Planet X at the Club 65 with a surprise guest!

Ok, here's the deal.

Two hours - count 'em, TWO HOURS before the gig - I get this email from my friend Jeff Bushey of Hollowstone saying that Kattywompus has cancelled and can't play the gig.

WHAT!!!

Time to panic.

Ok, I didn't panic - but I was moving pretty fast. After a few quick emails and calls, I discovered that Katty's guitar player had broke a finger in his hand the previous night and they simply couldn't play. They'd tried to email me, but they had the wrong address (yeah, that problem again).

I knew Hollowstone hadn't played a gig since labor day of the previous year, and were still reheasing with their new guitarist, Clif Mays. I wasn't sure if they were up for doing a gig yet. But with practically no time left -- I asked them to do it anyway. We'd already spent more than a week asking other bands to play this gig since the group that was originally going to do it had dropped out. We knew they were all busy - for example, Firepie and Tenfold were playing together essentially around the corner from Club 65 at Bojangles.

Therefore - it was Hollowstone and us.

I have to apologize here to Jeff and the guys - I had thought that this show was going to be from 10pm to 2am, but I was wrong - it was 9pm to 1am. I had told Hollowstone they we're going to play at 10, but they wound up playing pretty much as soon as they arrived - 9:20 or so. They had called some friends to come see them, and they Showed up, only to miss their entire set.

Again, sorry - that was my mistake.

In some ways though, it may have been good that their friends didn't see them.

They were still really rough around the edges. I've known Clif for a few months, and I've seen him playing various open-mike performances. I know for a fact that he can do better than he did that particular night. It was probably nerves and lack of practice.

They still need a lot of practice.

Even so, these guys were troupers and did the best show they could. We (and particular I) still appreciate them coming in like that literally at the last minute and helping us keep the show on.

Thanks again, guys.

We went on after not long after Hollowstone finished. The crowd was pretty light, but we had a great response from the people there. (Lots of new fodder for the mailinglist - including some of the guys from the local band In Ruin) Apparently most of the regulars at Club 65 were at a party out of town. But hopefully, those that were there, will tell their friends what they missed.

On this show we played even longer than we had the previous night at the Crossroads by throwing in a blues jam in additional to the funk and rock jams we've been including on our longer hour-plus sets. This was in addition to our 18 song set list. And as some of you know, several of our songs are about 6 minutes or more. Although we have been doing a shortened version of Bridges that doesn't have the third verse, and in retrospect we could have put that verse back in - oh well.

Club 65 - like the Distillery, doesn't have a stage. But using our borrowed P.A. gear and monitors there worked far better than it does with the small stage that's been built at the Crossroads. We could hear everything and it was crystal clear both for us and the audience.

We even had more fun playing this show than at the Crossroads the previous night.

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