Gremlins at the State Theatre

Photo By: Frank Caltabiano

Wow what a wild weekend!  We were excited for the opportunity to play the State Theatre in Red Bluff California, a new venue on our schedule.  Whenever we go some place new there's always a little bit of confusion.  The typical glitches include the number of rooms needed at the hotel; what time we can load into the venue; the number of monitors, microphones and DI boxes we'll need; what time the house opens etc... but this show offered that and more.

Things started out great.  Venita, Derrik and Brian we're all there on time to meet us and open the theatre.  They were very welcoming and let us know that ticket sales looked good for the show.  We began unloading the gear and getting it onto the stage.  Everything seemed to be going well until sound check.  To start with, the sound system has seen better days. We were having a difficult time dialing in the sound so that everyone on stage was happy with the mix.  More then that however, was this strange low hum and the way the sound bounced around on stage.  There was also an unexplained hiss randomly appearing in our monitors, making it diffcult to get a clean sound on stage.  We tried to hone in on the problem but had to finally end sound check so they could open the house.  We discovered that the show was also expected to start at 7:30 pm rather then the typical 8:00 pm, so we had less time then expected to dress and have something light to eat.  We rushed back to the hotel, changed quickly and hurried back to the venue.  Venita was especially thoughtful and had arranged some light food and refreshments for us in the green room.  This too was interesting, since the green room was located next door in the dental office lunch room.  I'm sure we're not the first artists who have joked about "relaxing" in the dental office before going on stage.

Show time came and we stepped onto the stage.  We were slightly anixous since this was also our first show with our new drummer, Eddie Berman.  He's top flight so there was little reason to be concerned, but until you get that first show under your belt, there's always some butterflys.  Ironically it wasn't Eddie that caused the glitches on stage.  For the most part, the sound problems we'd experienced during sound check had disappeared but new things began to spring up.  Mellissa's microphone wasn't on for her solo in Thin Ice, so she quickly move to Sheri's microphone to finish the song; Pat's guitar when out on Sheep, so Mark covered by playing a solo on keyboards.  Luckily the second half of the show was much less problematic, but the monitors did go at the end of Darkside leaving us in the "dark."  We finished the show, took a bow and thanked the audience for coming to share this live performance experience. 

After we said our good nights, we quickly packed up and headed for to Shari's Resturant (at the recommendation of the theatre crew) for a late night meal.  Much to our surprise there were several fans there having a late night snack too.  They were all so complimentary and made us feel welcome.  The food was great and we ate, laughed and talked about the theatre gremlins that haunted our show.

The next morning we got ready to make our way home but found the gremlins had one last laugh...the tire on the cargo trailer was flat! Ironically there was a tow truck right there assisting another driver, so we inquired about engaging their assistance and proudly informed them that we had AAA.  Much to our surprise we were informed that AAA does not cover cargo trailor unless they're carrying ATVs or other types of vehicles (who knew).  So $110 dollars later and we were on our way home with memories of another wild musical adventure. It's true what people say...sometimes you just have to go with the flow...and that's exactly what we had to do this past weekend.