Every had one of those gigs...

[tZer]

...where you experience brain-lag? You know, one of those gigs where you are playing songs you know but for some reason cannot seem to play right to save your life?

Well I did - last night. It started off just after the count-in and I had that moment where I realized that I couldn't recall the part. A part that's so simple it should never be forgotten, and yet there I was - blank... Tunnel vision, sea sick, cold sweat... OK, suck it up... get back in the game... OK, there we go - that's the part - OH wait... is the chorus next or is this still a verse? What the hell is wrong with my brain? Is this the night I decide to chuck it all and start a cat farm?

The groove was elusive, crooked and immature. My touch was ham-handed, my sense of rhythm was inside out and upside down. Ugh... just, ugh...

I keep telling myself to get over it - and that's easy to say - but to erase the reality that is the bass player losing his mind in front of a bar full of people waiting for the groove to stabilize is not so easy.

I tried personal tough-love - "Knock it off, fool! Stop the pity-party and get in the game!" - more words that were falling on deaf ears.

Thankfully the 2nd set improved - but that was only because I was comparing it to the 1st which was so bad I could have simple not played at all in the 2nd and it would have been a marked improvement. The final set went as the 1st should have - reasonably solid with minimal brain-farts - and that was better than having the entire night flushed down the crapper - but it was still a small piece of a very large doodoo pie.

Ever have one of those nights? I hope not, but have you?