (sometimes not as good as you expect)
the second chris and i broke into our opening song
"western hills"
at 10:05
i knew this place was going to host many, many incredible nights of music
it felt great on stage
the perfect view of the entire room
relaxed
and easy to see and feel connected to every single person in the room
the sound was perfect too
we ended up having one of our best duo sets ever
with a round of requests that pushed us to play "endless dream days"
without the piano part it's based around
chris add-libbed the oh,oh, oh keyboard line with volume swells on his gibson 335
while the entire room went dead silent
they were all with us for every single note
it was a great moment
on "saint georges" everyone sang the chorus with us
on "1978" clapping and sha-la-la's
we closed with a rousing version of "pictures collected"
which we'd never done before as a duo
the whole crowd clapped
sang
and smiled
it was the perfect ending to a perfect night