5/12/05
Greg and I were reminiscing about this night upon load in. It seems I horrified our singer with a detailed description of a certain� uh� pleasurable experience I�d had in the past. Luckily, Dan and Hoagie are more amused than freaked out by some of my more sordid exploits. Though I will get the odd �OHHHH NOOOOOO!!!�
Unfortunately, the stories surrounding this night are far less disgusting. This was the first show we played with two other lookalike/soundalike tributes. And boy did they ever. Upon load in, I immediately ran into the singer for Vital Idol, who as the name might imply do a tribute to Billy Idol. The guy is a dead ringer. Of course, being the wiseass that I am I approached him by saying, �So let me guess � you�re The Cure guy, right?� He smiled.
Backstage was a mess of wigs, suitcases, and random music gear. It looked like a drag show was going on. I was thinking we should�ve called the show �Poseurpalooza.� I mean, here we are � a bunch of grown men (and one gal) playing dress up, aping our heroes. Frankly, I felt like a big douche for a while.
Fascination Street started with a spot on Cure tribute. Vital Idol followed with an equally accurate Billy Idol set. Both held the crowd rapt with their uncanny replications of their respective heroes, and lighting schemes that were a good deal beyond normal club fare.
After Vital Idol, the room cleared. What started as having the potential to pack the room for us ended when the entire Cretins club left their perch in the back bar halfway through Vital Idol�s set and rode off into the night. After all, it was a school night. We went onstage facing a crowd of four people. Midway through the first song, the room refilled to its previous numbers, and started to rock. Whew, I was worried there for a minute.
We ran through a 25 song set in 52 minutes, rather sloppily I might add. We had some really good moments, but most of the set was a mess. It took longer than usual for us to hit our stride, but fortunately the crowd was digging us.
Overall, the night went well. It just didn�t have the random element most of our shows have. Plus, we were slightly off our game. Still, we were able to recognize the situation and fix it. Part of the roughness was due to our addition of two new songs to the set. They�ll get better the more we play them. The other bands were great, but as we were all tributes there were no surprises. So what you have in the end were three workmanlike performances from three disparate yet oddly compatible tribute bands.