I'm a little late again in posting my latest Gig Diary entry, but such is the life of a working musician eh? Wow, where to begin?…
This show was a special one I think for several reasons. The first being of which was that we had the opportunity to celebrate our singer Nancy Holtman's Birthday with everyone and I don't think she would have wanted to celebrate it any other way! Shortly after I arrived at the bar there was already a big Happy Birthday banner that was put up on the side of the stage, and then another Happy Birthday sign in front of the stage as well. That's red carpet treatment right there baby! Lol. The bartender made sure to hook Nancy up with a bucket of Bud Light Lime for her, and I joked that yeah we wanna make sure to keep her nice and lubricated throughout the entire night! haha.
The energy level was very high that night, with both band and audience. It was one of those nights for me as I stepped on stage, that I could just feel a buzz in the room. There was a great crowd that came out to support us and celebrate with Nancy. The Rock Inc. army was in full force for sure. And we were off and running! The energy level on stage was fantastic I thought between all of us, and I was drenched in sweat before the end of the first set.
We got to introduce a couple of new songs into the set again that night. One of them was “Tush” by ZZ Top. A couple months back we were playing a show at Kenny's and we just kinda launched into unannounced and it came off pretty well so we decided to keep it in the mix. That one is always a good crowd pleaser I think. The other new one was “Calling Dr. Love” by Kiss. That one flowed together pretty easily for us too as we were practicing it beforehand, and I was pretty much raised in part on Kiss in my youth, so that's a no-brainer in my book, and again I think it went over well with the audience, so you'll be hearing that one again!
By the end of the night, we went out with a real bang, closing out the set with “Immigrant Song” by Zep, and of course “The Tower” by Angel that's pretty much become our staple as a show closer. But the crowd wanted more, and we came back for an encore of “Bad Girlfriend” by Theory of a Deadman. That pretty much drove everything right on home there in my opinion. We got a lot of great compliments from people throughout the night, and several people commented that they thought it was our best show yet. Hot Spot is one of those venues for me at least that always seems to bring out the energy in me, between the stage, the lights, and smoke machines that Mike had going in full force (thank you Mike!) and it's always just such a great atmosphere in there, so I'm always stoked at the chance of getting to perform there.
So as per usual after all that adrenaline and good vibes from the night, I don't think I was able to crash until almost 5 in the morning, but it was totally worth it! We'll be back there again soon I'm sure. In the meantime, onwards to prepare for Borgetti's this Saturday. Hope to see everyone again there!