Every now and again as a musician, you have those shows to where everything just seems to align perfectly, and your reminded why you became a performer in the first place. This past Saturday was definitely was of those nights!
21 Rock has always been one of my favorite places to play for a long time. The stage, sound and lights are always great. I love that they added the little “VIP” section off of stage left where you can store gear, stage clothes, etc. There's just something about that venue that really brings out the physicality in me performance wise and Saturday was no exception. It was a special occasion already as we were celebrating our vocalist Nancy's birthday, so we had a good feeling that the Rock Inc. “Rock Brigade” was gonna show up in force, and they most definitely did! The place was packed most of the night, people were out on the dance floor, there were some peeps that we hadn't seen in awhile that showed up. The atmosphere was just fuckin' jumpin'!
We had a small technical difficulty to resolve at the beginning of the night in trying to figure out the lighting situation for the stage lol but once we did that it was great. One thing about those older style “can” lights, those things get hot. I hadn't sweated that much on stage in awhile. And ya know what? I loved every minute of it! We were all feeding off the energy that was in the room that night, and there is just no better feeling. We got to debut some new songs as well in the form of “Lights” & “Wheel In The Sky” by Journey & Tesla's “Love Song”. They all went over great & the band did really well with em'.
Everyone was really in a groove that night band wise, and especially my fellow rhythm section mate Ryan. There were a couple of times, especially during Rush's “In The Mood” I was just like, DAMN! I always play my best I feel when I have a drummer that has a good energy level because it drives me more & just keeps that fire fueled on stage. We got to sing Happy Birthday to Nancy of course. She was treated to gifts by a bunch of people that night which made it even more special. Like I said, the energy that night between everyone in the band and in the crowd was just absolutely off the chain! We couldn't have asked for any better. As usual for me, the adrenaline from that night kept me up till about 5 am before I could crash lol, but I wouldn't have had it any other way. A performance like that is the kind of night that I live for in this business. It's one of the best highs there is in my opinion, & it just reminds me of how grateful I am to be able to still be doing this at such an intense level all these years later. So this was one for the books y'all! Can't wait till next month to do it again!