it has been a WEIRD few weeks away from the blog. the band played two sets a week apart and they couldn't have been more different.
it's been a few years at the least since i've played a grimey college kid basement. back before COVID that was pretty much all i played in when it came to my old project. i was a college kid that could take running up and down wobbly, steep steps and moshing into unknown puddles and getting back up again. as i've grown older it's become less and less appealing, not in an "i'm better than you" way or anything, but in an "i prefer to play in a clean and accommodating place when i have a show" kind of way. but this bill was with a whole bunch of cool bands so i wasn't about to pass it up.
the hangs were great, everyone was friendly as fuck, i spent a few hours meeting great people and having a good time. but lord, did the setup suck for what type of production we were running. at the moment brake run is running tracks out of my SP404 into the house either via stereo DI or stereo quarter-inch. panned hard left and right. easy, right? yeah - when you can hear yourself.
these kids had some pretty decent speakers for the setup, but 0 monitors for the musicians to listen. since we aren't anything special and don't have in ears or any real monitoring situation, we couldn't hear a damn thing. along with this, it was near pitch-black in there so we couldn't see our instruments either. we were essentially blind an deaf and we played the worst set ever. constantly off tracks, constantly missing notes, it was kind of humiliating. i left immediately after the set because i didn't want to face anyone. it was really humbling to feel raw shame like that.
we dusted ourselves off, did a reset practice to prove to ourselves we could still do it and hit the ground running again for...
growing up, my first shows i ever watched were at mr. small's. the formative shows. the shows my parents would drop me off at because i was too young to drive (and too unwilling). the shows that shaped my music taste. the shows that inspired ME to write and create and perform. i know i'm getting sentimental, but stick with me.
there's the main theater performance space, and an upstairs intimate venue called the funhouse. brake run played it for the first time this past weekend opening for fraternal twin and ditch from out of town. it was a BEAUTIFUL and SUCCESSFUL night for sure. it was another night of good hangs, listening to some cool music, and they had, like, five monitors on the stage so we could hear every kick and snare to keep us on time. we played fairly tightly, and my aunt and cousin even came to support (always love when my fam comes out). it felt like a great way to shake off that last gig and roll into some of the fun shows we have for september.
i think this is just solid proof that the lowest lows aren't always the end-all be-all, even when you're in the midst of the humiliation. when i'm dramatizing shit in my head, i'll just look back at this blog post and see that not everything ends up bad ok thats all