In a nutshell here's the story:
Our lead guitar player lives in a small town about 1 1/2 hrs away. He really wanted us to play for all his friends so we said okey-dokey.
He books us in a place called The Lounge. This bar is inside a hotel (small hotel).
Everyone in the band piles into the drummer's pickup with trailer in tow and heads out. We pull into the hotel parking lot and there are 3 cars in the parking lot (at 7:45 p.m.). We start at 9.
The drummer starts to pull back out saying "I'm heading home" - jokingly of course. We get there and the place is fairly good size with a maybe 10x10 raised stage.
We set up. About 8:45 people start streaming in, and I mean streaming in. It turns out there was some kind of racing drivers meeting there.
We had not practiced or played since Halloween.
Anyway, so we kick off with a good mix set of music.
The owner comes up after the first set and says "You guys need to turn it up." I was dumb-founded. One of my jobs is to roam out wireless and check FOH. We had a soundman borrowed and I thought he had done a good job. I consulted the rest of the band, we tell the soundman to crank it.
Ripped through the second set. The owner comes up after the second set and says "you guys are great, but you are not shaking the North window yet, you need to turn it up."
So, we crank it and launch into set 3. By that time we were pretty loud. The crowds starts really getting into it.
Anyway, after 1:00 (closing time) the crowd starts yelling for one more. We look at the bar owner and he says "2 more". So we play 2 more.
Most of the bars we play the owners are constantly looking for bands to turn it down and stop at closing time so they can get the place cleared.
Anyway, long story short we got to this gig not really looking forward to it and not expecting much and ended up having one of the most fun gigs of the year (and got paid up front for it). It was a combination of a great crowd and great bar owner. He invited us back, we'll probably add them to our schedule.
Go figure.
I don't think that's ever happened to me! Very cool. And usually if the parking lot is empty when we pull in, it stays that way...
