Vanity Vs Practicality - How MJEB lost his glasses - gig report!
Now for those of you unfamiliar with my eyeball genetics, I am shortsighted as all get out.
Many moons ago, when I discovered that contact lenses allow you to do things that were previously unattainable (opening a dishwasher, wearing goggles, getting hit in the face) I was a fervent adopter of the soft squishy eyeball touching moment of wearing contacts.
Ok, so recently I had occasion to visit my local optomoe..opti...eyeball guy and get myself 2 pair of spanky new specs for those long hours in front of the PC doing stuff (ya know, like bloggin :-). Now I got myself the usual boring standard pair, but for some strange Buddy Holly resonsating reason, I went ahead and got me a pair of chunky-butt black plastic suckers.
When they asked if I wanted the thinner leneses (due to the coke bottle presecription) I said, Hell No!
Upon first seeing them in public at the Bald Faced Stag, Steve 'Kingy' King remarked (quote) '^&*@, Michael, those are $^&$% thick'.
Ahem. So, I decided last night as it was our 200th show, I'd try out glasses for a change. Ya know, keeping it fresh (LOL)
Last night we asked Prune and Carl to do some filming of the band for use in the Swamp monster clip, so Mr Wizard had a quick Wardrobe discussion with me, to whit:
Mr Wizard: You're not wearing those are you?
Me: Yep! They're super fantastically awesome (or words to that effect)
Mr Wizard: With your hair down?
Me: Yep, (refer previous awesomeness)
Mr Wizard: You look like D'artagnan with glasses.
The football was in full swing when we arrived at the PI (go the reds) and we had to gingerly setup underneath the big screen, ducking and weaving to avoid the wrath of Ra Ra followers.
As the Reds began their speeches at the end of the night, we kicked off the music, after of course, getting Prune to kindly model the latest in Stormcellar Fashion:
And also help in the chorus on Tall Timbers
Cheers to
We got a bit of footage but it will take me some time to go through it so I might post some during the week.
Anyway, last night was the trial of a new set order which we're looking at for our Big Band Show on the 7th of August (I mentioned it in the newsletter) and we used it to trial a few of the newer songs again.
Feel so Blue came into the set and Company of a friend made a return visit (yay!). meanwile, the bane of my melodic existence, 'Suit Yourself' had another melody applied to it and well..I still havent gotten it right. ARGH!
Ok, so as the night wore on and things were swinging, I started to notice the minor inconveniences of the glasses.
First, there's the slow sliding down your nose. Ok, no worries, got the harp near my face anyway, a lifted finger resolves the problem. Great! This is going to work!
By the time we got to Same Old Blues, I discovered the fatal flaw in my plan when, with one slightly vigorous in-the-moment flick of my head, my glasses shot straight up in the air, over my head and into the drumkit.
This presented me with some minor difficulties. I quickly turned around and tried to search for them.
Unfortunately as I am completley flicking blind without them, this presented a whole other level of problem.
Then there was the responsibilty of having to actually finish singing the song.
Thus, I rushed back to the blurry stick figure thing (mike stand or was I singing into a Floor Lamp?), finished the verse, turned back around, started scrabbling on the floor, got my foot caught in the drum kit, almost went bass ackwards, ran back, sang another verse, ran back to the drums and tried again. Eureka! Found'em, put'em back on, finished song, bow, thank you and goodnight!
Next week I will be wearing contacts again.
:-)
That was a fun night, thanks again to the folks who stuck around after the footy.We'll see you (pun intended) at the Bald Rock Hotel for our 201st gig!
