Like dedicated artists, we had a second pre-tour rehearsal in Shane's roommate's legendary dude basement (imagine it: bar, drumset, big screen tv, artsy lighting, foosball, collectible electric guitars, etc. etc. etc.) It gave us the much needed chance to hear ourselves play with amps and a microphone (something most people have done BEFORE going on tour). We slept a few hours and hit the road at 5 am. Our transformation from ordinary citizens to music divas had begun when we realized getting up early sucked and that's why REAL rockstars have a tour bus and/or or travel late at night after the show.
Our first destination was Plum's Neighborhood Bar and Grille in St. Paul, MN. Why St. Paul? Well, those of you who have been to St. Paul know it as the dorkier, more straight-laced, less cosmopolitan twin of the cities-- a difference Garrison Keillor has described many times on A Prairie Home Companion. Even though it's known as a sleepy town, it's also home to my dear friend Steve Freedberg and my dear cousin Brian Mark. Even though Steve is a professor at St. Olaf College (you've heard the jokes, he swears they're not true) in Northfield, he likes living in the big city. After carefully looking through the 5 random places I found with open mic nights in the area, Plum's Bar and Grille emerged as the closest one to Steve's house in St. Paul, making it a perfect venue in every respect. We arrived at the "show" early to prepare and the place was pretty much empty (contributing to its perfectness, as far as Shane and I were concerned). Steve, in addition to being a gifted biologist and turtle specialist, was also a fantastic host and had
somehow coerced all the members of his carpool and several unwitting members of his kickball team to come to the show and clap, regardless of what was going to unfold. So there we were, in the sleepy town of St. Paul, waiting for the drink specials to start so we could order and crapping our pants with nervousness. Then Nick arrived-- Nick is the guy who runs Plum's open mic night. He was a consummate professiona and started unloading seemingly endless amounts of gear and clearing away tables to reveal a small stage (now this was an auspicious start to the evening).In the band, Shane and I had distinctive roles. For example, Shane was the musician, and I was the PR person. Shane was the organizer, and I was the shmoozer. Shane was the one who could sing and play an instrument at the same time, and I was the one who could try to do those two things. As the band's official shmoozer, my most important job was to sign us up each night at each venue. Where in the line-up you perform at an open mic night is of supreme importance for obvious reasons-- you don't want to go before or after someone really good. So I approached Nick to sign up, hoping to go early (so some of the carpoolers wouldn't regret coming), but not too early (because we were really nervous). I approached him with a sizable amount of glee and told him I wanted to sign us up because-- get this-- we are on an open mic night tour! He smiled and said, 'Oh yeah, really? We did that.' I was shocked. I thought we INVENTED that, I said. Nope, he said, we do that every year (another smile). Okay, ...well, then in the long tradition of open mic night touring artists, I was hoping we could sign up. He said he'd had people signing up all day via email and text, but that he'd take care of us. Great, I said, thinking to myself, what kind sleepy town open mic night has people signing up via text? Weird. Some might say, auspicious.
The bar started to fill. Patrons, first, then musicians. Lots of instruments. Nick had set up the keyboards, the mic stands, the sound board, and then informed us that we could have a recording of our performance for a mere $2 donation to the mic stand fund. He also told us there was a house bassist that was awesome and willing to play along with anyone who wanted accompaniment. At this point, Shane and I were mainly focused on keeping our ethiopian food down (or up) and things started to speed up. The first performer didn't look exactly like John Mayer, but he certainly sounded like him. He was obviously a regular performer, so we figured Plum's liked to start off with a bang. Then the next performer played-- she sang a song she had written that afternoon. In french. On a very, very fancy and expensive guitar. Then the next performer went up. She played piano, and told the crowd that if we wanted to, we could catch her at her regular gig at Tiffany's on Thursday night's. (You have a gig?!?!) Then another woman came up to play-- she sang a creepy duet with her brother, but she sang like a bird, and all the musicians in the bar seemed to already know the song and were strumming along as she played the piano. Finally, two old, chubby guys came up to play. Shane and I looked at each other hopefully and thought, maybe, finally, some actual open mic night level talent had approached the stage! No sir! They started to play, and between songs advertised their recently released CD. A CD! Somehow, DWO had stumbled onto the only professional open mic night east of the Mississippi (just east, grant you, but pretty pretty professional).
Then it was our turn. We went up on stage and tried to get set up quickly because, up until this point, the transitions had been pretty swift. I had never tuned my guitar using a floor tuner, so Nick had to do it for me-- which probably reduced our credibility significantly in the eyes of all the seasoned professionals that we now knew filled the audience (and rightly so, some might add). The bassist, also named Nick, had (of course) never heard any of DWO's songs before (our initial plan to play both originals and covers had been cast aside during the previous hour as it was quite clear no one at this bar was going to think it was impressive, or even cute, if we did a cover). That didn't matter though, because he, Nick (#2), was obviously a trained, professional musician and had somehow managed to come up with instantaneous, intricate, original bass lines to our songs even though he had never heard our songs before! He asked Shane if what he was plucking while we set up sounded okay, and Shane was barely able to answer. We were tuned. It was time. There was no turning back. We entered a second vortex in the time-space continuum and played our set to a crowd that appeared, for some reason, to both a) listen and b) clap. At the end, we were thankful, if only to have survived. We disentangled ourselves from the cables and amps, and returned to our table victorious, sweaty, and spent. It was like a dream. It was the fourth dimension. Steve said it wasn't nearly as bad as he had thought it was going to be (granted he had probably thought it was going to be pretty bad). When we got back to the table, the carpoolers enthusiastically asked us to sign the picks we had given them earlier in the night in a successful attempt to make us feel better about ourselves despite having played single A ball in a triple A league. A guy running an internet radio station even gave us his card, thereby adding to our sense of non-failure. But this illusory bubble was quickly popped when I went outside to make a phone call and overheard several of the other performers, or shall we call them artists, talking.
"Did you hear about all the trouble Alison Krauss has been having with her sound engineer?" one woman said.
"I know, can you believe it?" a guy replied.
Alison Krauss!?! These people are privy to the recording woes of Alison Krauss?!? In case it wasn't already clear, we were obviously waaay out of our league. But the proof would be in the pudding-- we had a sound board recording of the whole thing, and could listen for ourselves if we wanted to. We thought better of it, and continued the tour knowing we had likely played the highest level open mic we were going to find and that it could only get better (and by better, I mean worse) from here. Auspicious.
PS. I know this is a long post, with few pictures. That's because I hardly have any! If you took pictures during the tour, please send them my way so I can better illustrate tales from the tour-- I'll send signed picks as thanks!PPS. A month later, I listened to the sound board. Coulda been WAY worse, that's for sure!!
I became anxious just reading that. Auspicious, indeed.
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