A friend’s band, Bludstone, celebrated their 20th anniversary last Friday with a show at Dirty Jacks, a west side bar. It was a reunion show of sorts in that many different musicians who had played in the band over the years all came together to contribute to the show. As a homage, Joe, Chris and I had worked up new arrangements of a couple of their songs and practiced (inconsistently) for a couple months. For me, it was the first time I’ve played out in around 8 years, and the first time since high school on a drum set. For Joe, it was his first public bass playing since high school. Chris on the other hand is a seasoned performer, but was getting married the very next day, which brought its own set of nerves.
The performance space at Dirty Jacks is actually pretty impressive for a grungy bar. The room can fit a lot of people (there were maybe 50 people comfortably spread out and more back by the bar) and there’s a decent raised stage with lighting. By the time a couple other bands played it was close to 12:30 by the time Bludstone was getting set up. We used their equipment for our short set, then they took over for the rest of the show. Because there were so many musicians involved, the setup and sound check was hectic. Joe and Chris barely had time to check their own levels, and I had just enough time to wiggle in behind the kit, before we were off and running. In the scramble we had to ditch the sampler which would have been a nice compliment. It wasn’t integral to the songs, but would have provided some great segues.
Ralph (founder of Bludstone) opened with a few words about the wild ride over the past 20 years. He introduced us and Joe added a few words about how Bludstone might have slowed down a little over the years. And that led into our loungey version of a typically-sinister Bludstone song, “Check the Children”. After thrashing to metal all night, we weren’t sure how it’d sit with the crowd, but applause and laughs reassured us we’d hit the mark. From there we launched into a nice driving rendition of their song “Necronomicon”, which proved we weren’t there just for the lols. Except for Chris maybe – he wore no shirt and an authentic Mexican wrestling mask. It was pretty epic.
It all rolled by in a flash of adrenaline. The drum kit we were sharing felt great. There were toms, cymbals (omg, all the cymbals!), and accessories everywhere. Any random swing of an arm was sure to land on something. And when you’re playing a strange kit in front of an audience with no warm up, that’s a good thing. We’re still waiting on getting photos or video of us, but here’s a couple Bludstone shots that you can Photoshop us into if you like 🙂
