Planet X at the Crossroads with t.b.a.

Originally this show was going to be with our friends from S.F., Moodstack. But that's not what happened.

Now, we had already been trying to find a band to play with us at a gig scheduled for the very next night at Club 65. We had been making calls and emails like crazy, but everyone was busy that night - the 13th.

For this night (the 12th), we figured everything was set. But we had contacted the band Plate and added them to the bill just in case. It was the very next day after we had added Plate to the bill - just two days before the show - that I got an email from Moodstack. Apparently there had been a problem with their email and they'd never received my confirmation that they were booked, as a result one of them was going to be out of town and unavailable that weekend. I had also changed email addresses in the meantime, but because of their apparently problem - not only didn't they get the confirmation that they were booked, they didn't get the new address when I sent it out. They wouldn't have email me at all, except for the fact that they'd happened to look at the webpage (which had my updated address) and saw that they we're listed as playing the show.

How about that for luck?

Anyway - we were already in hunter mode for a new group for the Club 65 gig - so we simply kept doing that and expanded things to include this gig as well.

Eveybody we contacted - Tenfold, Firepie, Smarty, Shortie, Jack Tripper, Proon and many others - were all busy. Or like Foil and One Eye Jack, had broken up. And Oil Kan was already booked into Club 65 and the Crossroads the following week.

Basically we just kept coming up empty on both of shows until I contacted Juggernaut, who we'd once played a show at the Boardwalk with.

No, they couldn't play it either - but they got us in contact with a band from Maryvilles (which is just north of Sacramento) - named SHaLLOW.

I paged their guitar player, Jay - and within minutes it was all hooked up.

Whew!

So again, with just 2 days to go, instead of Moodstack and us, the final lineup was going to be Plate, followed by SHallOW and Planet X.

And the show goes on!

We handled the sound ourselves for this show, using a borrowed P.A. with monitors. Even though the Crossroads is small - we we're able to get a nice professional mix both for the audience and the band. In fact, Plate got a full soundcheck before they went on. Most of the sound I handled, (with suggestions and advice from the other guys, of course) - which was a new experience for me and actually pretty satisfying. We got Plate to sound pretty killer, but they're already a good band. Even though they just added a new bassist Rod (formerly of Dementia), they had a nice tight pop rock sound - in that Goo Goo Dolls vein.

Second up was Shallow, and I have to say these guys and their manager Lanni were very organized and very professional. Lanni took over a table in the back and had all their T-Shirts, CD's, stickers and mailing list ready to go. Even with only two days notice they were able to draw 10-15 people down from Marysville for the show. Plus, they're a great band - Alternative Metal in the style of groups like Godsmack. They even did a cover of "Sugar" by System of a Down that was mixed with sped up version of Godsmack's "Go Away".

Nice work guys.

We went up last, and played for an hour and a half. We'd arranged an 18 song setlist, but also threw in a funk and rock jam section. The sound was excellent, since we'd been able to fine tune it during the sets by Plate and SHaLLOW. Plus nearly all the guys in both bands stayed all the way until the end of the show - which was very cool.

This was easily one of the best and most satisfying shows we've done in a long time - especially considering how it all seemed to be going just a couple days previously.

Having it turn out this well, made all the frustration and stress worthwhile.

We even managed to lineup Kattywompus for our Club 65 show the next night, how sweet is that? (More on this later...)

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