Gig Report - June 6 2020, Arlington TX

So while Dallas and Fort Worth were debating extending curfews through the weekend due to the GF unrest, Arlington never had a curfew at all, so with a few preventative measures in place, mostly at the bar, we were cleared for our first post-quarantine gig.

First, an explanation. Our band's lead singer Abbey is a student of our lead guitarist Chad, and the gigs are basically to pad her college savings account and upgrade her gear from beginner to working-woman rigs. So, yes, there's quite an extreme age difference here; we're basically here to make her look and sound even better than she is. The repertoire is a lot of pop-rock and pop-country, nothing artistically daring, but a whole lot of fun and it draws an age-appropriate crowd. And, it's a good excuse to get out of the house once in a while.

The gig was at Mavericks Bar and Grille in Arlington, nice little place with a respectable menu, not just your standard fried food to soak up the alcohol. The drinks and meal were basically my pay for the night, so I got my money's worth with a nice chipotle club sandwich and a few Shiners. We were the middle band of three, sandwiched between a blues-rock trio and a more thrashy quartet, and our band drew the biggest crowd by far, I mean absolutely no contest. Officially we had 40 total, typical doorman BS as there were more than that in the first two rows of tables. If it were just us old guys on stage having fun we wouldn't care so much, but in this case he's literally f***ing over a 13-year-old girl. Next gig we play for the door, we'll have someone with a clicker looking over the doorman's shoulder.

Setup took a bit longer than expected, the soundman wasn't getting signal through the channels he was expecting; turns out I'd left the line level all the way down on my combo, not sure what happened with the lead singer's two guitars but both her electric and acoustic ended up in the same channel somehow. We got it all sussed out and balanced levels in the first couple of songs, and other than me getting way too much lead guitar when Chad went to the gain channel (because I asked the monitor guy for more guitar when he was on clean, then he hit the "thunder & lightnin'" and there was a dramatic volume difference), sound was excellent. Our "scouts" (Abbey's parents and a friend of Chad's up from Austin) said FOH sound was spot on, so props to the two-man sound team for miking up our band totally sight unseen and making it all happen.

(Quick one-handed blurry selfie of the band getting set up)

(And the audience, not much "social distancing" going on here)


(Official band pic; the venue misspelled "Abbey", the bastards...)

 

VIP seating, brother. At least she kept the projectile vomiting off our stage.

 

Not sure how I'm supposed to answer that. "Lucky" would imply that I think I dodged a bullet. I don't think that's the case at all.

 

Unfortunately that's just painted on the wall, not a 3D prop. If it had been real I think the stage would have been even hotter than it already was.