Planet X at BigShots, for the third time. (Gig #33) This show would only have two bands. Us and Mama String Bean. M.S.B. is a good band - the musicianship is top notch. They are older guys (and a gal), and they've been at it for some time - they even mentioned that they'd been playing one song for nearly seven years. Most of the crowd at the show was their's. We didn't have this show included in our ad and the local papers didn't publish the Big Shots ad this week, plus Big Shots wasn't included and the local events listing for the News and Review. It was one giant *blank-out*. So basically the turn out was...weak, especially for a venue that size. (Almost 500 capacity).

The guys in M.S.B. were really nice and apparently some of them know some of us. Their guitarist knew Darryl, and their drummer knew Ron and Mitch. My only minor complaint is that with only two bands they could have started earlier, as it was they waited until 10:15 to begin their set. This pushed us into starting well after 11pm -- and into the suicide slot. Plus, we didn't get a soundcheck, and rushed our way through setting up in order to retain as many people as we could. We should have spent more time getting the monitors set right. I couldn't really hear myself but Ron's monitors were killing him. Plus I had a bad mic that keep coming lose from it's cable right when I was supposed to sing. We are a lot heavier sounding band than Mama String Bean (even though they're a Hard Rock band too...), and we had a moderate response the number of their fans who stayed.

Despite all that - we played pretty well. I think we're used to dealing with surprises and adversity in the middle of a show now. It comes with the territory, you either learn to swim or you drown. In it's own way, this was yet another test to see if our ability to be nominated and win various local contests is going to translate over into a larger draw at shows. So far, that isn't the case. Therefore, we just need to keep on pushing and promoting as best as we can. We've been considering hiring a publicist, which might very helpful.

After the show we had a talk with Mike the owner, and it's been pretty rough for him since the City Council of Roseville has been after him (due to neighborhood noise complaints). He told us that the cops show up at every show now and count the number of cars in the parking lot, then they come into the club and count the number of people playing pool or watching the show. If he exceeds the city mandated limit of 140 people (70 cars - two per car, although the actual capacity of the club is 475) he gets a ticket. We certainly didn't exceed that on this night - we were at about half of that - but he's got a sold out show with the Insane Clown Posse coming up and that should prove very interesting.

Very interesting indeed.

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